Blogs are flexible platforms which let the learners participate in the content of the course.
Blogs created in Composica are highly configurable and customizable, and can be designed to present the information in various ways. In order to allow this flexibility, blogs consist of a wide variety of sub-elements, each being open to reconfiguration and redesign.
Blogs can be divided into two main sections: the widgets area, normally the left column; and the content area. Blog widgets are covered separately under the widgets page. The main blog consists of a blog navigation element, post elements, a blog comments element, comment post elements, and a comment form element.
To insert a blog element, use Interactions > Social Media > Blog.
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Blog |
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| External Feed | Text | External RSS/Atom feed to use for the blog’s content, instead of creating an original blog. When an external feed is provided, the blog operates in read-only mode, and new posts cannot be made. |
| Summary Word Count | Number | Number of words to show in a post’s summary, or all to show entire posts in the summary. When posts are trimmed, they are also stripped of any formatting, images and embedded content. |
| Footer Notice | Text | A customizable line of text which is shown at the bottom of the external blog. |
| Hide from Search Engines | Checkbox | When on, the blog is hidden from search engine crawlers, and is not indexed. |
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Misc |
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| Date Format | Select | Date format to use when showing post dates, where yyyy denotes year, mm denotes month, dd denotes day of the month, hh denotes hours, nn denotes minutes and ss denotes seconds. |
The comments element is a special case of a blog, slimmed down and simplified, for allowing learners to quickly add comments on a document. It consists of several post elements and an add post button element.
To insert a comments element, use Interactions > Social Media > Comments.
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Misc |
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| Date Format | Select | Date format to use when showing post dates, where yyyy denotes year, mm denotes month, dd denotes day of the month, hh denotes hours, nn denotes minutes and ss denotes seconds. |
Provides controls for navigation through the blog. Consists of two sub-elements, for moving back and forward through the posts. When viewing a single post, the labels of these sub-elements will be replaced with the titles of the next and previous posts.
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Blog |
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| Posts per Page | Number | Number of posts to show in each page of the summary, or all to show all posts in one page. |
Displays a single blog post. At run-time, the post element is duplicated for each post displayed, and filled in with information and content from the post. A post consists of several variables for displaying this information, a post ellipsis element, and a permalink.
A rating element can be added to a post, to allow learners to rate any of the posts, using Post > Add Rating.
Used in the post summary, when a post’s contents have been trimmed, to signify the post contains more information. At run-time, pressing the post ellipsis shows the full post.
The post ellipsis element can be edited to contain different text (or any other content), and its visual appearance can be customized.
Provides the ability to read and post comments on single posts in the blog. At run-time, comments are only shown when a single post is viewed, and not when showing the post summary. The blog comments element consists of several comment post elements, and a comment form element.
Viewing and posting of comments can be prevented, by simply removing the blog comments element using Design > Remove or the Delete key.
Displays a single comment post. At run-time, the comment post element is duplicated for each comment post displayed, and filled in with information and content from the comment. A comment post consists of several variables for displaying this information, and a permalink.
Allows learners to add new comments on a post. The comment form element consists of a notice element, an author text field, several label elements, a rich text element for the comment text, and a submit button.
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Comment Requirements |
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| Login Required | Checkbox | When on, only learners which are authenticated can post new comments. |
| Approval Required | Checkbox | When on, new comments don’t show up in the blog until they are approved by a moderator. |
Providing the learner with notices regarding the comment posting process, the notice is only visible at run-time when such information is present. The textual content of these notices can be edited and localized via <Items>.
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Notice |
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| Items | String List | Notices which can be displayed to the learner when trying to post a comment. |
Provides a permanent link to the post or comment in the blog’s external version, allowing the learner to read the post or comment outside of Composica, send the link to other people, bookmark the link and more.
Although the permalink is a regular link element, it has special run-time functionality and its <Link To> and <Window Name> properties should be left blank.