More custom template flexibility

Last May, we added some expressions to our templating language to make it easier for you to customize your blog’s look and feel. These new expressions proved popular with those of you who enjoy advanced blogging tools, so we wanted to offer you even more flexibility.

Starting today, we’re introducing a new set of operators, which we’re calling lambda expressions, that allow you to apply rules to whole sets of data (think posts, comments, or labels), rather than just individual instances. 

Let’s say you wanted to add a flower image to all posts with the label “Flower,” for example. With lambda expressions, simply define a variable name that each item in the set will take, and then refer to the variable name as though it were each item.

<!-- Show a Flower image if the post has the label flower -->

<b:if cond='data:post.labels any (l => l.name == "Flower")'>

 <img src=’/img/flower.jpg’ />

<b:if/>

An example of adding a flower icon to posts labelled 'Flower'

There’s lots more that you can do using lambda expressions, like only showing posts in your feed with a given label or quickly calculating how many posts you have with a given number of comments. For a full list of the new lambda expressions available, check out the help forum.

Happy Blogging! 😃

Posted by Luke, Software Engineer