Creating a Blog in Mura
Creating a Blog in Mura is easy and can be done in just a few simple steps.
Create the Blog Portal
To create a basic blog in Mura, create the landing page of your blog by adding a content type of "Portal" (for the purposes of this tutorial name it "Blog"). (Note that if you view this landing page (portal) at this point, you will see a "there is no content available" message. This is because a portal always shows you links to the (child) content nodes directly below it. - if there are no child content nodes, you will see the "there is no content available" message displayed).
Add a blog post to the portal
Next, add a content type of "Page" with some placeholder content below the "Blog" node. Notice that now if you view the Blog landing page, you will see a link to the newly added page instead of the "no available content" message which had been displayed before.
Blog Summary
Blogs usually display a summary or excerpt for each specific blog post, so edit the blog post page and add the summary in the Content Summary field.
Display a Release Date
To display a "Release Date" assign one using the "Content Release Date" form field.
Note: The "Release Date" is used to assign an official date for presentation purposes only. It has no scheduling functionality. To schedule content, use the "Display" field.
Click the "Publish" button.
Copy and Paste Existing Content.
You can use Mura's built-in Copy & Paste functionality to quickly add more pages to the blog. In the site Manager, mouse over the plus sign next to your first Page under "Blog" and select copy from the context (pop-up) menu. Then, mouse over the plus sign next to "Blog" and click "Paste" on the context menu. If you were at the top level of the Site Manager, notice that when you do this the Site Manager resets its view and you are then zoomed in on the Blog and see the copy of the page under the portal.
The Mura "Save Draft" Prompt
As you work with content in Mura, you may notice that when you click the back button or otherwise leave the content editor without saving or publishing, Mura will send up a pop-up alert, asking if you want to save the content as a draft. This is to help prevent accidental loss of content in the event that you inadvertently hit the back button or go to do something else and forget you were working on your content. If you don't want to save, hit the cancel button.
Add Comments and Other Blog Functionality
If you want to accept comments on your Blog posts, go to the Content Objects tab on the Blog landing page itself (not the pages/posts under the blog). Mura cascading allows you to add Content Objects one time and have them display on any content nodes below (assuming that those content pages are set to "Inherit Cascade").
Under inheritance rules, click on "Start New Cascade." Select "System" from the Content Objects drop-down list and then select the "Accept Comments" object. Use the >> arrows to move it to the desired Display Region.
You may also want to add some of these other content objects: Content Rater, Tag Cloud, Related Content and User Tools (User Tools is a combo of Login, Favorites, Email this Page and Print this Page). Category Summary and Calendar Navigation can be found in the "Blog" list under the Content Objects =>Portals drop-down.
Add Categories and Tags
To add Categories, first click on the "Categories" link in the Mura Admin, left hand-menu. In the Category Manager, click on the "Add New Category" link. Add your category name to the "Name" field. If it is to be a sub-category of an already existing category, select that parent from the "Parent Category" drop-down list.
Note: You can have as many levels of Categories and Sub Categories as you wish, however, you may want to use Categories for grouping broader concepts and tags for more granular, keyword type reference.
Be sure to set the "Allow Content Assignments" & "Active" radio buttons to "Yes" and click the "Add" button.
Once you have created your desired categories, you are ready to assign content. In the Site Manager, go to the "Categorization" tab for the first page under your "Blog", and set to "Yes" any categories that you want to assign to this content.
To add tags, click on the Meta Data tab and enter the desired tags into the "Tags" form field. Click the "Publish" button. Repeat the process for any other pages under the "Blog". When you view blog pages, notice that in the Tag Cloud, tags vary in size to visually indicate which ones have the most content assigned to them.
Create an RSS Feed
To create an RSS feed for your blog, first click on the "Content Collections" link in the Mura Admin left hand menu. Mura has two types of content collection - Remote Content Feeds which allow you to show a feed on your site from another location (simply add a feed url which becomes an object that you can place in your site), and Local Content Indexes. Local Content Indexes allow you to create not only RSS feeds, but also objects based on a custom query so you can output navigation/links to different areas of your site based on specific parameters.
Create a Local Index
On the Content Collections page, click on the "Add Local Index" link under "Local Indexes." Give your new local index a descriptive name/label then click the "Select Section" link next to "Choose Content From Section."
Type "Blog" into the resulting search field and then click the Plus (+) sign for Home >> Blog to add the content to your local index.
Next, click on the "Display" tab. If you want, you can give your local index an "Alternate Display Name". This is For display purposes only. Then, select "Release Date" from the "Sort by" drop-down list and "Descending" from the "Sort Direction" drop-down list.
Click on the RSS tab and set "Is this a Public Feed?" to Yes. Leave the version set at RSS 2.0 and click the "Add" button. When you view the Blog you should see the RSS icon up in the browser address (URL) bar.
Insert a RSS Link Into Page Content
You can also create a simple Mura Component to insert an RSS link into page content. First, return to the RSS tab of your Content Collection => Local Index and copy the RSS URL.
Next go to the Component Manager and add a new component. Name your component and create a link using the URL you just copied. Return to the Blog Content Objects tab. Select "Components from the Content Objects drop-down and use the >> arrows to move your new RSS Link component into the desired display area. Remember to click the "Publish" button.
You can also display an RSS Feed based on categories by inserting the Category Summary [RSS] content object found under the "Portals" drop-down list in the Edit Content => Content Objects tab.