Sector Blog

Sector Blog offers a simple and easy to use blog to publish updates, engage with your audience, or collaborate across teams and locations. Included is everything you'll need to get going - a Blog post content type, automated lists and filtered archives, as well as comments and a Blog editor user role.

Sector Blog is an optional Sector add-on. Sector add-ons can be downloaded and installed via the Sector Blog project on Drupal.org or using composer. The Sector Blog components and configuration make it easy to get started, and the sample content makes it easy to grasp the main features. 

Required Drupal contribution modules

• Sector Blog has dependencies to - and requires components from - the Sector Starter Kit

Features and functionality

Sector Blog includes:

• Sector Blog post content type and displays
• Blog category taxonomy to categorise your resources and allow your audience to filter by type       
• Blog landing page and a Blog archive based on Drupal views 
• Blog sidebar promoting latest posts and latest comments, as well as your blog categories
• Sector Blog Editor user role
• Blog comments with CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA options for the comments form
• Sample content to make it easy to get started

Related entities and configuration (Sector D8/D9)

Sector Blog post content type

<your-domain>/admin/structure/types/manage/blog_post

The Blog post content type is preconfigured with a base set of fields and Display Suite view modes. 

Sector Blog post URL path pattern

<your-domain>/admin/config/search/path/patterns/blog

Sector Blog category taxonomy 

<your-domain>/admin/structure/taxonomy/manage/blog_post_category/overview

The Blog post categories allow editors to group blog posts into categories. The tags in this taxonomy are 'rabbit-holed' to the archive view using the termID as a filter criteria. The 'Feature' term is used to feature a blog post on the Blog landing page.  

Sector Blog landing page, archive and sidebar blocks via the Sector blog view

<your-domain>/admin/structure/views/view/sector_blog

Includes displays for the: 

• Blog landing (Page) - a view page for the Blog landing page under /blog. The view loads the Blog featured post (Block) into the view header. 
• Blog featured post (Block) -  a simple view block to feature block posts on the Blog landing page
• Blog archive (Page) - a view page with exposed filters for the Blog archive under /blog/archive 
• Blog post per year (Block) - a view block to list archives per year. Loaded into sidebar. Linked to archive. 
• Blog short teaser (Block) -  a view block to list latest posts based on issue date. Loaded into node sidebar. 

All view displays are hooked into Display Suite view modes to allow for consistency and easy display management. 

Sector Blog category listing in the sidebar via the Sector blog view

<your-domain>/admin/structure/views/view/sector_blog_post_category

Includes displays for the: 

• Sector blog post category (Block) - a simple taxonomy view block to create a list of categories. Loaded into the sidebar. 

Related blocks under block layout 

<your-domain>/admin/structure/block

• Sector blog: Blog Short Teaser (Block)  - placed in the sidebar of the Blog landing page and nodes
• Sector blog: Blog post per year (Block)  - placed in the sidebar of the Blog landing page and nodes
• Sector blog post category: Sector blog post category (Block) - placed in the sidebar of the Blog landing page and nodes

Blog post comment type 

<your-domain>/admin/structure/comment/manage/blog_post_comment

Blog post comment type is preconfigured with a base set of fields and Display Suite view modes.

Please note: preferring a simple plain text comment field for Sector blog, we have disabled the Drupal core Comment body (comment_body) and replaced it with a custom Comment plain text field (field_comment_plain). For blogs that expect longer comments requiring basic text formats, this can easily be overwritten by enabling the core field under 'Manage form display' and making sure the chosen text format is secure for use by unauthenticated users. 

Blog post comment permissions

<your-domain>/admin/people/permissions

Out of the box, unauthenticated users are allowed to submit comments. Submitted comments are queued for moderation and blog editors can approve comments.

CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA options for the comment form 

<your-domain>/admin/config/people/captcha

<your-domain>/admin/config/people/captcha/captcha-points

Sector Blog includes an easy to edit CAPTCHA point for the blog post comment form (comment_blog_post_comment_form). By default, the CAPTCHA is set to a maths challenge. For LIVE sites (production) with public comment, we highly recommend to get a site-specific reCAPTCHA key and enable the included reCAPTCHA option. 

Sector Blog Editor user role 

<your-domain>/admin/people/permissions

The Blog Editor role is designed to be an additive role to the existing Content editor role. A Blog Editor can add, edit, and delete blog posts, as well as administer comments. The role can easily be extended to work as a standalone editorial role by assigning additional permissions. 

Sample content

• Blog post sample - featured (/blog/blog-post-sample-featured)
• Blog post sample with comments (/blog/blog-post-sample-comments)
• 2 approved comments on 'Blog post sample - comments' and archive 2017
• 1 media sample image - /image/sample-image-landscape-blog