Multiple CMS collections/templates - Combining into single dynamic lists and URL structure

Design help CMS
1

Hey all,

I am having issues trying to find the best solution to a problem I have encountered while building out CMS collections for a current client.

In a nut shell:

  • The client has an over arching blog page (www.clientsite.com/blog) that will have 4 different categories/collection types

  • Each of these 4 different collections require different fields/information

  • For convenience lets call these: News, Events, Recipes and How-To.

Desired URL structure

  1. www.clientsite.com/blog/news
  2. www.clientsite.com/blog/events
  3. www.clientsite.com/blog/recipes
  4. www.clientsite.com/blog/how-to
  • Each of these 4 content types/collections require different page layouts

The problem

  • The client wants to have multiple dynamic lists (on the Homepage and Main blog page) on the site where they can ā€˜Hero/Featureā€™ in a single list from each of these 4 different collections. For example on the homepage they want a slider that features hand picked articles that could be from any of the four categories via a switch in the collections, and on the main blog page they want to be able to hero/feature a few articles at the top, then have a grid below that combines all 4 categories into a list sorted by most recent.

Workarounds

  • I have scoured the forums and tried to find people with this similar problem. One workaround I have looked into is creating 1 collection list that encompasses all 4 categories, and build 4 different layouts for the one template page that only displays the layout corresponding to the category they select from a dropdown list in the collection. This however creates a URL issue I donā€™t want. For example I now get:

www.clientsite.com/blog/nys-celebration instead of
www.clientsite.com/blog/events/nys-celebration

If it wasnā€™t for this URL issue, this workaround would work fine and I know how to do it.

I have looked into CMS Combine - Combine multiple Collection Lists to one Collection List but I donā€™t think this will allow me to create the ability for it to only display featured/hand-picked articles from the multiple categories/collections.

Hopefully that makes sense, happy to elaborate or clarify anything that Iā€™ve missed.

If anyone has any advice/workarounds/hacks or suggestions I would be super stoked.

Thanks in advance!

2

Nice work on your research, and yes itā€™s a difficult tradeoff choice;

A Split collection approach gives you content-type-specific base paths + field arrangements + collection page layouts - but itā€™s much harder to create the combined views youā€™re after.

A Unified collection approach gives you very easy content combinations and filtering, but you have to work with one single item-record design, one collection page, and your paths are limited.

You can overcome many of the Split approach limitations using script, but itā€™s rather messy to setup right. Likewise you can overcome many of the Unified approach limitations with a careful use of filters and page layout ā€œpartsā€.

In either case, you can do this;

www.clientsite.com/blog/news
www.clientsite.com/blog/events
www.clientsite.com/blog/recipes
www.clientsite.com/blog/how-to

As long as /blog is a folder and /news, etc are static pages.
Each would be a listing of that content typeā€¦ here are all of our recipes, etc.
Thatā€™s easy to build with collection lists and filtering no matter whether you choose to go split or unified.

Your item ( aka individual post ) paths though, are limited. You can do either;

e.g. /recipes/best-blueberry-muffins with split, or
e.g. /post/best-blueberry-muffins with unified.

The only production-worthy way around the path limitations is a reverse proxy, which adds a lot of path capability but the tradeoff is setup time and configuration complexity.

3

Hey Michael,

Thanks for the info! Looks like I will have to go for the unified approach, I feel like this will provide less niggles than the split approach.

Only issue I am having now is I canā€™t create a folder to contain my static static category pages as there is a URL clash with my unified collection URLā€¦ am I missing something here?

4

You can have a static page with the same slug as a collection page, but you cannot have a folder with the same slug as a CP. Reason is path conflict. How would it know if /blog/news is a static page in a folder, or a collection item to render?

Would be nice if Webflow had a more advanced routing mode available.

5

Gotcha, so if I wanted the folder structure for my categories, then the folder needs a different name/slug than my collection list. e.g:

www.clientsite.com/blog/recipes (Category page)

www.clientsite.com/post/best-blueberry-muffins (post page)

So basically I canā€™t have:

www.clientsite.com/blog/best-blueberry-muffins if I want to use a folder structure for the category pagesā€¦

Dangit maybe I do need to consider split approachā€¦ Do you know of any decent combined view hacks?

6

Exactly. You could do blog and blog-posts, or even blogs and blogā€¦
I usually integrate the blog more directly, so Iā€™d have it like;

/recipes
/news

And then for the items;

/article/jsdkfjklsfjsd

7

Hello all,

Iā€™m trying to re-create a section in our website. Currently itā€™s in card format(itā€™s a client story section) and they want it to be in CMS form but the last card should be hard coded. Is this possible?

8

Hey @Benjie_Angeles youā€™ll want to create this as a new post, itā€™s not related to the topic in this thread.

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