Blogs

Overview

LearningCart makes it easy to create one or more blogs on your site. Blogs are a great way to engage your users as well as improve your search engine optimization. LearningCart blog posts can be public, open to your entire audience, or exclusive, only open to purchasers of a specific product(s) or members of a group.

Blog Settings

When editing or creating a blog you can specify the following settings. 

• Blog Name: The name that will display in the top navigation bar.
• Blog URL: this will automatically be created based on the blog name.
• Blog Template: A default template is provided for your use. You may also use a custom template.
• Blog Status: The Blog is visible to visitors to your site when the status is Active. An Inactive status means the Blog will not be displayed on your site.
• Blog Description: Describe the type of content and purpose of your Blog.

Manage Blog Posts

When you navigate to Manage Blogs, you will notice that for each blog you have created you can Manage Blog Posts. Clicking this link allows you to add or edit entries on your Blog. Permissions can also be set to allow access to blog entries based on purchase of a product or membership in a specific group.

To Add a Blog Post, select the Add Post button. To edit a blog, click ‘Edit’ next to the blog you want to edit. You can then enter the following information:
Post Title: The post title. This information will be displayed on the Blog home page.
Status: When the status is active, the entry will display on the Blog. A post with a status of inactive will not display on the Blog.
Post URL: This will automatically be created based on the blog post title.
Post Date: The date associated with this entry. This information will be displayed on the Blog home page.
Featured Image: 
Allow Comments: When checked, viewers will be able to add comments.
Post Description: The description of the post. This information will display at the top of the Blog entry page.
Tags: You can add tags to your blog post which will show at the post level and can be used by the viewer to search or filter posts. 

- - - Social Settings - - - 
Social Title: Title shown when a user shares this post via social media.
Social Image: Image shown when a user shares this post via social media.
Social Description: Description shown when a user shares this post via social media.

- - - Permissions - - -
Available to Users that have purchased: When this field is not blank, the blog entry will only be available to users who have valid access to the selected product.
Available to Users in group: When this field is not blank, the blog entry will only be available to users who are members of the selected group.

Blog Content: Enter your content using the integrated editor. For more information on using the editor see the Editor Tips section of this document.

Click the Preview button to view a preview of your entry. Click the Update button to update and save the entry.

Manage Comments

If you have set up a Blog post to allow comments, the Manage Comments feature allows you to approve or deny comments submitted.

The name of any blog with comments pending will be show in the Blogs with Pending Comments drop down.  You can select the name of the blog to then view your comments. 

Select the Approve checkbox next to any comments you want to approve and the Deny checkbox next to any comments you want to deny.  Click the Approve/Deny button at the bottom of the page to save your changes. 

Please note that your site may be set up to allow comments to automatically be approved. This setting can be changed in Configuration > Internal Values by updating the BlogAutoApproveComment variable to either True or False.