TXP Themes

jakob · 2016-10-27 06:06:07

bici wrote #302504:

Thanks again for all your good works! i am trying to implement the Agency Theme, and i am having a Brain Spasm as i cannot get the Contact form to work? i get an error: “Sorry , it seems that my mail server is not responding. Please try again later!” Do i need to add some contact.php form? or??

Updated: i notice that in the JS file contact_me.js there is a line –

$.ajax({...

Hi Bici, it looks like you’ll need to get contact_me.php from download package for the original theme. There’s a note on that page too about getting it to work.

bici · 2016-10-27 20:53:53

jakob wrote #302511:

Hi Bici, it looks like you’ll need to get contact_me.php from download package for the original theme. There’s a note on that page too about getting it to work.

thank you thank you! Adding the contact.me php file was the cats pyjamas (plus having the correct link to the actual files JS and Mail ;-) )

A Big PLUS + in using this solution is that the Email Form is very easy to style. I tried to style the TxP ZCR plugin but was not very successful. Perhaps the ZCR form could contained a css styled example for those that might struggle to add styling. i always ended up using the default.

If a CSS styled version of the ZCR could be included it would make it very useful. i have never managed to stye the ZCR as i never know where to add the TXP tags etc. having an example would be very helpful. Itried combing the css style from the bootstrap contact section to work with the ZCR but failed.

Chris H · 2017-12-07 20:41:49

Hi, and thanks for the themes!
I gave a go at the blog theme you offer. But I couldn’t get it to look/work as it does on your site.
I’m on 4.61. Is this theme compatible with that version, or am I just doing it wrong?

Somewhat off topic;

Why, after all these years, does Theming Textpattern still suck so bad! :)

Thanks, again.

—Chris

Bloke · 2017-12-07 23:57:36

Chris H wrote #308171:

I’m on 4.61. Is this theme compatible with that version, or am I just doing it wrong?

Should work fine. I don’t think there’s anything in the theme that would prevent you from getting it to work. What steps did you go through to get it going?

Why, after all these years, does Theming Textpattern still suck so bad! :)

Because you’re a few days early from theme support landing in the Textpattern code :-)

bici · 2017-12-08 01:11:28

Personally. I think Theming is overrated.
Form follows Function

Bloke · 2017-12-08 11:11:35

bici wrote #308177:

Personally. I think Theming is overrated.

Aye. But handy for getting a leg-up until you’re comfortable with the system or want a head-start with a good basis to tweak. Or, in the case of WordPress, a theme that’s so difficult to alter that you leave it alone so your site looks exactly like every other site on the planet.

We’re taking a slightly more pragmatic approach to themes which, I hope, will even benefit long-standing citizens. The big benefit – to a hacker like me at least – is that it’ll allow me to evolve a site on a Live install using live data, without having to worry about the old ‘staging’ server concept and syncing databases.

Clone the existing theme. Call it what you like, make changes, test it right there in your browser (if you’re logged in, you see the entire site running in the new theme) and nobody else is any wiser – anyone not logged in sees the site as it always was.

When you/client are good and ready with the design, just go to Presentation->Sections and update which sections (en-masse if you wish) you want to use the new theme. Everyone else immediately sees those changes. No DB sync dance. No faffing with migrating data. Bliss.

Oh, and did I mention you can export and import themes to disk so that version control can be applied to them?

Granted, we haven’t figured out prefs and plugins yet, but that will come I’m sure, as we have the framework (mainly thanks to makss’ tireless work) built to handle file-based installation, and auto-installs, and file-based pref loading (even file-based article/category content), so we can hook into those wonders in future.

Honestly, I think you’ll like it.

Chris H · 2017-12-08 18:43:09

Bloke wrote #308176:

Should work fine. I don’t think there’s anything in the theme that would prevent you from getting it to work. What steps did you go through to get it going?

Because you’re a few days early from theme support landing in the Textpattern code :-)

Bloke, thank you very much for the kind response. :)

I imagine it’s probably me (my lack of better familiarity txp finctions, as they relate to visual formatting).
What I did? In the admin panel; duplicate “default”, rename it, clear the form content, paste the (new) theme content into the form. Save,. Then apply that theme to article(s). Oh! I should also note; I removed the content from between the tags (article content, predefined menu items, and all the other “demo” content. :)

I think I’ll simply need to take more time to better understand how it all comes together.

Because you’re a few days early from theme support landing in the Textpattern code :-)

Oh great. Now after learning as much as I have, I get to start all over?! ;)

Seriously. I didn’t mean to sound disparaging. I’ve been trying to get just the right Content
Management system on all my domains for years, and I keep coming back to Textpattern.
I find it fairly intuitive, and elegant in it’s simplicity. I really want to make it my last attempt
to “find” the right CMS to use for all my domains. I really want to make Textpattern that
CMS. But the show stopper has always been, branding. My sites should be mine. They should
all reflect their intent; both visually as well as the content within. I should not have to look like
a Textpattern website clone. But I have always found that arranging, and styling that arrangement
in Textpattern to be too prohibitive for my circumstances.

