Can anyone provide links to sites that use Armadillo for blogging? Can Armadillo be used with the RW7 blog plugin or is it a stand alone or is it something that only works with Stacks?
It only works with Stacks. I think it is a wonderful piece of software. My current blog is here:
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Another example is here:
http://usfcte.net/blog/
As mentioned by @peterdanckwerts it only works with Stacks. It’s a brilliant product. Perhaps just as useful as the Armadillo blog is the Armadillo solo content feature: which is great when working with others on web content (not just a blog page).
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Also, it is evolving into a complete CMS. Nimblehost’s roadmap for it lists galleries, image-only content and additional user roles among forthcoming features – http://docs.nimblehost.com/armadillo#faqs-1600 – and just look at all the roadmap items which they have already delivered!
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Here’s another example from a personal site
http://www.tavstours.co.uk/blog.php
Entirely vanilla with Armadillo functionality (mainly because I haven’t got the skills to do anything else!)
Dave
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There you are, @Vinnieweaver2. Three of many satisfied customers. I always hesitate to say this, because there are many great blog solutions for RW these days, but I think that Armadillo is the best. It has the advantage that you just pay for the stacks, not on a site-by-site basis. If you only have one site, it doesn’t make any difference, of course. Anyway, it is a great solution. Other than the odd problem in installation when folders may have the wrong privileges, it is very easy to set up and even easier to use. Support from Nimblehost is extremely good, too.
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Now that I managed to get Armadillo installed on my server, can someone point me to some sites that shows what can be done with it? I am guessing (hoping?) that it can produce better than the ones referenced above. See attached to see what got when I clicked on the links.
How does one build a blog site with Armadillo?
I don’t know why going to http://tigerofthestripe.co.uk/blog doesn’t display http://tigerofthestripe.co.uk/blog/index.php but it’s a recent thing which has nothing to do with Armadillo. It did until recently. I’m not suggesting that it’s a great example, especially as I haven’t added any images recently, BUT IT DOES WORK.
@Vinnieweaver2: Okay, but the site I provided above seems to work just fine: http://usfcte.net/blog
Beyond wanting to see working blogs, what exactly would you like to see in terms of “what can be done with it”? Do you have specific questions? Specific features?
I was hoping to get a better idea of what it can and can’t d so iI can design the site around that. I was hoping to get something closer to the attached. You can see I have an Armadillo but I am still trying to get it to actually do something on the site. I may still not understand it. No flies on the developer, I may just not get how to make use of Armadillo.
@robbeattie suggested Blog Enhancement Kit. Maybe I should try that. Or maybe I should just skip it, scale back my expectations and get on with blogging instead of designing. There can be downsides to being determined 
Have you looked over the help files:
http://docs.nimblehost.com/armadillo#getting-started-1364
(The developer is quite helpful, so email him directly if you have specific questions.)
I can’t tell if you are using Armadillo for the blog in your image or not. So I don’t know where you stand, especially when you write: "You can see I have an Armadillo but I am still trying to get it to actually do something on the site. "
Armadillo can be used as a blog, to set up multiple blogs, or to create areas of content (what they call “solo content”) on any stacks page. So it all depends on what you are trying to do: one blog, multiple blogs, solo content areas, or a combination of all 3.
At any rate carefully going over the help documents should get you going.
BTW, although it is in the documentation somewhere, you need to have one page which contains the main Armadillo stack (just called Armadillo) on one page. That page should be hidden from navigation. It is the dedicated page where you connect your mySQL database to Armadillo. Once that is set up then you can add Armadillo stacks to other pages (e.g. Armadillo Solo Content stack or Armadillo Blog stack).
I have the one page dedicated to that. I included it shown in the attachment to show that it was installed. @Mathew What I meant was now that I think it is installed correctly I can’t tell what to do next. The video Jonathan made jumps to setting up the blog without saying how to get to that point. It seems to have expected people to already be familiar with Armadillo. If installing it has made some difference on my site, I don’t know what it is.
I am in contact with the developer. He is making an effort to help. We are working in different time blocks and I am trying to get this blog up and running so I am reaching out to others as well.
I have looked at the help files. I got into reading them and soon realized they don’t provide an efficient way to help me set up the website. Without images of what things are supposed to look like I have no idea if I am on the right path or not. Without detailed, step by step, instructions on how to set up the Armadillo site and all of the features available it offers I don’t know what to do. Did I miss something. Is there such instructions and I missed them somehow?
This was causing me to spend hours, sometimes days, fiddling around with software to no benefit. In short, I have abandoned reading help files that are not helpful to me.
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@Vinnieweaver2 Well this is all hard to describe via a forum in text. I will try to create a screencast later today for you. But … I just woke up in California (4 a.m.) and I won’t be able to do this until 3 or 4 p.m. my time. But I should be able to create something for you that you can use tomorrow (perhaps today, but it depends where you live).
While this following bit may not be helpful enough to you, Armadillo is really a “dance” between what you do in RW (setting things up) and what you do online (a bit of setting things up, mainly adding/editing content).
- create one page with the Armadillo stack. This is the page where you connect to the mySQL database. In essence you only use it once.
- create a login page. Not always needed, but I have a dedicated login page that visitors can’t find (it’s not in the navigation). That’s where you’ll go to login and add/edit content. Use Armadillo Login Link stack for this.
- create a new Stacks page where you want your first blog to go. Add the Armadillo Blog stack. With the Armadillo Blog stack you can give this blog a content ID. If you know it’s your very first thing give it a 1, otherwise use the Auto Create checkbox. Make sure to add a title in the box. Publish.
- go to your login page, login, then you can find your blog materials and you can start adding posts. (This part is really hard to describe well in words: it’s missing some key stuff).
Before I create any sort of tutorial it would be quite helpful to know if you can do all 4 of these steps, or at which point you are getting lost.
BTW in the photo you included things are quite confusing to me. I see Armadillo Stack in your navigation, but was this for setting up Armadillo? (See step 1) If so you want that page hidden. Your front page shows a blog: is this Armadillo (could be) or RW standard blog (could be) or something else? Again, it’s hard for me to figure out exactly where you are getting stuck. From what I see it’s possible you might want to set up several blogs (e.g. DiggsWorldView, DiggsWorldMarket) or only 1.
I have done those things and gotten this far.
I would like the side bar to be on the side. I would like to add other stacks. Can this be done?
@Vinnieweaver2 This is all too hard to answer various little bits via text. I just finished creating a “tour of Armadillo” video. It answers you questions, plus a lot more. It is 42 minutes long. Starts at the beginning. That may seem boring to you, but it’s useful as a double-check to make sure you have set things up “well”.
Currently being processed by Vimeo. Will post when ready: in about an hour. At Vimeo you can always download the 1080 HD version. Big, but perhaps more useful for quickly going to different portions of the video.