Using Spun theme, how can I take posts and create a blog?

  • Unknown's avatar
    amtrick · Member ·

    Using the Spun theme, I have created 12 circles that link out to blog posts. I have a custom menu at the top of the page, and a blog page. I want all of the individual blog posts from each circle to appear on the blog page of the site. How can I do that?

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    amightywp · Member ·

    Hi there,

    The best way for you to get a list of all of your posts on your Blog page would be for you to use the Archive shortcode. You can read about it right here:

    http://en.support.wordpress.com/archives-shortcode/

    You should just need to put the shortcode (with whatever modifiers you’d like) in place and your posts will display.

    Let me know if you run in to any issues!

  • Unknown's avatar
    amtrick · Member ·

    Hi amightywp –

    Thanks so much for your help, I added in the short code and was able to get a link to my July posts (I understand I only currently have July posts, so this is fine) but when I click on the link, the current theme (Spun) is still applied to the page and I am getting the same circles as seen on my homepage. See http://www.arlingtoncac.wordpress.com/blog. Is there a way to override the theme template on this page?

    Thanks!

  • Unknown's avatar
    amightywp · Member ·

    Hiya,

    There really isn’t any way to override the entire theme, no. You can override individual parts of your theme via CSS, however you would need to know what you want to do instead. You’d need to have a plan for it basically. “This text needs to be this color and this size”, “this element needs to be removed,” etc.

    The best way to get help for CSS on this level is to check out our CSS Customization forum right here:

    https://en.forums.wordpress.com/forum/css-customization

  • Unknown's avatar
    amtrick · Member ·

    Thanks for the quick response. I basically want the home page to link out to individual blog posts via circles (as it does) and the blog page to just be like a traditional blog, with all posts in reverse chronological order. I see that using the short code gives me all of the posts on one page, but they are organized into the circles again rather than being text/images in post format. Does that make sense?

    I will check out the CSS forum, though I’m not sure I’ll be able to follow what I need to change. I’m a little new at this all!

  • Unknown's avatar
    jeremeylduvall · Member ·

    Howdy!

    How about using the Display Post Shortcode on your “Blog” page instead of the archive shortcode?

    Display Posts Shortcode

    Using that shortcode, you can display a list of your latest posts and even shown an excerpt from each or a featured image if you would like. Could you give that a try?

  • Unknown's avatar
    amtrick · Member ·

    Hi Jeremey –

    That worked! It doesn’t look too pretty, but it worked and I am free of the circles on the blog page now! (www.arlingtoncac.wordpress.com/blog) Onto my next question – is there a way that I can make that look a little less cramped? I know there are just some placeholder posts in there for now, so when there’s more copy it’ll look a bit more uniform, but is there a way to increase the spacing between posts?

    Thank you so much! I really REALLY appreciate your help!

  • Unknown's avatar
    jeremeylduvall · Member ·

    Howdy!

    There definitely is a way to do that. Give this a try under Appearance -> Customize -> CSS:

    .listing-item {
padding-bottom: 50px;
}

    One other thing that I would recommend for uniformity would be to include an excerpt with every post:

    http://en.support.wordpress.com/splitting-content/excerpts/

    The excerpt should take the place of the current text there for each post. So, if you keep your excerpt length consistent, it should look a bit more uniform.

  • Unknown's avatar
    amtrick · Member ·

    So maybe I’m missing something, but anytime I put in any code in CSS, I don’t see any changes (with the exception of the hover over code that I put in initially so the circles enlarge when moused over). I added in your code and see zero changes. Any thoughts?

    I just tested out the excerpts setting for my first post, and that works pretty well. It’ll definitely help to space out the blog page a bit better but I’m still having issues making it look a little cleaner.

    Thanks for working with me on this, I appreciate it!

  • Unknown's avatar
    jeremeylduvall · Member ·

    Hi!

    Currently, it looks like you have an open tag at the bottom of your Appearance -> CSS module:

    @media screen and ( max-width: 1200px ) {

    The opening tag means that anything inserted before a closing tag is applied with that selector in mind. Basically, it’s probably mucking up any CSS you’re adding.

    You could either remove that line or close it like this:

    @media screen and ( max-width: 1200px ) {}

    Then, add the following (adjusted) code beneath it:

    .display-posts-listing .listing-item {
padding-bottom: 50px;
}

    When you save that code then visit your Blog page, you should see an increased spacing between the bullet points.

    Let me know if that works for you!

  • Unknown's avatar
    amtrick · Member ·

    Ah ha! Thanks for the (very simple) explanation of what I was doing wrong. Much appreciated.

    I added in the new code and it does space out the blog page much more nicely. Thank you so much for your help! I think I’m all good for now, until the next thing stumps me, of course. :)

  • Unknown's avatar
    jeremeylduvall · Member ·

    Wonderful! Please let me know if you need anything else.

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