Brian from Oasis Foods wants to upload around 85 recipes and associate them with around 25 different ingredient pages. I would LOVE to automate this as much as possible.
Question #1: Is there a PDF or File Auto-List widget yet?
Since he wants the list to show up in the sidebar or as a menu, I have a related question about the existing Image Auto-List widget:
Question #2: Is there an option for Link Name only in the Image Auto-List widget (i.e., no image or thumbnail)?
I really want to avoid having to make him create 85 new pages. I’d actually rather avoid making him create even 25! This leads to the bigger question:
Question #3: How can I get away with simply uploading keyword-rich PDF files (I’ll have him key the file names to the ingredient items he wants so we could keyword match the Auto-List), and POSSIBLY JPEGs is we want some thumbnails, and create a nav menu item or widget list that would allow the visitor to navigate through all the recipes in a menu-driven fashion (and possibly a search system later) and end up with a PDF of the recipe opening up.
Question #4: An even BIGGER question: If we DID want to create a SINGLE template/page, say, that presented the JPG that would be hyperlinked to the same-named corresponding PDF file, that would present the appropriate information chosen through the user’s menu choices. (This would allow a prettier presentation of the same content – rather than clicking on a menu item and getting a PDF, they get a page with the JPG that links to the menu item and that page isn’t one of 25+, but a single one that takes some kind of parameter passed to it.
I’d settle for a positive answer (and docs) for 1 & 2 of course…
Unfortunately, there is not currently a File Auto-List widget in CM1. There is also no built-in way to have the Image Auto list display only text links to your image files – this might be possible through some creative CSS and Javascript implementation, but I haven’t tested anything like this.
That said, I think a File Auto-List widget would be a natural addition to CM1’s collection of widgets, and furthermore, a File Auto-List widget could very easily serve the purpose you are looking for in your second question (of having a list of text links pointing to image files). I strongly encourage you to post this as a new “Idea” topic type on here so that it will get on the radar of our product management team. Once it’s up, hopefully other customers will lend their support and give the idea additional traction.
For now, if all 85 recipes are contained within PDF files, I think your best bet would be to upload them all to a recipe asset folder (created by selecting Assets through the Finder and hitting the “Create new folder” button) using the Bulk Upload gadget. Once that’s done, in each of your 25 ingredients pages, you insert a Rich Text widget in the sidebar where you want the recipe links to display. Next, type out a list of each recipe you want to display in this Rich Text widget, and then highlight one recipe at a time and select the “Insert/edit link” button (the chain link icon to the upper right of the toolbar). Through the pop-up menu, browse though your assets in the Link URL and select the corresponding PDF. Repeat for all recipes, and repeat again for all pages.
Obviously this is far from the more automated approach you were hoping for, but at least it doesn’t require you to create 85 pages for each recipe in addition to the 25 ingredient type pages.
Just doing a little bit of spring cleaning on our Community site. I’m sure you’re already aware, but CM1 now features a File Auto-List Widget as of version 2.10. Here is a link to some documentation:
