Can the Default blog page be edited?

Question

Can I edit the Default blog page in SharePoint 2010? Basically I would like to change the sort order of the posts. Currently the default page is sorted by date, is it possible to change it to where it sorts by Category then by Date???? Any pointers will be GREATLY appreciated.

Answer 1

Yes, you can change the order. The webpart that displays the posts is just a list view webpart. The trick is this -

go to the posts list add a new view, get it sorting the way you want, test. save. go back to your blog homepage edit the page edit the 'posts' webpart's properties select your newly created view in the 'list views' section click OK. Save.

done and dusted.

However, I will say this - a blog is, traditionally speaking, a linear, over-time view of posted news. Your users may not be expecting yours to sort differently, so consider that in your decision - usability is, of course, paramount.

Answer 2

This is an old post, but I thought I'd respond anyway. I was unable to get the create-a-new-sorted-view-and-select-it-in-the-webpart-editor trick to work. This simply brings up the new view on the page in a vanilla SharePoint style, rather than bringing up the new view in the semi-fancy default blog styling.

What did work is to edit the blog page in Sharepoint Designer, and then change the OrderBy clause to match your chosen column. In your case, I this is the CategoryWithLink field. Search for XsltListViewWebPart, and make sure the description reads "Use the Posts list for posts in this blog", and then scroll down to the XmlDefinition tag. Once there, search for OrderBy, and change the first field to your chosen one. The example below shows how to sort a blog by a custom column called SuggestionRating, rather than by PublishedDate, which is the default. In this example, note that I had to add SuggestionRating to the ViewFields node in order to get this column to appear.

<XmlDefinition>
                <View Name="{39C1F864-1FE1-4A79-9637-586C10D053C6}" Type="HTML" Hidden="TRUE" ReadOnly="TRUE" FreeForm="TRUE" ModerationType="HideUnapproved" DisplayName="" Url="/SuggestionBox/default.aspx" Level="255" BaseViewID="0" ContentTypeID="0x" CssStyleSheet="blog.css">
                    <Query>
                        <Where>
                            <And>
                                <Leq>
                                    <FieldRef Name="PublishedDate"/>
                                    <Value Type="DateTime">
                                        <Today/>
                                    </Value>
                                </Leq>
                                <Eq>
                                    <FieldRef Name="_ModerationStatus"/>
                                    <Value Type="">Approved</Value>
                                </Eq>
                            </And>
                        </Where>
                        <OrderBy>
                            <FieldRef Name="SuggestionRating" Ascending="FALSE"/>
                            <FieldRef Name="ID" Ascending="FALSE"/>
                        </OrderBy>
                    </Query>
                    <ViewFields>
                        <FieldRef Name="Title"/>
                        <FieldRef Name="Body"/>
                        <FieldRef Name="Author"/>
                        <FieldRef Name="PostedByWithDate"/>
                        <FieldRef Name="CategoryWithLink"/>
                        <FieldRef Name="Permalink"/>
                        <FieldRef Name="EmailPostLink"/>
                        <FieldRef Name="NumCommentsWithLink"/>
                        <FieldRef Name="PublishedDate"/>
                        <FieldRef Name="PostCategory"/>
                        <FieldRef Name="SuggestionRating"/>
                    </ViewFields>
                    <RowLimit Paged="TRUE">10</RowLimit>
                    <Toolbar Type="None"/>
                </View>
            </XmlDefinition>