On your community's Recent Posts page, users can leverage the various sorting and filtering options to more easily find community content.
These tools make it easier not only for your users to browse through community posts but also for your community Admins to manage them.
In this article, you'll learn how to:
- Choose what content to display (e.g., Followed Categories, your Groups)
- Sort and filter the posts
- Create and configure a custom discussions page layout for your community
- Set a default sort option
Before we begin…
These sorting and filtering options are only available if your community is configured to use custom Recent Posts layouts (Dashboard > Appearance > Layouts).
Choose what content to display
Use the Content dropdown to focus on the posts that are most relevant to you:
- Select Followed Categories to view only posts from the Categories you follow, making it easier to keep up with topics you’ve explicitly indicated interest in.
- Select Suggested Content to view recommended posts based on your activity and community trends, helping you discover posts you might find useful.
- Select My Groups to limit the list to posts from groups you belong to, so you can quickly review conversations happening in your Group spaces.
NOTES:
- The My Groups option is only available to logged-in users, since Group membership is required.
- If your Social Groups Category has Hide from Recent Posts enabled, Group posts will still be hidden from the main Recent Posts feed. However, users can still find those posts using the My Groups option discussed above.
- This feature requires that Custom Recent Posts Layouts be enabled for the Recent Posts page.
Sort posts
You can sort posts in the following ways:
- Recently commented
- Recently created
- Top
- Trending
- Oldest
Filter posts
Click the Filters button to display the Filter Posts dialog. From here, you can filter posts in the following ways:
- Use the Post Type dropdown to select which type of content to display: Discussions, Questions, Ideas, or Polls. You can select multiple types.
NOTE: The Post Types available depend on the types enabled in your community. For example, if you don't have Questions enabled, it will not be listed.
- Use the Post Status dropdown (exclusive to Questions and Ideas) to choose one or more statuses, such as Unanswered or Accepted for Questions.
- Use the Post Engagement options to include posts with and/or without comments.
- Use the Tags dropdown to select one or more tags with which to filter the listed content.
Once applied, active filters are displayed in the header as "pills," helping you understand whether you're viewing the full list of posts or a filtered one.
This is especially useful in the following scenarios:
- Tag-filtered discussion views: When you click a tag, its Tag Card displays. From here, you can click the Posts button to view your community's Recent Posts page filtered to that tag. The tag pill will be displayed, making the list's filtered state clear.
- Sharing links to filtered views: Applying filters to a Discussion List updates the page URL, making it easy to share a filtered view with your peers; having the filter pills clearly listed helps recipients understand what types of posts they're viewing.
Remove filters
Applied filters are indicated by a checkmark on the Filters button, as shown in the images above.
- To clear all filters, click the Clear button.
- To remove one or more specific filters, click the X next to an applied filter.
Additional filters: Resolution Status & Post Engagement
Administrators and users with the appropriate permissions will see the Resolution Status and Post Engagement sections.
Resolution Status
This section includes two filters: Unresolved and Resolved.
- Use these filters to only view posts meeting one of these statuses, making it easy to pinpoint content that may need attention.
These filters are only available if the Resolved Discussions V2 addon is enabled in your community.
Post Engagement
This section includes two filters: No Comments and Has Comments.
- Use these filters to view posts based on whether they do or do not have comments (or both). This is a great way to easily pinpoint posts that aren't receiving engagement, for example.
Apply or create a custom Recent Post page layout
As mentioned above, the ability to sort and filter is currently limited to custom Recent Post page layouts.
Apply a default custom layout
If you'd like to simply use Vanilla's default custom layout, which offers the features discussed in this article:
- Access the Dashboard.
- Navigate to the Appearance tab, and then expand LAYOUTS > Recent Posts Pages.
- Click Recent Posts Layout Settings and select the Custom Recent Posts Layouts option.
- Click Save at the top right of the screen.
The default Recent Posts Page layout is now applied.
Create a custom layout
Let's walk through how to create and apply a custom Recent Posts Page layout for your community.
1. Access the Dashboard.
2. Navigate to the Appearance tab, and then expand LAYOUTS > Recent Posts Pages.
3. Click Add Custom Layout.
TIP: If you don't want to create your own custom layout, you can simply apply the Recent Posts Template.
4. At the top of the editor, click the pencil icon to edit your custom layout's name. Give it an appropriate title.
5. Custom Recent Post page layouts automatically have the Discussions List widget added (in fact, it cannot be removed), and the ability to sort and filter is also automatically available. At this point, unless you want to further customize the page (e.g., additional sections and/or widgets), the only thing left to do is set the default Sort Order in the widget (it's Recently Commented, by default).
- To set a default Sort Order, click to select the Discussions List widget, followed by the pencil icon. In the dialog, in the Display Options section, click the Default Sort Order dropdown and select your option. This will be the default sort order for the page but users are free to change it.
- To learn more about customizing a layout, including managing widgets and sections, see Create a Custom Layout.
6. When finished configuring the widget, click Save to apply your changes and close the dialog.
7. At the top right of the Layout Editor, click Save to save your custom layout. You'll be back on the Dashboard > Appearance tab with your custom layout selected.
8. The last thing to do is apply your custom layout to make sorting available to your users on the Recent Posts page. Click the elipsis (...) menu at the top right and select Apply.
9. In the popup, select the page(s) to apply the layout to, and then click Apply.
On the front end of your community, navigate to your Recent Posts page to test the Sort Order feature. Notice how the default sort option you chose earlier is automatically selected but can be changed via the dropdown.