I have over 80 domains — sites, if you wil. That’s a lot of work. I’ve already created the
layout, and style. As well as graphics. They’re all the way I want them. But translating those looks
into “Textpatternese” isn’t as intuitive as I would have hoped/wanted/needed. :(

Make no mistake; I’m quite proficient with (x)HTML_5, and CSS, and while I’m good at
Perl, and JavaScript. I do as much as I can to avoid the use of JavaScript. It’s evil, and unnecessary.
Well, it’s used by evil people to accomplish evil things. :) It’s unnecessary, because most of the
things it’s used for, can already be done with CSS. If you can do it in JavaScript, I can do it in
CSS — really. :) I digress…

I guess the point I was trying to make, is that I’m very comfortable, and very familiar with
making pages accomplish anything I want them to. So my difficulties are not with the CSS/HTML
spec. But with Textpattern’ way of permitting me to express that attained knowledge/skill.

Whew, those were a lot of words to try and say: “I know how to make the web sites all look the
way I want. I just can’t find a good way to do the same in Textpattern.”

Sorry. :)

Anyway. The news about the upcoming version looks promising. But I’m a bit apprehensive about
all the new, and additional libraries; sass/javascript/…

I’m also not keen on the fact it’s on GitHub. 1) because they dropped textile, and 2) because they
dropped support for many browsers.

As a result. I, myself, as well as many of the projects I’m involved with. All moved to GitLab.
Nice thing is; they support almost all browsers well, and you as a user, have the ability to
help guide GitLab’s future. I think any platform that has that kind of attitude deserves
support . They choose an INclusive policy. As opposed to the EXclusive policy that GitHub
chose.

This also means that more people will be able to see, and get involved with your project,
than they will on GitHub. Oh, and NASA uses them, as well as a lot of other groups, and
companies I love, and respect. :) Oh, and also; I don’t work for GitLab, I guess I just really
like their attitude.

Whew! This has turned into a bit of a Novella. Sorry. I guess I have quite a bit of built up
anxiety, and frustration over this Textpattern thing.

Sorry, and thanks for listening.

All the best.

—Chris

Chris H · 2017-12-08 18:50:43

@bici

Personally. I think Theming is overrated.
Form follows Function

To which I can only say;

You never get a second chance, to make a first impression. :)

—Chris

bici · 2017-12-08 19:14:19

Bloke wrote #308183:

Honestly, I think you’ll like it.

ok. perhaps this old dog can still muster to learn a few new tricks
taking off his old codger hat

Bloke · 2017-12-08 21:17:58

Chris H wrote #308188:

What I did? [snip]

Sounds like you took the right approach. I tend to look around the web for sites I like, ~~steal~~ pay homage to the template via the View Source link and then rip out the static bits and replace them with my own. Tweak the Stylesheet. Job done. Lots of stuff on html5up.net for inspiration that I’ve borrowed for sites.

Now after learning as much as I have, I get to start all over?! ;)

Hehe, hopefully it’s building on concepts already present. Once you get the basics down and tinker with some things, it does start to click. And using XML-style tags to drop in dynamic content in a sea of static HTML is a world away from having to learn PHP to do it.

the show stopper has always been, branding. My sites should be mine. They should
all reflect their intent; both visually as well as the content within. I should not have to look like a Textpattern website clone. But I have always found that arranging, and styling that arrangement in Textpattern to be too prohibitive for my circumstances.

I hear ya. The out-of-the-box template is just that: a template. Phil has gone to great lengths to document the default Pages and Forms with inline comments to help you see what each tag or segment does. That should allow you to start experimenting with tags and attributes. And if anything’s unclear based on feedback we get, we change it or streamline it. The template’s on GitHub (like it or not! I do have a GitLab account actually, just not used it in anger yet).

The proof that you can do striking sites that don’t look Textpatterny is all over the place, a few robbed from our home page or other places I know:

AllThose
Art and Culture Center
Artedomus
Mosman city council Yes, the entire council site!

It just takes a bit of craft to get over the learning hump. And that’s where we come in here, or on TxpTips. Search the forum, ask questions, find out tips ‘n trick, then tinker. We’re here to help.

jakob · 2017-12-08 22:25:02

You sound like you know your way around web things, so textpattern should be a doddle for you ;-)

Oh great. Now after learning as much as I have, I get to start all over?! ;)

;-) Actually, there’s nothing to worry about. The basic principles of page templates, forms and txp:tags are the same as they have always been. It’s only the way of packaging them in themes that is new, and that is pretty much a direct reflection of the pattern you see on the Presentation tab, except as files and folders.

But the show stopper has always been branding. My sites should be mine. They should all reflect their intent; both visually as well as the content within. I should not have to look like a Textpattern website clone.

I’d say that’s pretty much what textpattern can do. As much as I admire the simplicity of Phil’s starting template, I always start from scratch. You can craft your page HTML almost exactly how you want it, which means you can produce almost any layout you want.

