Support Forum

Blog post linking – Categories

JT Jamey Turcic
Jamey Turcic
Member

Hello.  We have a forum setup, that has “Create and link blog post from topic” option enabled for all users (and all site members have publish permissions).  I have modified the code slightly to turn this option into a radio instead of the checkbox, and it is auto selected, so that any topic created in this particular forum is always automatically turned into a blog post.  We want users to use this method of posting to WP instead of the WP TinyMCE authoring tool.

What we would also like to do is force any of these linked blog posts to be in a single category, which we call “Member Posts”.  Are there any suggestions for forcably setting a single category through the Blog linking plugin, instead of displaying the category list?

THanks.

9 Answers

New Answer

MP Mr Papa
Mr Papa
Member

eek. you edited core code?  means you will lose changes on updates… better to use our api for making changes though havent look to see if what you did is possible – but we can always add more hooks…

if you just leave the category checkboxes empty, it will use whatever you have set up in the wp settings for the default category…  If you want to hide the category selection to prevent a selection, add this css to your sp theme (again, have your own theme and not one of ours):

#spCatList {display:none}

JT Jamey Turcic
Jamey Turcic
Member

No worries, I completely understand the downside of editing core files and that it will regress my changes on new revs. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any hooks for this plugin in the codex that would allow us to accomplish what we are trying to do, which is force this option enabled for this forum and ensure it can’t be unselected.

I was able to hide the category list, and all posts are going to the Wp default, however the hope is to use a different default for forums generated posts. If such a hook exists I’d love to go that route.

 

thanks!

MP Mr Papa
Mr Papa
Member

so we are quite close to another release of sp and the blog linking plugin (just waiting for wp 3.6 to drop)… so its a good time to go through what you are doing and the use case to see if we can add some hooks if needed…

we have quite a list of hooks in core, but must admit are a bit more lacking in our plugins.. but happy to add them…

so lets walk through what you need…  on the forum topic creation, you would like a hook on the options form for the optional blog linking portion? so you can replace it with your radio, pre selected?

and then also a filter on the listed categories, so perhaps you could replace with a hidden field preset to a given forum?

sorry, getting late… ;)

JT Jamey Turcic
Jamey Turcic
Member

Nailed it!  :)

It doesn’t even have to be a radio button.  That’s just what I did because with radio, if there is only one and it is selected, it’s effectively force enabled.  :)   As long as we can force enable the option, whether there is a pretty green button is gravy but not required.

The second item you have correct as well, just a hook that let’s us preselect and lock the category for which forums generated blog posts are assigned to.

Thanks a ton for your great work on SP, and openness to explore these features for a future version of the plugin.  Oh, and your end user support is unmatched, bravo!

 

MP Mr Papa
Mr Papa
Member

okay…  have opened a ticket and see if we can get something in place for next release…

JT Jamey Turcic
Jamey Turcic
Member

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I installed the new version and can’t seem to find this feature.  Did it make it in?

MP Mr Papa
Mr Papa
Member

No, it did not…  was too late for 5.3…  but the ticket is open and will be considered…

JT Jamey Turcic
Jamey Turcic
Member

Can you share the bug number with me, and I’ll just track via Mantis and not have to follow up here?  Thanks Papa!

MP Mr Papa
Mr Papa
Member

okay, I am thoroughly and utterly confused…  I am not sure what I posted on Aug 6… :(

I was having a discussion with a user in another topic regarding a late ticket that did not make into 5.3 but think it got posted over here by accident…embarassed

but it gets worse…

in post 6, I talk about a ticket and seeing what we can do for 5.3…  I cannot find such a ticket… so a bit clueless and puzzled at moment…

yet it seems like some work was done… 

the blog linking plugin does include the alluded to filter on the category list… so you can use the filter ‘sph_blog_link_categories’ to whittle down the available choices and you can even select on by default…  maybe I did put that in 5.3…  but seems what you wanted…

and there does seem to be a filter on the initial radio for blog linking too…  use ‘sph_blog_link_form’ as the filter…

so in the end, think I did do it, under a general filters ticket we had opened… and then posted in the wrong forum…

whew…