chucktilbury's picture

Posted by chucktilbury on Sun, Aug 23, 2020 - 2:09pm

Hi Everyone. I am trying to use the default theme that comes with backdrop, but I want to make one basic change to it and I am not sure where to start.

1. The "home" page is a "post" page and I want this one to be a static "about" page.
2. I want to carry posts on a different page, but when I create a post page and give it a menu entry, all of the content that I am trying to post goes to the home page. Can there be more than one "post" page?
3. I want to create a page with some static links to videos. I am pretty sure I know how to do that with HTML, but I have not tried it yet. I put it in the list in case anyone has something to say about it.

If you want to see what I have so far, the URL is http://boskycallow.org

Thanks.

Accepted answer

Hi Chuck,

The URL of the homepage is set here: /admin/config/system/site-information By default it's '/home'. You can change that to any URL you like (assuming you're created a page/view/layout with that URL already).

The '/home' URL is created by the 'Home page' layout: /admin/structure/layouts It's set to show 'Promoted content' which is any content set to be 'Promoted to homepage' (mostly Posts).

I'd suggest creating your static About page, then setting the homepage URL to that. Then you can edit the 'Home' layout (change the name to 'Promoted content' or something) and change the URL to something else, and give it a menu link so it appears in your navigation, and that becomes your Posts page.

As for videos, you can easily add links to your content, but if you want to embed videos, you'll need something like https://backdropcms.org/project/video_filter or https://backdropcms.org/project/youtube

Hope that helps!

Comments

Sun, Aug 23, 2020 - 2:42pm by BWPanda (not verified)

Hi Chuck,

The URL of the homepage is set here: /admin/config/system/site-information By default it's '/home'. You can change that to any URL you like (assuming you're created a page/view/layout with that URL already).

The '/home' URL is created by the 'Home page' layout: /admin/structure/layouts It's set to show 'Promoted content' which is any content set to be 'Promoted to homepage' (mostly Posts).

I'd suggest creating your static About page, then setting the homepage URL to that. Then you can edit the 'Home' layout (change the name to 'Promoted content' or something) and change the URL to something else, and give it a menu link so it appears in your navigation, and that becomes your Posts page.

As for videos, you can easily add links to your content, but if you want to embed videos, you'll need something like https://backdropcms.org/project/video_filter or https://backdropcms.org/project/youtube

Hope that helps!

chucktilbury's picture

Sun, Aug 23, 2020 - 4:26pm by chucktilbury

Yes. Thank you. That got me started. Much appreciated.

klonos's picture

Sun, Aug 23, 2020 - 11:05pm by klonos

Hello  👋,

You've asked:

...when I create a post page and give it a menu entry, all of the content that I am trying to post goes to the home page. Can there be more than one "post" page?

To better understand what is going on, you will need to understand a few concepts/features that is common in both Backdrop as well as in Drupal:

  • Views: Views allow you to create special pages, which are "dynamic". The content of those pages is not coming from a single source, like a Page or a Post; it is instead a list of multiple pieces of content. Backdrop provides some such views/lists out of the box, to cover some basic site needs. You can find these views if you use the Admin menu to navigate to Structure → Views. There you will find a view called "Promoted content". The description of that view states that it is "used by default on the front page". This views-generated page is what you see when you visit your home page, and it is configured so that each time you create new content, it will end up there. There is one catch: for the content to be added to the home page as part of that view, it will need to be "promoted".
  • Promoted content: each time you create a Post, you will notice in the "Publishing options" section that there is a "Promoted" checkbox. If you create a post with that option checked, it will go on your home page. If you disable that option, the new post will not be added to the home page.
  • Configuring your home page: as Peter and Tim mentioned in their previous comments, you can change your home page, so that it no longer has this special "Promoted content" added. First you will need to create that page (from the menu Content → Add → Page). Let's say you call that page "My static home page". Once you have created this page, use the admin menu to navigate to Configuration → System → Site information. There, you will find a section called "Home page", which by default is set to "home". Delete that word, and start typing the name of the page you have created. You will notice, that as you have typed the first few letters of the title of the page you created earlier, it will be shown as an option for you to select. Select it, and save the settings. Now, if you go to your home page, you will see that page instead of the promoted content.

Let us know if anything is still unclear.