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Modifying the sample site's templates

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Chuck Knight	Sunday 11 January 2004 1:23:44 pm Context: I installed the "Corporate"sample site, with the assumption that, since it matched my final objective quite closely, it would be "easily" modifiable to get what I wanted. Leaving the infinite frustrations of almost un-useable documentation aside, I must confess that I am starting to doubt that I am using the software as intended: * Look at templates from the admin interface: 37 pages of templates that are not the ones actually producing my site pages (all in admin/xyz???) * Try to follow instructions from the tutorial but customizing them to the "corporate" sample I installed: forget it, a million "misterious"mixes of protected files, caches that NEVER clear, eternal .var files, horrible mazes of trying to understand where in hell THAT particular behavior comes from (e.g., the headers in the corporate layout) * Try to trace the operation of the system. Forget it. All instructions on how to print templates and other objects as they are invokes are flawed. You get only one piece, never the whole story. The questions: * Are the templates INTENDED to be modified, so that users accelerate implementations? For example, has anybody modified the "corporate" sample of 3.3 to produce a working site? If so, would you mind sharing your experiences with me (see my email address below)? * Is there any use for the 37 pages of templates accessible from the admin interface? What role do they have? * When, after spending hours tracing down something, you understand that you need to change, say, core.css. Do you just change it on the ste's file system, or should you use some variation of the admin interface too misterious to grasp? I ask that because it's literally impossible to get eZp to follow the supposed behavior of Override --> Site --> Standard: the ./var files will NEVER DIE! * Why have very detailed cache clearing menu entries in the admin interface if none of them REALLY does anything? Is thata behavior only native to the sample files? Any help will be appreciated. If you are an eZp specialist, and prefer to charge me for your help, please contact me at cc_asap@yahoo.com. Thanks ck
Chuck Knight	Monday 12 January 2004 8:05:58 am Mark, thanks for your support! Let me make use of your offer, and use this channel to ask you a couple of questions... If you would prefer me to contact you privately please let me know how at cc_asap@yahoo.com and I will clear out of this forum. You say: > The corporate site tries to use CSS for all layout - I > initially tried to stick with this but couldn't achieve > what I wanted (in fact even the standard coprorate > site didn't seem to display correctly IE6/XP). I then > checked ez.no site itself and noted it used tables. > [snip] I hacked that to use tables instead of CSS. :) I love it... I went as far as buying sitepoint.com's excellent book on replacing tables with CSS, as well as every other book I could find in the local B&N on the subject... But I am stuck... Any hints on how to start mixing tables in templates? Do you just use something like Dreamweaver? I assume you stay away from fixed-measure tables? > soon realised there were hard-coded references to > 'corporate' in some of the templates. Same here. I just decided to keep the site called "Corporate" :) The URLs suffer, but hey, they are not perfect in a Non-Virtual Host setup to start with... > I got the impression you shouldn't change core.css > so I only modified my own kdrec.css file and that > seems to be fine. There's a lot in there you don't > really need (it seems!). After training myself on CSS, I actually like core.css. The problem I had with modifying was two-fold: * Why hasn't the override mechanism extend to CSS? It would seem logical, specially considering how CSS works. * Every time I edit core.css I have to brute-force write it to the cache, because my cache is eternal: nothing kills it :) Did that happen to you too, when you tried to replace graphics that came with the template, such as the logo? > It is also still rather a movable feast and you can > see look and feel things being stored tentatively in > the database - I just steered clear of these as they > seem a bit of a kludge just now. That was one of my key questions, thanks for bringing it up... Two of the most misterious behaviors I have encountered are: 1. My admin interface puts out alerts about me having modified the site.ini file off-line for values contained in the "Look and Feel" section. In retrospect, that is a COOL piece of functionality, but... 2. All of the sudden, copies of my pagelayout.tpl showed up in their respective directories "deprecated" and renamed #pagelayout.tpl#... (?!) 1. and 2. above started me thinking that perhaps the ONLY way to modify the templates was through the interface... just to find out that the key site templates are NOT reachable through it... Can I assume from your comment that you do all editing on .tpl, .css directly on the file system? Is that true of .ini files as well? and finally: Do you store the graphic files of your look and feel as content? (I seem to understand that you don't, but I want to make sure...) Thanks a lot for taking the time to support this newbie. I immensely appreciate it Cheers ck

Author

Message

Sunday 11 January 2004 1:23:44 pm

Context:
I installed the "Corporate"sample site, with the assumption that, since it matched my final objective quite closely, it would be "easily" modifiable to get what I wanted.

