Pages: Visible Blog Page Different than one Published
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This is something really basic, but I can’t figure out why when I visit my site from the dashboard the Blog that shows up is different than the one that I’ve published under Pages. The one that appears when I visit my site is actually the one that currently exists in Drafts.
I’ve looked here but to no avail. I don’t see how to find the “gear” icon for the published Blog page. How do I edit the published Blog page? I’m only able to edit the Blog page that still exists in Drafts (and is the page that for some reason is displayed for the site).
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Your site hasn’t been launched yet so we can’t see what’s exactly going on. It’s not possible a draft shows up in a site. Also you can’t edit the blog page as it is autogenerated by wordpress.com
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Hi there,
By the “published Blog page”, are you referring to the page titled Blog that’s set as your posts page? If so, that can’t be edited. That page will automatically show new blog posts you publish on the site, and nothing else.
If you want your Blog page to contain static content, you need to unselect it as a the posts page, so it becomes a regular page instead. Then you can add any content you want to it, along with the Blog Posts Block to display your posts.
https://wordpress.com/support/wordpress-editor/blocks/blog-posts-block/
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Thanks for the help. I still have a couple of questions.
There are a couple of things going on simultaneously in my mind, so please bear with me.
This site is still in its infancy and hasn’t been launched yet. I’m still playing around with themes. I’ve tried many. Customized a few. Currently looking at Textbook.
From the dashboard, in Appearance>Customize & in Pages, the published page called “Blog” is set as my Posts Page. This “Blog” page looks identical to the one for the theme Textbook. However, when I click on Visit Site from dashboard, and then view the tab Blog, what I see instead is the “Blog Posts” page that currently exists in my page drafts. This “Blog Posts” page looks to be a sample blog page from a previous theme that for some reason still exists on my site. What’s odd is if I trash the “Blog Posts” page that is under drafts and then Visit Site I no longer have a Blog tab in the header for my site–even though there is supposedly a published “Blog” page. This doesn’t make any sense. Q1: How do I sort this out?
Looking at these two blog pages that currently exist on my site–each apparently from a different theme–it appears to me that they both incorporate the Blog Posts Block, but in different ways. Q2: Is this correct?
If I look to edit the “Blog Posts” page currently under page drafts, in the right hand menu, when I click on “Block” and then select the area of the page that shows selections from 3 posts, I see something at the top that reads: “Blog Posts. A block for displaying homepage posts.” This also appears to be editable. Q3: Is this the same Blog Posts Block that is referenced above in a previous answer?
Q4: Does this descriptor “homepage posts” really mean any page, as this block exists on a blog posts page?
From the WP support page for pages there is the line: “The layout of your posts page is determined by your theme and cannot be customized.” As I just mentioned, the “Blog Posts” page that exists in draft pages appears to be editable (although I haven’t tried yet). Q5: How do you reconcile this seeming contradiction from the WP support page? https://wordpress.com/support/pages/
Q6: Theoretically, could I trash both of these blog post pages that currently exist on my site, create a new page and call it Blog, set this as my posts page, then add a Blog Posts Block and have it function in a similar way?
Thanks
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Hmm… that’s quite a few questions. I’ll do my best to answer them one at a time.
Q1: How do I sort this out? Looking at these two blog pages that currently exist on my site–each apparently from a different theme–it appears to me that they both incorporate the Blog Posts Block, but in different ways. Q2: Is this correct?
To clarify, you have somehow set up two blog pages. So it’s a matter of which page you are talking about… and of course you do not need both, you only need one of them.
https://amanonahill2021.wordpress.com/blog-2/ This is the page you set in your customizer. It’s a blank page and in the customizer settings you chose this page to display your blog posts. Before we had a block editor this is the way everyone set up their “blog” and it is a method that uses the built in theme design, so there is no customization options.
https://amanonahill2021.wordpress.com/?page_id=6 this is a “draft” page and you have not published it yet, so only you can see it. This second blog page is different, it is one you set up manually and added the Blog Posts Block to. To give you some context this is what we would call the “new” way to set up a blog. it uses our newer block editor, and the blog feed is creating using a block which now has many different customization options the old method does not have.
Either of the pages are “correct” so there is not a right or wrong way to go about this. If you take a look at both of the links I added above, which one do you like more? If you can point out the one you prefer we can help you to get that set up the rest of the way (and delete the one you don’t like)
Q3: Is this the same Blog Posts Block that is referenced above in a previous answer?
Yes. That is the block @kokkieh was referring to. It’s the one you see here when you edit this page: https://amanonahill2021.wordpress.com/?page_id=6
You are also using a smaller version of the same block on your homepage to show a feed of “recent posts” which is something I see on other sites as well. It’s not uncommon to have a homepage that displays a few posts, and then a separate “blog page” that you can go to to see the larger feed of posts.
Q4: Does this descriptor “homepage posts” really mean any page, as this block exists on a blog posts page?
It’s a good point you raise… now that you know there are a few different ways to set up a blog page, it may help if I say that this made a lot more sense before we had the block editor. At that time we did not have the ability to put the blog feedanywhere you wish (using the appropriate block) so the instructions tended to be more specific like that. We’re working on refining the process of customizing sites so it’s likely we will remove or correct instances like that in the future.
Q5: How do you reconcile this seeming contradiction from the WP support page? https://wordpress.com/support/pages/
Oops I may have answered that in question #1. If not please feel free to ask more clarifying questions and we’re happy to address those.
Q6: Theoretically, could I trash both of these blog post pages that currently exist on my site, create a new page and call it Blog, set this as my posts page, then add a Blog Posts Block and have it function in a similar way?
Exactly. I’d say by the end of your post, you just about answered your own question. I’ve tried to clarify where I could, but what you said here demonstrates that you have a good handle on this. :)
Thanks for rocking WordPress.com! :)
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Thanks, Jerry. Blog posts are becoming a bit clearer. I’ve switched a few things so that, at least for now, I’m somewhat satisfied with the appearance. But still a ways to go.
One oddity, however, still exists that I can’t explain. I’ve set the page called “Blog Posts” as just a regular page. For now I’m satisfied with that look. But if I were to go and change this page, setting it to my “Posts Page”, the appearance changes completely. It then will look like the example from the Textbook theme.
One additional question. When editing the Blog Posts Block I see no way of showing the tags that I’ve ascribed to each post. Is this even possible? The “Tags” option in the editor appears to be used to limit which posts appear in the block. Is there a way to show the tags attached to each post in the list?
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But if I were to go and change this page, setting it to my “Posts Page”, the appearance changes completely. It then will look like the example from the Textbook theme.
That is correct, yes.
If you set a page as the posts page, its content is generated dynamically by the software. In that case it will only show your published posts, not any static content you added to the page, and it will be styled as determined by your theme.
When editing the Blog Posts Block I see no way of showing the tags that I’ve ascribed to each post. Is this even possible?
The blog posts block doesn’t have an option to display tags, no.
Displaying tags on individual posts is not very common, and tends to be controlled by the theme. But Textbook does not display tags, so you won’t see those if you use the default posts page rather than the block either.
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