Our TYPO3 blog extension sg_news contains all the necessary tools to run a blog based on TYPO3. With the extension you get the page types Category and News and several content elements with which you can tag news posts and present them collectively. You create posts like other TYPO3 pages in the page module, place them in the page tree and edit them like any other page. Thus, blog posts have the same range of content elements and the same design freedom as a standard page. In this documentation, we have compiled tutorials for all the above-mentioned components of the sg_news extension. There was also a news module, but we have discarded this as all functionalities are covered by other modules.
With running a blog, comments can also become relevant. We have created a separate extension for this purpose (sg_comments), for which we have also compiled a documentation. The comments module is a moderation tool for comments to manage them.
You can add a category page like a standard page directly via the drag-and-drop function in the page tree or via the list module. In a category page, you create news as subpages, which can be filtered automatically by the category page. This function allows you to easily organize many blog posts.
The following three tabs in the page properties differ from the other page types. All other tabs can be found in the documentation for (general) page properties.
The General tab is similar to the standard page. The category page is only missing some editing options. You can therefore read the documentation for the standard page. The following setting options are available:
Images are crucial for the presentation of news articles as teasers. For category pages, the relations in the Images tab are used as fallbacks, if a news page does not contain relations. This way there will be no issues when displaying teasers.
To add a single view image or a teaser image, simply click the Create new relation button and select the image in the file list.
In addition, files can be added.
Metadata is additional data/information about a page. They can lead to a better search engine ranking.
The abstract is used by some search engines to give a short text about the page content. For other search engines, like Google, it is another source of information about the website. For abstracts menus this text is used too.
The title for search engines is used as a header/title in a search result. It should be meaningful, unique and yet concise (up to about 55 characters long). The caption of the browser tab is the same as the title tag.
Specify a canonical link if, for example, you have set the content of another page in the General tab. With the Canonical tag you refer to the original page as the main page and as the one that is displayed in case of a search query. This protects your page from being penalized by search engines for duplicate content.
The description is displayed by search engines as text of the search engine result, which can be seen under the title and in the best case gives a brief overview of the content of the page. The text should also contain important keywords for the page. To avoid being cut off, the description should not contain more than 135 characters.
The following three tabs in the page properties of news are different from other page types. However, there are tabs that are repeated on (almost) every page. We have summarized these page properties for you.
In contrast to a standard page, the properties of a news page require a few adjustments. Apart from that you can add and edit content as usual.
If you create a news page via the page tree, the current date and the title entered are automatically used as the page title. If you do not enter a title, the page title is automatically generated as follows: [YYYY.MM.DD] - [Default title]. The title and date can be adjusted at any time in the page properties.
The description of the page is important when creating teasers for the news page. It also serves as a description for search engines (short description of the page's content), for this purpose the text should not be longer than 150 characters.
You can see news teasers on our preview page. The documentation for the news content elements can be found at the bottom of this page.
The URL Segment is automatically generated from the position in the page tree and the pagetitle. If you want to change the URL, you can do so by adjusting the new path directly or by entering a URL path segment. The latter causes that the page title in the URL is replaced by the path segment. In order for the path segment to be transferred to the URL, you must click on the right button next to the URL segment (Recalculate URL segment).
If you do not want subpages of the created page to receive the path segment of the current page, place a check mark under Exclude from URL segment generation on subpages. This ensures short and concise URLs. However, since news pages usually have no subpages, you can neglect this setting.
If you want to highlight the article, activate the corresponding option. And if you do not want the news article to appear in the latest news, place a check mark below it.
Authors are displayed at the end of an article, the user can then call up further articles by the author. You can also create a teaser list of articles by an author. An author is created using the list module.
Since the page title is generated from the date of the last update and the title, you have the possibility to adjust the last update here. You can also see the Like Count, which can also be adjusted. You can even enter a location for the article.
If you want to set the content of another page as a news item, you only need to enter the page in this place. Then you do not have to add any new content. Only the page properties (title, URL etc.) have to be adjusted.
Related pages are listed as related articles in the frontend at the end of a news article. News tags are created as categories in the list module. They are important if you create article teasers by category/tag.
Images are crucial for presenting the articles as teasers. The image for the single view uses the content element latest news. No relation at this point would result in an incorrect display of the teaser/slider. The teaser image is used for all types of news teasers. In addition, files can be added.
The abstract is used by some search engines to give a short text about the page content. For other search engines, like Google, it is another source of information about the website. For abstracts menus this text is used too.
With the news plugin content elements you can create lists or teasers for news or blog posts according to certain criteria. The articles themselves are created via the page module or list module. With these TYPO3 content elements you create links to the articles.
The TYPO3 content elements that are presented here are content element plugins, so the General tab looks the same for all news teaser plugins. The crucial settings are configured in the Plugin tab.
When editing the General tab, you can use the Header Only content element as a guide.
RSS Feed
RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" and is an XML-based format that allows content from websites or blogs to be subscribed to automatically and summarized in a clear list. RSS feeds can be subscribed to via so-called RSS readers.
The sg_news extension has a RSS feed configuration with customized settings that differs from standard configurations. If you use a news plug-in on a page and check the checkbox shown below, the plug-in settings will be used for the RSS feed configuration. If there are multiple plug-ins on a page, the first one with the checkbox checked counts. The checkbox is checked by default when you create a news plug-in.
