Hello everyone, As a new user of Shopify I am still learning but getting there slowly. I am using the free Balance theme which limits the number of blog posts to 4. I am told that the limitation is there to preserve performance which is understandable. My site currently shows 4 blog posts which is ok. However, I thought that I could use a View All button to link to a new page that listed all of my created blogs. Ideally that list would update automatically following very new post but doing it manually as part of writing a blog is not really an issue. I tried a variety of methods including creating a new template or another blog section but none worked and most just displayed the About Us page. I guess the theme cold be changed by coding but that is well beyond my capability. I am not really expecting an all encompassing solution here but really wanted to find out if anything practical is possible and if so could someone give me a hint as to which direction to go in? Many Thanks.
Wat theme are you using exactly and can you share your store url as well.
Best
Hi, thanks for replying. I am using the Balance theme. Site is at www.performancebooks.co.uk.
You should not use “Featured blog posts” section on the actual blog page.
This section is designed to showcase a small number (yes – can be up to 4) of blog posts on the homepage (or similar). It does not support pagination.
Usually it is the section which requires you to select the blog in settings because it’s used on pages where there is no default blog variable defined.
On the actual blog page you need to use the default “Blog posts” section which supports pagination and multiple pages.
Usually, this type of section does not require selecting a Blog because it’s designed to run on the blog page and picks up the pre-defined blog variable.
It is the same as “Featured products” or “Featured collection” section vs “Product grid”.
Update – in Balance “Featured blog posts” is called “Blog posts” and pagination-supporting section is called simply “Blog”.
Above was written with section names used in Shopify-designed themes, like Dawn.
Many thanks for your quick reply. I am still a bit confused but this is what I understand so far. The Blog Posts section is the top level container for all blogs of which there can be 4 maximum. Each of these containers is a blog on a specific subject area and within each of those containers I could have as many individual posts as I need. that wold be ideal in my mind.
I created my blog by going to Content and then selected Blog Posts. From there I created 4 blogs by selecting Add Blog Post. Each of the 4 was given the same name. I then added a menu item linked to the blog which then displays the 4 posts that I have created. I noticed that the menu item gives the option to add a blog or blog post. The blog option displays everything (max 4) that belongs to the same blog name. If I add a blog post menu item it takes me to that post. It seems I can add an unlimited number of those but that would then mean a rather ungainly and lengthy menu. I also tried adding a blog posts section but that also seemed limited to 4 and regardless of any limitation I couldn’t get it to display any posts.
As you can tell I am a bit confused. I have watched many YouTube videos and searched high and low but most suggestions don’t seem to apply to the theme I chose.
Not quite.
Blogs are blogs. There can be many blogs, like “News”, “Authors”, “Technology”.
Each blog can contain multiple blog posts, or articles.
Do not confuse the two.
So you’ve created one blog, “The accidental mechanic” and then you’ve created 4 posts for this blog.
You’ve setup everything right, except for one thing – you should use different section on your “Blog” template. That’s why you only see 4 posts there – because you’re using the wrong section.
Look at the screenshot from theme trial in my store:
It’s a “Default Blog” template and there is one section “Blog” which is there by default. This is the proper section to use on the blog page. And it can only work on the blog page. It does not require you to select blog – it picks up the default blog for this page. It supports pagination and can show more than 4 articles.
A second section, “Blog posts” – I’ve added it myself to illustrate what I’ writing.
It is the kind of “Featured …” section which can be use on any page.
But it requires you to select the blog to display images from.
This is the wrong section to use on the blog template.
It does not support pagination and can only show limited number of post.
Hope this makes it a bit clearer.
One step closer thank you. I will work on this later today and see if I can get anywhere. Will let you know if you don’t mind.
I have spent sometime reading your post and I think I now understand the differences between a Blog and Blog Post. The challenge I have now is that I can’t seem to modify my Default blog template to include a blog. When I click on add section it only offers Blog Posts as an option. Does this mean my theme can’t do it or am I missing something? Many thanks once again for your help.
I do not have access to the theme code, but it looks like the section you need was removed from the default “Default Blog” template, but due to its nature you can’t find it in configurator .
What I’d try to do:
- Get a new theme copy from the Theme store. See how “Default Blog” template looks there and whether you can see the section I mentioned, whether you can see pagination (you’d need to have more than 5 blog articles for this though).
- If it does look right, then you need to copy/paste contents of one file from fresh theme code to the old one:
Go to “Online store”, click...button next to your theme and select “Edit code”.
Findtemplates/blog.jsonand copy/paste its content from new theme to the old one.
Ideally – make a theme copy first and try pasting code into this copy so that you do not break your live one.
I will follow your suggestion and see what I can find. Oddly the Balance theme listed on the Shopify store costs 400USD but I can assure you I didn’t pay anything for it. I downloaded a trial version and it does have both blog and blog posts in the default blog template.
More information. When I go to themes it tells me I am using Balance. However, when I went to edit the code it says I am using Dawn which is a free theme.
Ouch.
Silly me – I saw this on your site, but thought that you’re talking about unpublished theme, which is proper Balance…
Yes, you can rename your theme whatever you want.
And you can rename your sections and section blocks too!
In this case – the proper section name is indeed “Blog posts”. This section is hard-coded to show 6 blog posts/articles per page and does not look quite the same as your screenshot.
And this is how the proper “Blog posts” section settings look in my store:
However, Dawn does have another section, which is confusingly called the same “Blog posts” (I called it “Featured posts” because this is how it’s called in code) and this is the one you have – wrong one:
Anyway – the recipe is the same – get a fresh copy of the theme (Dawn) from the theme store and copy-paste the template contents.
This should restore the proper section in your Blog template.
Many thanks I will work on that. No need to apologise re theme name. It sounds as if I must have renamed Dawn to Balance but don’t remember doing that and honestly can’t think why I would have. Even if I did not sure I would even think of the naming it balance. A minor detail in the grand scheme of things I might have to pay someone to sort this out.
Just thought I should let you know that thanks to you I got there. So far it now works as expected. There are other changes I would like to make but that can wait. I need to get some customers first!