I have over 80 domains — sites … That’s a lot of work. I’ve already created the layout, and style. As well as graphics.

If your sites are on the same server and follow similar patterns, you may find the multisite option very useful. It’s existed for a long time, but has recently been reworked for the upcoming 4.7 (this branch). I’ve been using this in an earlier iteration for a while now for a few sites run by the same organisation that share similar elements. In combination with working on the templates as flat files e.g. with oui_flat rather than through the admin interface (and site specific repos if you want to, too, in my case on gitlab like you mention), you can share some common resources across multiple sites. Example directory setup:


/libs
  /sass
  /css
  /scripts
  /vendors
/sites
  /site-a
  /site-b
  /site-c
  /site-d
/textpattern

Each site has its own front end and admin area, and each site can have its own templates and styling, but you only have one installation of textpattern for them all. You only need base stuff on the common bits you want. It works nicely if you have a collection of base sass files you use as a library of styled components, and have your site-specific styling on top of that. If you find you need to update a styled component (e.g. maybe remove some no longer needed browser prefix, or to update normalize.css), or update a javascript file (e.g. a slider) across all the sites, or you want to update textpattern for all your sites, you just need to update the respective item and recompile your css files.

That said …

github, sass …

… you don’t need github at all for textpattern, likewise sass, node, grunt, npm or any of those helpers. You can still write good old HTML and CSS, break your page down into sensible chunks and sew them together with txp tags.

Chris H · 2017-12-09 01:30:07

Bloke wrote #308193:

Sounds like you took the right approach. I tend to look around the web for sites I like, ~~steal~~ pay homage to the template via the View Source link and then rip out the static bits and replace them with my own. Tweak the Stylesheet. Job done. Lots of stuff on html5up.net for inspiration that I’ve borrowed for sites.

Hehe, hopefully it’s building on concepts already present. Once you get the basics down and tinker with some things, it does start to click. And using XML-style tags to drop in dynamic content in a sea of static HTML is a world away from having to learn PHP to do it.

I hear ya. The out-of-the-box template is just that: a template. Phil has gone to great lengths to document the default Pages and Forms with inline comments to help you see what each tag or segment does. That should allow you to start experimenting with tags and attributes. And if anything’s unclear based on feedback we get, we change it or streamline it. The template’s on GitHub (like it or not! I do have a GitLab account actually, just not used it in anger yet).

The proof that you can do striking sites that don’t look Textpatterny is all over the place, a few robbed from our home page or other places I know:

AllThose

Art and Culture Center

Artedomus

Mosman city council Yes, the entire council site!

It just takes a bit of craft to get over the learning hump. And that’s where we come in here, or on TxpTips. Search the forum, ask questions, find out tips ‘n trick, then tinker. We’re here to help.

A big thanks to you, Bloke! I must admit, much of what I grumbled about was just the frustration
(see; lazy) of knowing I had (already) made my decision, and was just going to have to work it out, no matter how hard it seemed initially. :-)

and because misery loves company; ahem… and because I knew it would be great to get some quick answers to my seemingly stupid questions; I thought I’d test the waters here at the Forum, and boy, am I glad I did — you guys are great! Thank you! :-)

Gives me much hope for a smooth ride/transition. Much appreciated!

As to Phil’s“default” KISS — Keep It Simple Stupid, Theme. I’m glad he did it the way he did. Honestly, IMHO he made the right decision. Flooding “newbies”, not unlike myself, with technical data (unfamiliar tags, and other markup) I think, just overwhelms newcomers. It would just seem too far out of reach. So I have nothing derogatory to say about that theme. I only referenced it; in regards to not wanting my site(s) to look like a Textpattern mirror, or clone. Not that there is anything wrong with Textpattern. Just that I wanted my site(s) to like like my site(s). :-)

Well. I think I’d better get to figuring out how to get Textpattern to present my already created layout, and markup the way it is. Or get my layout, and markup to use Textpattern — however it’s intended to work. :P

Thanks for taking the time to provide some helpful references, and wisdom, Bloke! All the best to you!

—Chris

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#13 2016-10-27 06:06:07

Re: TXP Themes

bici wrote #302504:

#14 2016-10-27 20:53:53

Re: TXP Themes

jakob wrote #302511:

#15 2017-12-07 20:41:49

Re: TXP Themes

#16 2017-12-07 23:57:36

Re: TXP Themes

Chris H wrote #308171:

#17 2017-12-08 01:11:28

Re: TXP Themes

#18 2017-12-08 11:11:35

Re: TXP Themes

bici wrote #308177:

#19 2017-12-08 18:43:09

Re: TXP Themes

Bloke wrote #308176:

#20 2017-12-08 18:50:43

Re: TXP Themes

#21 2017-12-08 19:14:19

Re: TXP Themes

Bloke wrote #308183:

#22 2017-12-08 21:17:58

Re: TXP Themes

Chris H wrote #308188:

#23 2017-12-08 22:25:02

Re: TXP Themes

#24 2017-12-09 01:30:07

Re: TXP Themes

Bloke wrote #308193:

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