The news feed can be accessed at any time with this setting by appending /news.xml to the URL.
All plugins for posts (except news by author) can be sorted according to various criteria.
For example, if you only want to draw attention to newer posts on a page, you can set here that only teasers of articles published after a certain date are shown. Likewise you can create teasers that were posted before a freely selected date.
In addition to the system default, you can sort posts by two other criteria:
With the sort order you determine whether the sort should be ascending or descending.
Two examples should make the sorting clear:
With the News Overview plugin, the TYPO3 system generates a simple teaser list of all articles or blog posts. This tool can also be used to generate filterable teasers, which can be sorted by categories and tags. Use this TYPO3 content element to provide your readers with an overview of available posts and to allow easy sorting.
Only selected categories are displayed in the tabs. If no category is selected, articles of all categories are available in the frontend.
The generated teasers can be grouped according to various criteria. The following options are available here:
If you show all filters, both categories and tags will be available in a dropdown menu for filtering in the frontend. Then they will be able to select tags in addition to categories in the backend.
Here, you can define the maximum number of news teasers that can be shown.
If a check mark is set here, it means that only subpages of the current page are used for teasers. Articles that are located in other page branches are not displayed. If the option is not activated, all posts will be considered for the generation of teasers.
Determine how many columns the teasers should be arranged in.
The Latest News plugin generates a slider that links each slide to a single article. The slider always takes 100% of the available width: So in the header it fills the whole width, while in a grid element it adjusts to the width of the grid column.
Specify the maximum number of recent news items you want to display.
Select the news categories from which the latest articles should be linked. The categories do not correspond to the system categories, but are created in the News module or directly added as Category pages. In the right field you will see the existing news categories. If you want to use all categories for the latest news, no changes have to be made in these fields.
If you only want to show articles of a certain category, click on this category in the right field. It will automatically be moved to the left field. This means that only posts from this category will be taken into account. To deselect a category, click on a category in the left field, which will select it first. While the category is still selected, click on the trash can icon between the two fields.
At this point you will see all categories created in the system, but not all categories are news tags. So if you want to exclude certain news tags, you need to know which categories are used for news articles or blog posts and which are not. Tags can be selected simply by setting or removing check marks.
Within the plugin tab, in addition to the usual settings, you will find another tab where you can change the design of the latest news. By default, Layout 1 is selected, while the navigation dots are not enabled.
In Layout 1, article teasers are generated from the relations/images added in the page settings. You can also see the title, author, categories, tags and the date of the last modification. Layout 2 does not use the images from the news pages, but the description that can be entered in the news page properties in the general tab. Title, author, categories, tags and the date of the last change also appear with this layout. It is possible to set from 1 to 3 columns.
The navigation dots are placed under the teasers and show how many news are available. To get to the next articles or to the next article, the arrows on the left and right side of the teasers can be used in the frontend as well as the navigation points.
If you want the element to have a title, it is best to add it as an additional content element. If the title is created visibly in the content element, the slider image cuts off the title.
For the latest news to display properly, you need to ensure that all posts contain relations (images for creating teasers) or the category pages contain a teaser image if you want to use Layout 1. The image in the category serves as a fallback, in case that the news pages do not contain images. The images are used to create sliders automatically.
In our preview page, in addition to the Layout 1 in our screenshot, you can see different versions of Layout 2 with navigation points.
The news by categories/tags element generates a teaser list of posts to which certain categories (and tags) are assigned, similar to the news overview. The list is static and cannot be filtered. The category name is automatically used as title in the frontend. A header, which has been assigned in the General tab, appears above the generated title.
Specify how many news teasers should be displayed on a page. Please note the information about the categories: If several categories are selected, make sure that all teasers on a page can be seen in the frontend, otherwise the content element will not work. Therefore, make sure that the display limit is set high enough so that all news items are displayed on one page.
In the context of news, the categories do not correspond to the system categories that you find in the list module. What is meant are categories that are used specifically for news and are created in the News module or as a Category page. A post can only be assigned to one category.
Tags are created like system categories in the List module with the list element Category. In contrast to the system categories, they are located in the 'Blog' page of the Website Base, on whose subpages the news categories with the corresponding news items are created. Tags are not assigned to a specific category. An article can carry several tags or no tag at all.
When your blog posts are assigned to authors, it is possible to create article teasers from specific authors. The plugin can be configured quickly and easily. It uses the name of the author as the title in the frontend. An entered title in the General tab appears above the automatically inserted title.
In our frontend example, the information about the author is not displayed. Only the name is visible as title. However, this function is activated by default. In this case, not only the name, but also the associated image (if available), e-mail address and description of the author will be visible on the page.
Select the author whose posts should be shown as teaser in the frontend. Authors are edited and added in the List Module.
To select an author, click the Author button or the folder icon to the right of the field. If necessary, select the page on which authors are created and click on the desired record.
A list of all existing news is displayed in the right-hand field. Select the news page that you do not want to appear in the list in the frontend. Just click on a post name in the right field. To move a post from the left field back to the right field, click on the article in the right field. You will see that the article has been selected. Now use the trash can icon between the two fields. The website is now no longer selected.
Would you like to know more?
All information about the available editions can be found on the webpage for our TYPO3 Website-Base. You have the possibility to get a Website at a Fixed Price or you decide for a Website as a Service package, with which no further costs for hosting or security and function updates will come up to you.
