Magazine-style multi-column front page
 

Hi. I would like to create a wordpress site that works similar to this one, where the posts on the front page (the blog page) are laid out in a funky-style grid, rather than in a regular, vertical list:

http://www.resilience.org/

Can I do this using Atahualpa? And would it be efficient?

My guess is that if so, I would have to use Juggledad's multi-column template query thing. If so, before I start I'd like to know if this is worth my time. Or should I just find a theme that is already like the site above? I browsed the instructions for juggledad's query thing and it feels like a big learning curve. I'm willing to do it if this what it was meant to do, but if it will require a lot of tweaking beyond what juggledad's program was designed for, then maybe I'll use a different theme.

Can anyone answer my question?

Thanks!

You could "build" a page with widget areas and then populate them using plugins like "List Category Posts" or I believe there are plugins for building pages in various ways.

Two good ideas! Do you happen to know any plugins by name? Or should I search for "page builder" or something like that?

Or, conversely, how do I add widget areas to the loop and have this appear only on the home page? You can't even add widget areas to the loop anymore I thought?

currently, you need to add the new widget code to the index.php. You could surround it with a php IF to test for the home page or use a plugin like widget logic to control when it showed.

I was thinking of adding widget areas to a page using a plugin like Allow PHP in Posts and Pages.

Oh that looks like a very interesting plugin. But if I use it to add widget areas directly to a single page, will they appear in Appearance >> Widgets? (allowing me to actually put widgets inside of them)

Sure enough. It didn't work. I installed the plugin, then I inserted the following code onto the page:

This did *not* have the effect of creating widget areas in Appearance >> Widgets. (I refreshed all pages multiple times to make sure.)

What am I not understanding?

Thanks.

And yes, I put the proper php opening and closing short code tags around the code, as said in the plugin instructions.

Per the plugin instructions you need to eliminate the opening and closing php tags so your code would look like...

Aha! Thanks, though I think I found a simpler solution. Basically, I activated the left sidebar and made it only visible on the home page, then I am using this fantastic plugin I just found called "Special Recent Posts." It's a widget that allows for customizable multi-column, filterable, thumbnail (or not) recent posts listings.

Here is my testing page...

http://www.sferios.com/october2011/

But I may try your idea now too and see which is easier.

Thanks again!

Yours looks like a pretty neat solution. I'm going to take a look at that plugin.

The Pro version is what lets you arrange them in columns. Then the real cool thing is that it allows you to assign a unique css ID each time you use the widget. So on my front page I have three instances of the widget (each row is an instant), and each has it's own css ID, so I can manipulate each row differently. Also each cell is given its own css ID, which is how I was able to stretch the first column in the second row (a 2-column row) to take up the width of two rows, and also remove the image from the second column of that row.

I went to purchase the Pro version at CodeCanyon and found I had already bought it two times. Too many things rolling around in my head I guess.

Loving it more and more. It makes it really easy to design a magazine-style front page.