How can I add a sidebar to the blog-start layout?

[arkholt]

I haven't updated my yellow blog since version 0.6, so I'm just starting over with a fresh version 0.9 installation. The only issue I've run into so far is with the theme. My theme has a sidebar, and I'm able to add the php to make it appear on the default layout, but whenever I try to add it to the blog-start layout, it says "file not found" and doesn't display anything else, or even the sidebar. I have the sidebar.md in the shared folder, with Status: shared in the yaml frontmatter.

My default sidebar layout looks like this:

<?php $this->yellow->layout("header") ?>
<div class="<?php echo "content".($this->yellow->page->isPage("sidebar") ? " with-sidebar" : "") ?>">
<div class="sidebar" role="complementary">
<?php echo $this->yellow->page->getPage("sidebar")->getContentHtml() ?>
</div>
<div class="main" role="main">
<h1><?php echo $this->yellow->page->getHtml("titleContent") ?></h1>
<?php echo $this->yellow->page->getContentHtml() ?>
</div>
</div>
<?php $this->yellow->layout("footer") ?>

And it works perfectly fine. Where should I add the php code to the blog-start layout for it to work?

EDIT: I was able to add

<div class="<?php echo "content".($this->yellow->page->isPage("sidebar") ? " with-sidebar" : "") ?>">
<div class="sidebar" role="complementary">
<?php echo $this->yellow->page->getPage("sidebar")->getContentHtml() ?>
</div>

...to the blog entry layout while replacing

<div class="content">

...and did not have any issues. For some reason the only layout I'm not able to add this to is the blog-start layout. The error I get is "File not found
The requested file was not found. Oh no..."

[annaesvensson]

From what I can see, you have done everything correct.

1. Add the class with-sidebar for your custom CSS.
2. Add the <div>...</div> with your sidebar HTML.
3. Repeat the same steps with each layout file you want to change.

The error message tells me that something else has gone wrong.

Tip: The blog extension shows the error message File not found if blog pages can not be found. You mentioned that you recently updated Datenstrom Yellow and I suspect that the cause of the problem lies here. Remember that in Datenstrom Yellow 0.8.2 the page setting Template: blog has been changed to Layout: blog. You probably have to adjust some page settings, have a look inside your content folder. See also discussions #403 and #438.

[arkholt]

Ah, I see. Thank you for your reply.

What I had done was duplicate the blog layout and the blog-start layout, and add the sidebar code to the new ones, and named them blog-sidebar and blog-start-sidebar. For some reason when I did that, it said "file not found," even when I put the layout as "blog-sidebar" in the yaml front matter of the blog post. If I add it directly to blog-start and blog layouts, it works fine. I didn't want to edit the existing layouts out of caution, but I guess I will just do that in the future, as it doesn't seem to like it when I try to add new ones.

[annaesvensson]

Good idea to have separate files for custom HTML and CSS.

I don't know if you already knew that themes can have their own layout files, this is a core feature, maybe this is something you want to try out. For example the file system/layouts/blog-start.html will be used with any theme, the file system/layouts/arkholt-blog-start.html will only be used with Theme: arkholt.

For clarification, the blog start page must have the setting Layout: blog-start and individual blog pages must have the setting Layout: blog. This can not be changed. The blog extension source code specifically looks for these page settings in content files, it is a kind of identifier that tells the blog extension what type of page a content file is.

[arkholt]

Ah, now I see what my error was. I wasn't aware of that naming scheme for the layouts. Thank you for the clarification. Everything appears to be working now.