I need to customise a layout i found...

kingkongballs · 2006-08-04 10:21:18

Hi. I found a layout called Yakuza, and i need to know how to customise it with Textpattern.

I emailed the author but he doesnt have time to help me and suggested i post here.

I’m a total idiot when it comes to textpattern, and I have been looking for a way to customise sites using it to save me a lot of time. The template is good and I can work around it in many ways, however, the problems I’m having are these.

1. the main info left in the index page (about the template credits etc) is static. How would I change that area to body new articles written that are normally displayed on the home page? (through TP)

2. pretty much the same for the ‘About’ section on the right too, is there a way I could input various text from another section within textpattern and display it there instead?

3. when it comes to the links on the side and bottom, what do I link them to? Is it a matter of creating new article categories?

-for the theme please visit http://textpattern.org/templates/537/yakuza

Any help at all would be brilliant. My current install is at www.cronus-corp.com/tp if you want to take a look.

thanks – i hope someone can help me!

alexandra · 2006-08-04 16:48:51

Template Yakuza

No1 – i do not understand your question

No2 – yes, you can use a tag called article_custom (see Textbook for further information) and filter articles from other sections

No3. if you have f. e. a contact page you have to have a section called f. e. contact. From your entry site you link to the contactpage: http://yourdomain.com/tp/contact.

In other words: you set up a section named ‘contact’, create a page ‘contact’, tell your section contact it shall use page ‘contact’ and link from entry page to contact like above.

PS
If you do not mind using a template and just want a blog you easily can set up within a day, consider using Serendipity. It´s a great blogCMS, dead easy to use and the best i came ever across for fast success. Learning curve is not steep. And they have a very nice forum too.

Last edited by alexandra (2006-08-04 17:04:15)

jakob · 2006-08-04 18:08:01

1. If you mean the main text area (Yakuza, McVille makes txp template…), make sure you’re using the contents of index.txt for your page template rather than index.html.

That file includes the txp tags and should show you the first five articles in the articles section as long text and the next five in short form. You have to create the articles in the section articles. If I’m not mistaken you’ll also need to create the forms “front_article_long” and “front_article_short”. McVille says it uses the standard forms but I don’t see those form names in my standard install.

I presume front_article_long shows txp:title and txp:body, perhaps author, date and separator, and front_article_short just shows txp:title or txp:title and txp:excerpt. You can, of course, put your articles in a different section but you’ll need to change the section for the txp:article_custom tags to section=“mysection”…

3. yes, what alexandra said. Alternatively you use one of the section_menu tags or a plug-in to list out an unordered list menu of the sections you have. That way when you make a new section, the menu will extend on its own. That’s the way it could/should have been set up.

general:
You’ll need to clean up the index.txt template quite a bit and make it fit your requirements, as McVille has left all sort of stuff in there from his setup, which you will likely not need (e.g. duplicate headers, various own links etc.).

I think you struck a little unlucky with your choice of template. It looks good but IMHO more effort could have been made to integrate with txp. I’ve not tested it but looking at it I don’t think it will work as you might expect it to ‘straight out of the box’. The main infos are there, though, so with a little tinkering you can get it working without any problems.

kingkongballs · 2006-08-04 18:53:19

Thanks to both of you for your replies.

Long story short, i cannot be bothered to design pages and sections of websites anymore. I have people who want maybe 15 pages and it’s a pain in the ass, neck and back to do them all. I’d rather use a CMS and only do 1/2 of the work.

I picked this layout because it fits the basic standards that most people require, navigation on the left, content in the middle, ad’s or whatever on the right, but as Jakob said, there’s a lot that needs doing.

I’ve looked at a few CMS’ like Joomla and i cant find a way to customise with my designs. I’ll have a look at serendipity and see if i can get any joy out of that.

Most importantly for me is that my users can edit pages themselves without calling me at 3am to copy and paste something new in their news section.

I’ve looked at a few blog systems, but i have to find a way to intergrate those with the complex designs people want. I’m more of a designer than a coder/programmer

:(

thanks once again, i’ll take all of the above into consideration over the weekend.

masa · 2006-08-04 19:41:51

There’s another alternative:

Design the basic framework of your template with placeholder text/-images in the programme you are used to, e.g. a visual editor. Make sure it’s well-formatted and validates; same goes for your CSS. Save that as a template in Textpattern.

Then substitute your placeholder content with the respective Textpattern tags. Study Textpattern’s default template to get an idea of what goes where, like for instance the <code><txp:article /></code> tag will replace what’s in your main content area.

You might find the info posted <a href=“http://forum.textpattern.com/viewtopic.php?id=17668” title=“How do i implement textpattern into an existing layout?”>here</a> helpful.

Cheers Martin

hcgtv · 2006-08-04 19:42:34

Hi,

Have you looked at the ready made templates at TextGardern ?

I also went towards dynamic sites because I didn’t want to be bothered with small changes. What you’ll find is that no two systems are alike as far as templating goes, so what you learn from one cannot be applied to another. So pick your CMS wisely, since there is a bit of a learning curve involved no matter what you choose.

kingkongballs · 2006-08-05 19:01:49

masa wrote:

There’s another alternative:

Design the basic framework of your template with placeholder text/-images in the programme you are used to, e.g. a visual editor. Make sure it’s well-formatted and validates; same goes for your CSS. Save that as a template in Textpattern.

Then substitute your placeholder content with the respective Textpattern tags. Study Textpattern’s default template to get an idea of what goes where, like for instance the <code><txp:article /></code> tag will replace what’s in your main content area.

You might find the info posted <a href=“http://forum.textpattern.com/viewtopic.php?id=17668” title=“How do i implement textpattern into an existing layout?”>here</a> helpful.

Cheers Martin

Thanks for that. I guess what i’ll have to do is as you said, study the default template, i just dont have the brain power for it right now.

hcgtv

I looked at textgarden, it’s similar to the templates on textpattern.org, if not exactly the same.
I guess there’s no avoiding it, i’ll have to sit down and read and make sense of everything. I’m sure you guys did at some point, so there’s no real reason (other than being lazy) that i shouldnt.

thanks

masa · 2006-08-05 19:24:38

kingkongballs wrote:

I guess what i’ll have to do is as you said, study the default template, i just dont have the brain power for it right now.

If you’re on a deadline then it’s certainly not the right time to dive into it.

I’m not a programmer type and it took me weeks to get the hang of Textpattern, but once I did, I quickly came to realise how powerful and well-documented it is. It just needs some time to sink in.

Cheers Martin

jakob · 2006-08-05 20:39:31

Some of the templates are better than others. The Yakuza is just a css file. Take a look for instance at kevin pott’s sapphire (download from textplates) for an example of one that’s been carefully thought through and well-formed.

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#1 2006-08-04 10:21:18

I need to customise a layout i found...

#2 2006-08-04 16:48:51

Re: I need to customise a layout i found...

#3 2006-08-04 18:08:01

Re: I need to customise a layout i found...

#4 2006-08-04 18:53:19

Re: I need to customise a layout i found...

#5 2006-08-04 19:41:51

Re: I need to customise a layout i found...

#6 2006-08-04 19:42:34

Re: I need to customise a layout i found...

#7 2006-08-05 19:01:49

Re: I need to customise a layout i found...

#8 2006-08-05 19:24:38

Re: I need to customise a layout i found...

#9 2006-08-05 20:39:31

Re: I need to customise a layout i found...

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