Leaving the infinite frustrations of almost un-useable documentation aside, I must confess that I am starting to doubt that I am using the software as intended:

* Look at templates from the admin interface: 37 pages of templates that are not the ones actually producing my site pages (all in admin/xyz???)

* Try to follow instructions from the tutorial but customizing them to the "corporate" sample I installed: forget it, a million "misterious"mixes of protected files, caches that NEVER clear, eternal .var files, horrible mazes of trying to understand where in hell THAT particular behavior comes from (e.g., the headers in the corporate layout)

* Try to trace the operation of the system. Forget it. All instructions on how to print templates and other objects as they are invokes are flawed. You get only one piece, never the whole story.

The questions:
* Are the templates INTENDED to be modified, so that users accelerate implementations? For example, has anybody modified the "corporate" sample of 3.3 to produce a working site? If so, would you mind sharing your experiences with me (see my email address below)?
* Is there any use for the 37 pages of templates accessible from the admin interface? What role do they have?
* When, after spending hours tracing down something, you understand that you need to change, say, core.css. Do you just change it on the ste's file system, or should you use some variation of the admin interface too misterious to grasp? I ask that because it's literally impossible to get eZp to follow the supposed behavior of Override --> Site --> Standard: the ./var files will NEVER DIE!
* Why have very detailed cache clearing menu entries in the admin interface if none of them REALLY does anything? Is thata behavior only native to the sample files?

Any help will be appreciated. If you are an eZp specialist, and prefer to charge me for your help, please contact me at cc_asap@yahoo.com. Thanks

Chuck Knight

Monday 12 January 2004 8:05:58 am

Mark, thanks for your support!

Let me make use of your offer, and use this channel to ask you a couple of questions... If you would prefer me to contact you privately please let me know how at cc_asap@yahoo.com and I will clear out of this forum.

You say:

> The corporate site tries to use CSS for all layout - I
> initially tried to stick with this but couldn't achieve
> what I wanted (in fact even the standard coprorate
> site didn't seem to display correctly IE6/XP). I then
> checked ez.no site itself and noted it used tables.
> [snip] I hacked that to use tables instead of CSS.

:) I love it... I went as far as buying sitepoint.com's excellent book on replacing tables with CSS, as well as every other book I could find in the local B&N on the subject... But I am stuck... Any hints on how to start mixing tables in templates? Do you just use something like Dreamweaver? I assume you stay away from fixed-measure tables?

> soon realised there were hard-coded references to
> 'corporate' in some of the templates.

Same here. I just decided to keep the site called "Corporate" :) The URLs suffer, but hey, they are not perfect in a Non-Virtual Host setup to start with...

> I got the impression you shouldn't change core.css > so I only modified my own kdrec.css file and that
> seems to be fine. There's a lot in there you don't
> really need (it seems!).

After training myself on CSS, I actually *like* core.css. The problem I had with modifying was two-fold:
* Why hasn't the override mechanism extend to CSS? It would seem logical, specially considering how CSS works.
* Every time I edit core.css I have to brute-force write it to the cache, because my cache is eternal: nothing kills it :) Did that happen to you too, when you tried to replace graphics that came with the template, such as the logo?

> It is also still rather a movable feast and you can
> see look and feel things being stored tentatively in
> the database - I just steered clear of these as they
> seem a bit of a kludge just now.

That was one of my key questions, thanks for bringing it up... Two of the most misterious behaviors I have encountered are:

1. My admin interface puts out alerts about me having modified the site.ini file off-line for values contained in the "Look and Feel" section. In retrospect, that is a COOL piece of functionality, but...

2. All of the sudden, copies of my pagelayout.tpl showed up in their respective directories "deprecated" and renamed #pagelayout.tpl#... (?!)

1. and 2. above started me thinking that perhaps the ONLY way to modify the templates was through the interface... just to find out that the key site templates are NOT reachable through it...

Can I assume from your comment that you do all editing on .tpl, .css directly on the file system? Is that true of .ini files as well? and finally:
Do you store the graphic files of your look and feel as content? (I seem to understand that you don't, but I want to make sure...)

Thanks a lot for taking the time to support this newbie. I immensely appreciate it

Cheers
ck