PromoGuy - PDA page for Greymatter Tutorial

Creating a PDA-friendly Blog page in GreyMatter.

Okie doke, here's how I did it, of course, your mileage may vary:

PART 1
First make a plain text file. It need only contain:
{{logentrylist number}}

Upload it to your server and CHMOD it to 666. You don't want anyone fiddling with your txt files.

PART 2
Now make it a connected file in GM and tell it to update the file when adding entries.

PART 3

Make an html page, with minimal formatting. Mobile users don't have lot or memory on their PDA, so take pity and don't include graphics on this page. At the bottom of the page do a Server Side Include (or PHP if you prefer) and pull in the text file.

I didn't put much into my page, just the essentials (It is no longer active, but feel free to take a look). The code of my headlines.shtml looks like this:

<html>
<head>
<title>--->PromoGuy dot Net Mobile News Page<---</title>
</head>

<body>
PROMOGUY dot Net 
Mobile News Page

<hr align="left" width="25%" size="1" color="#000000">
Here are the 10 most recent posts to PromoGuy.net:




</body>
</html>

Notice above I am pulling in the 10 most recent posts. You can change this to any number of your liking. In GM go to the Edit Templates section, choose Edit Main Index Related Templates and scroll down to the Log entry list variable number. Set the number there and save it. Simple!

PART 4

So far so good, right? Now, let's tweak the formatting for your Blog entries as they will appear on the final html page.

In GreyMatter's Edit Templates screen, go to the the Editing Miscellaneous Page and find the List Variable Templates section. Now then, the "Log Archives Link Template: Weekly" and "Entry List Link Template: Standard" are the two you would want to deal with.

Here is what I have in there, feel free to use it - but (shameless plug alert) a link back to my site from yours would be nice, :~)

Log Archives Link Template: Weekly

<A HREF="{{pagearchivelogindexlink}}">{{weekbeginningmonthmonth}}/{{weekbeginningdayday}}/{{weekbeginningyearyear}} to {{weekendingmonthmonth}}/{{weekendingdayday}}/{{weekendingyearyear}}</A>

Entry List Link Template: Standard

<LI><A HREF="{{pagelink}}">{{entrysubject}}</A></LI>

Again, you can format the entries however you like in this section. Once you have that the way you want it, you are done.

PART 5

Now, Rebuild Everything. Or you can just rebuild the sections we worked on, whichever is easier for you. Yayyy, you did it! Stick a fork in yourself, you are done!

Extra Credit:
If you want to be really nice, you can set up an AvantGo channel for your users. I had it set to 3 links deep, so users could comment offline (the comments would post on the next synch). Have no idea what I'm talking about? S'ok, it doesn't matter.

Please let me know if you make a PDA Blog, I will be sure to link to it. Look forward to your page!