Use Textpattern to allow a client to easily edit different types?

Dorian Graph · 2011-02-19 08:56:40

Hello, I absolutely love TXP so far and I have a question: I recently created http://www.alanaastonphotography.com/ for that business and at the moment it’s a static site and I would like to use TXP as the CMS behind it but I don’t quite understand how. For example, I know how to do everything myself and for a client I could probably set up a weblog easily enough but for a site like that (The photography one) how would I use TXP to allow the client to edit the text, add/change/remove images from the galleries, etc?

There are seemingly wonderfully complex sites using TXP like the French gallery which is so much more complex than the site I made and I would like to know how they make such a site that where the content is easily edited by the client.

I’ve gone through resources and I’m obviously quite new but at the moment I feel I don’t quite ‘get it.’ So, if you have any help, if there are any well written guides, etc please do share. I’ll be grateful for any type of help. Is it effective and easy to use clearly labeled pages like “Testimonials-one”, “Portfolio-Weddings”, etc and have page templates that call/include, for example, the page “Testimonials-one” ?

I also use TXP for my own website albeit in a basic way (Contact form so far the rest is static).

Last edited by Dorian Graph (2011-02-19 09:01:11)

jakob · 2011-02-19 10:41:48

Hi Dorian/Jesse,

For the kind of site you mention, it is quite straightforward:

txp allows you to have different users for the admin area with different editing rights: you as the designer can have full admin rights and can edit the whole site, presentation and content, while your client can be assigned publisher rights, enabling her to edit text articles, create categories and upload images but not the site design.

For example for the site you mention you could set it up as follows:

create sections for “portfolio”, “testimonials”, “services & prices”, “about us & contact us”. The home page is the “default” section in textpattern.
Create articles in the respective sections for the editable text sections of your sections. It is up to you whether you create a single article with several parts (you can include html in the articles if you start the line with a space which tells textile not convert the text for things like your divs) or if you create several articles and make your page template display them how you want them, e.g.
- for the “testimonials” page you could have an article per testimonial and assign an article-image for the associated image and make the page template list the articles in the repeating format. You needn’t necessarily link to each testimonial as its own page, you can make your page template only show an article_list without permlinks to the actual individual articles (e.g. you make no provision for showing the individual_article). If your client creates a new article assigned to the “testimonial” section, it gets automatically added.
- for the tabs on the “prices and services, you could make one article per tab and make your template output the articles in separate tabs with the tab menu up front. You can use the txp:article and txp:article_custom tags more than once on a page template, e.g. once for the tab menu and again for the corresponding divs with the content of each tab.
for small snippets of text that needs to be editable but is not an actual page in itself, you can create articles and then incorporate only what you need of it by using txp:article_custom with the id="123" attribute to call a specific article number.

For the portfolio page I see you are using galleria which makes things easy. I would suggest making a parent category (more specifically: an image category) such as “portfolio” and sub-categories “weddings”, “engagements”, “portraits and other” image categories. Your client can then upload new images and need only assign them to the relevant category for them to appear. Adding a new gallery is as simple as creating a new image sub-category and adding images to it.
On the portfolio page you construct your tab ul-list as a list of subcategories of the parent-category “portfolio” using txp:category_list and then output the galleria ul-lists for each of your categories using txp’s image tags

Use txp’s page templates to create the source code for each type of page format, e.g. you can use the same page template for different sections if they have the same basic structure. If you have sections that differ only slightly, you can still use the same page template and use txp:if_section to make it behave you wish for the respective section. Use txp’s forms for repeating sections – for example the code for each testimonial block or for each content tab – and for elements that are the same site-wide (e.g. header, footer, site navigation).

To give you a better idea of how txp combines articles into a page (either as list or individually), see this description in the txp docs and the articles linked at the end. They are quite long but after that you have a better idea of how txp works.

I’m sure you’ll come up against further questions as you work through it – just ask here and someone will I’m sure be able to help.

Last edited by jakob (2011-02-19 10:43:29)

Dorian Graph · 2011-02-21 01:39:13

jakob, you’re a God among men. That was concise, intelligently laid out and simply makes sense. I do see though there is much I need to learn. You’ve answered my questions.. +1,000 to TXP community.

maruchan · 2011-02-21 05:47:25

I coached a friend through this recently. The first step was just to copy & paste his live site’s code (from “view source”) right into the default page template. Everything still worked of course, but now his site was “actually powered by Textpattern.”

Once that was done, a few next steps:

1. Fill out details in Preferences like “site title” and “site slogan”
2. Put a site_name tag into the default page template, like inside <title> tag or (more commonly) in an <h1> somewhere.
3. Reload the website and verify that it is displaying the correct site title.

This way at least you know that txp tags are working in your markup, and you can begin to explore how to insert articles and things.

I thought about putting this into video form for Textpattern beginners, as I do lots of videos, but I’m pretty new to Textpattern so I fear that I’d end up suggesting something idiotic.

FWIW the hardest part for my beginner friend was actually figuring out how sections and categories and forms and pages and articles all worked together. I’ve found that if you can think of pages as “page templates” you’ll probably have a leg up on most.

However this same friend is EXTREMELY happy with Textpattern and feels like his life has been changed. That’s something, considering that he’s already used another CMS before.

I also highly recommend the Textpattern Solutions book. I still like to re-read it for the examples.

Good luck!

Last edited by maruchan (2011-02-21 05:50:01)

merz1 · 2011-02-21 15:13:58

I also highly recommend the Textpattern Solutions book.

Vote +1. The Textpattern Solutions book (page through on Google books) covers an older version but the basics and 98% are still valid (and good written).

Dorian Graph · 2011-04-26 05:14:40

Just so you all don’t feel as if your help went unheeded and ignored, the client’s site I mentioned is currently ‘complete’ though not using TXP, it’s currently a hackneyed static site though my own site uses TXP to a certain extent.

I’m currently working on another client’s website and I’ve been putting into action all the things mentioned here and it’s going very well so far! I’ve planned and built with Textpattern in mind as opposed to previously building the site and then trying to implement Textpattern — I’ve been checking the documentation heavily too (For each tag I’ve used, I’ve read through it — I’m currently reading about search_input so I can customise how it looks as it’s not displaying how I think it should with my code, notably, the text isn’t floating next to the input box), using the built-in file + image manager, etc.

Edit: Okay, I may need some guidance in customising search_input. What are the general HTML objects that I’ll change using CSS? For example, the button, remove the text “Search” and leave the button, etc?

It’s funny, I liked Textpattern before without having even used it correctly and having begun to do so now, I’m loving it. I’ve been doing a lot of programming lately (Java + Python) for university which has been helping me too in general concerning certain aspects of programming.

So, thank you again. Once this site is done, I will re-do my own website and that photography one to be truly powered by Textpattern (Like your friend, maruchan :P)!

Last edited by Dorian Graph (2011-04-26 05:24:33)

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#1 2011-02-19 08:56:40

Use Textpattern to allow a client to easily edit different types?

#2 2011-02-19 10:41:48

Re: Use Textpattern to allow a client to easily edit different types?

#3 2011-02-21 01:39:13

Re: Use Textpattern to allow a client to easily edit different types?

#4 2011-02-21 05:47:25

Re: Use Textpattern to allow a client to easily edit different types?

#5 2011-02-21 15:13:58

Re: Use Textpattern to allow a client to easily edit different types?

#6 2011-04-26 05:14:40

Re: Use Textpattern to allow a client to easily edit different types?

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