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BiologicalRecordsCentre / iRecord

Repository to store and track enhancements, issues and tasks regarding the iRecord website.
http://irecord.org.uk
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Activity blogs #1703

Open johnvanbreda opened 2 months ago

johnvanbreda commented 2 months ago

Activity home pages can include a ‘blog’ element to enhance communication with contributors

johnvanbreda commented 2 months ago

Tools for viewing blog entries, accessing the full blog, and posting blog entries (if you have permission) could dbe added to the new activity home pages template.

Questions: 1) Other than a title, body text, date and author, are there any other fields that we might want to capture with a blog entry (e.g. keywords/tags)? 2) What are the access permissions for viewing blogs? Are blogs always publicly visible, or only for iRecord members, or only for activity members? 3) What are the access permissions for posting blogs? Only activity admins? 4) Is there a need for blog entries to be linked to the Indicia database, or is storing them in Drupal OK? The latter would be easier but does mean that you can't link a blog entry to an Indicia location or occurrence (or any other querying). 5) Can blog entries contain formatting, images, links etc?

kitenetter commented 2 months ago

Blog option would be a good addition. Answers:

  1. I'd suggest keeping it simple for now. If we get requests for the addition of keywords at a later stage could they be added?
  2. Let's work on the basis that the blogs will be public, and form part of the public face of the activity home page.
  3. Ideally, an activity admin could choose whether the blog is admins only, or members only (don't think it should be open to non-members). If it is complex to allow that choice then I think we have to be cautious and make it admins only, otherwise all activities will be forced to keep an eye on what gets posted in their blog.
  4. I think Drupal is fine, at least until we know more about what level of interest there might be in these blogs.
  5. Ideally yes, but only if this can be achieved without causing issues for performance and storage. Also, many of our other Drupal websites have extraordinarily cumbersome tools for uploading and placing photos, and the tools seem to break on a regular basis - if we do implement image tools in these blogs they need to be straightforward for users to navigate.

Questions: Is the intention that all the new activity home pages will be visible to anyone, whether a member or not, and whether logged in or not? Or will admins be able to control the overall visibility?

Is there any mileage in using the existing forum posts system and adapting that so that a forum post could be tagged to an activity, and the activity page would include tagged posts?

johnvanbreda commented 2 months ago
  1. I suggest we don't allow images, at least initially, and we can review the options if there seems to be a demand.

Is the intention that all the new activity home pages will be visible to anyone, whether a member or not, and whether logged in or not? Or will admins be able to control the overall visibility?

I'm not sure. There are definitely advantages to having a public and shareable landing page for all activities and this was my initial thought, but on the other hand maybe some activities want their data to be less visible (though it would be possible to find the records via Explore anyway).

Is there any mileage in using the existing forum posts system and adapting that so that a forum post could be tagged to an activity, and the activity page would include tagged posts?

It's certainly possible - as Drupal treats all nodes in the same way there is very little technical difference either way. But, I suspect the forum is where users post to get support or raise issues more often than not, whereas the blog system will hopefully be positive stories and news about an activity, so the types of content in the forum and blog systems may not sit that well together. I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.

johnvanbreda commented 2 months ago

In terms of the blog output, I'm proposing a block that will sit on the landing page that shows the latest 3 blog entry titles (with date, author and maybe a short summary). Plus a more link that takes you to a page where you can view the entire blog entry and a link to take you to a page where you can list, search and view all blog entries for the activity. Let me know if you have any thoughts on this.

johnvanbreda commented 1 month ago

I have now added code to support blogging for groups to the develop branch so this is ready to deploy.

kitenetter commented 1 month ago

All seems good to me.