How do you link content to widgets

[mbcann01]

Hello!
I'm a huge fan of your Academic theme! Thank you!

Briefly, I'm trying to figure out how to tell a widget on a landing page where to pull content for the widget from.

My website currently has a homepage and a separate landing page for content that is intended to be useful to my students. I created students landing page using these instructions. That landing page is created with content/students/index.md

One of the things I would like this landing page to include is a widget containing currently available opportunities to get involved in research. I'm trying to decide if I prefer the look of the portfolio widget or the featured content widget for this section. So, I've added both widgets to the students landing page for now.

The portfolio widget is content/students/opportunities_portfolio.md. I created it by copying content/home/projects.md to content/students/. As expected, it currently displays the same content as the demo website, which appears to be located in content/project.

The featured content widget is content/students/opportunities_featured.md. I created it by copying content/home/featured.md to content/students/. As expected, it currently displays the same content as the demo website, which appears to be located in content/publication/conference-paper.

I kept content/students/opportunities_portfolio.md and content/students/opportunities_featured.md linked to the same content that is used in the demo website just to make sure I built the landing page correctly. Now I want to link content/students/opportunities_portfolio.md and content/students/opportunities_featured.md to job description pages that I will create as .md files (e.g., gra_1.md). However, it isn't clear to me where I should create gra_1.md or how I tell content/students/opportunities_portfolio.md and content/students/opportunities_featured.md where to go look for gra_1.md.

I've read Build your homepage with Wowchemy Page Builder, Portfolio: Filter Content, and Featured content, but the answer isn't jumping out at me.

I've also done a little bit of experimenting. For example, if I change content/project to content/jobs, the content cards disappear from content/students/opportunities_portfolio.md. If I then change content: page_type: project to content: page_type: jobs in the YAML header of content/students/opportunities_portfolio.md, the content cards reappear on content/students/opportunities_portfolio.md. This leads me to believe that the link between the widgets and the content files the widgets pull from is folder name <---> content: page_type: in the YAML header.

However, when I change content: page_type: publication to content: page_type: jobs in the YAML header of content/students/opportunities_featured.md, there isn't any content displayed in content/students/opportunities_featured.md widget where I expected content from content/jobs (formerly content/project) to be displayed. So, there seems to be something I'm missing here.

A slightly different, but related question is why does content/students/opportunities_featured.md only show content from content/publication/conference-paper instead of showing content from everything in content/publication/?

I apologize for the long question, but I wanted to be thorough, and hopefully write a question that makes sense. Any guidance is greatly appreciated!

[mbcann01]

I figured it out!

Here's how I accomplished what I was trying to accomplish step-by-step, in case it's useful to anyone else.

Step 1. Create a landing page

I followed the guidance on Wowchemy's Create a landing page documentation for this step. As a reminder, landing pages don't necessarily contain much actual content. They contain widgets that link to the content.

1. Create the content/students folder.
2. Create index.md inside content/students, and add a YAML header. This will be a widget page like the homepage.
3. Create a nav bar link to the index.md.
   • Open config/_default/menus.yaml
   • Create a new entry
     • Set name: to Students (or whatever you want to appear in the nav bar)
     • Set url: to 'studetns/' (the name of the folder we created in 1 above)
     • Adjust the weight to control the placement of the link on the nav bar

Step 2. Add widgets to the landing page

I followed the guidance on Wowchemy's page builder documentation for this step.

I think I want to create the individual jobs (or job categories) as "blog posts" then display them on the students page in a portfolio widget or a featured content widget. I'm playing around with both.

Add a welcome section

1. I added a blank widget to the top of the students page and added some welcome text below the YAML header.

Add a portfolio widget to the students landing page

1. I opened home/projects.md and saved it as students/opportunities_portfolio.md.
2. Change active: false to active: true. At that point, the widget should be up on the students landing page.
3. I started adjusting some of the parameters in the YAML header. For example, I changed the weight to 20, added a title, etc.
4. Ultimately, I didn't use the featured content widget. But, if you use it in the future, make sure the featured: parameter in the YAML header is set to true. Otherwise, the post won't show up in the featured content widget.

Step 3. Add content to the widgets

Individual content pages seem to always go in folders. The folders contain index.md files for written content and they also contain any other files the page needs (e.g., images or citation files). The banner photo has to be named featured.

For the research opportunities widget on the students page, I created a new folder called opportunities in content. I tried putting it directly in the students folder, but that didn't work.

You tell markdown document that creates the widget (i.e., students/opportunities_portfolio.md) to use the documents in the content/opportunites folder by setting the content: page_type: parameter to the folder name. In this case, content: page_type: opportunites.

If you want an image on the content page, it needs to be stored in the same folder as the index.md file that contains the content. Additionally, the image file must be named featured.