I recreated the home page, kind of.

As I have been working on this blog I noticed that adding personal updates by way of one, ever increasing page, might not be the best way to approach things.

How to make a page that features posts from a new category (eg: Dialogue) and have them render in a page that acts like the home page (but isn't) and also excludes them from the home page?

Do they have their own little blog. A blog, within a blog, kind of.

I built a Content Collection.

Basically, a content collection is it's very own curation that lies within the overall loop, but doesn't interfere with everything else.

A bit like an introvert. A code introvert, that is.

Updating the Routes file.

The default routes file for Ghost has three main sections: routes, collections, and taxonomies. Where the basic code is:

routes:

collections:
  /:
    permalink: /{slug}/
    template: index

taxonomies:
  tag: /tag/{slug}/
  author: /author/{slug}/

To create my introvert and give them a home, I needed to add a new route and define a few simple parameters:

collections:
  /dialogue/:
    permalink: /dialogue/{slug}/
    template: dialogue
    filter: tag:dialogue
  /:
    permalink: /{slug}/
    template: index
    filter: tag:-[dialogue]

Did it work?

Yes, I think so. What I have now is:

  • A new collection, called dialogue
  • A new set of permalinks that call for the dialogue collection (and then the name of the post)
  • A new template (called Dialogue) to make it distinct from the home page.
  • And a set of filters that show that collection filter: tag:dialogue on the new page, and hide that collection filter: tag:-[dialogue] on the home page.

There's always a sense of tension when updating raw code files. Something as small as one space can throw the entire site down.

Note to self: Don't use TextEdit, use VS Code from now on.