Very basic problem just getting started

[tryharder]

Hello,

I am on a shared hosting service running  apache-1.3.37; php-5.2.3 and  MySQL - 5.0.41.

I have installed CMSMS 1.6.6 "Bonde".

I have read much of your documentation and am very excited to try your CMS. I have attempted to create a page, my own template and style sheet however for the life of me I cannot get my one page to reflect the changes that I believe I have made.

I started with your "Mimimal template" and modified it to use my copy of "MyFirstTemplate". It was modifed to use the h3 tag instead of h2 is was also modifed to use the menu "my_minimal_menu" which is a copy of "minimal_menu.tpl". I made no modifications to "minimal_menu.tpl".

I associated two stylesheets to MyFisrtTemplate,  mycontentstyle and myMenuStyleSheet which have mimimal styles.

My page does not reflect any of the style changes and I am apparently making a very basic mistake. Below are screenshots.
The home page is www.tamarackresortrentals.com

Thank you for any help you can provide to this semi-hopless newbie

It appears that I cannot insert screen shots here so I am listing the filies instead:

MyFirstTemplate
----------------------------
{process_pagedata}



{* Change lang="en" to the language of your site *}



{sitename} - {title}
{* The sitename is changed in Site Admin/Global settings. {title} is the name of each page *}

{metadata}
{* Don't remove this! Metadata is entered in Site Admin/Global settings. *}

{stylesheet}
{* This is how all the stylesheets attached to this template are linked to *}





      {* Start Navigation *}
     
         {menu template='my_minimal_menu'}
     
      {* End Navigation *}

      {* Start Content *}
     
         {title}
         {content}
     
      {* End Content *}





my_minimal_menu
-------------------------
{* CSS classes used in this template:
.currentpage - The active/current page
.bullet_sectionheader - To style section header
hr.separator - To style the ruler for the separator *}
{if $count > 0}

{foreach from=$nodelist item=node}
{if $node->depth > $node->prevdepth}
{repeat string="" times=$node->depth-$node->prevdepth}
{elseif $node->depth prevdepth}
{repeat string="" times=$node->prevdepth-$node->depth}

{elseif $node->index > 0}
{/if}

{if $node->current == true}
url}" class="currentpage"{if $node->target ne ""} target="{$node->target}"{/if}> {$node->menutext}

{elseif $node->parent == true && $node->depth == 1 and $node->type != 'sectionheader' and $node->type != 'separator'}
url}" class="activeparent"{if $node->target ne ""} target="{$node->target}"{/if}> {$node->menutext}

{elseif $node->type == 'sectionheader'}
{$node->menutext}

{elseif $node->type == 'separator'}


{else}
url}"{if $node->target ne ""} target="{$node->target}"{/if}> {$node->menutext}

{/if}

{/foreach}

{repeat string="" times=$node->depth-1}

{/if}

mycontentstyle
---------
.h3{
text-decoration: line-through;
color: #333333;
}

myMenuStyleSheet
-----------
.sectionheader {
background-color: #385C72;
color: #AB4567;
}
hr.separator{
background-color: #FF5C72;
}

[lollipop27]

have you tried to use h3 istead of the class ".h3" ?

[tryharder]

thank you lolli..

any ideas on why the menu sytles won't stick?

[Dr.CSS]

You have no .h3 in the menu in fact the only thing you have as far as class goes is currentpage, you have very little targeting the menu, sectionheader, separator, h3, and none of these are in the actual menu, look at the page source...

[owr_bgld]

You've only two classes in your MenuStylesheet - there are mor (like clearfix, currentpage, ....)

[tryharder]

thank you Dr.CSS and owr_bgld

I understand that I have very few classes defined.
Do i need them all defined for this to work.
I was trying to keep it simple as I made my way through the learning process. I have never used a CMS before.

when i look at the menu template  i picked a few classes and updated my css
-------
li.sectionheader {
background-color: #385C72;
text-decoration: line-through;
color: #AB4567;
}
hr.separator{
background-color: #FF5C72;
color: #AB4567;
}
li.currentpage {
text-decoration: line-through;
}
li.activeparent{
text-decoration:blink;
}

none of these are taking effect.

Thank you for your patience and time.

[Dr.CSS]

Like I said it helps to look at the source of the page, you have no li.currentpage, li class of currentpage...

Home Page

A good read...

http://www.w3schools.com/default.asp

[tryharder]

I am sorry but I don't understand your answer,

I can write the pages by hand just fine as described at w3c

I tyring to learn use this tool instead which uses a methodogy that i have not used before

in "my_minimal_menu" is the line
url}" class="currentpage"{if $node->target ne ""} target="{$node->target}"{/if}> {$node->menutext}

is this not creating a li tage with class of currentpage?

the style sheet has
li.currentpage {
text-decoration: line-through;
}

[Jeff]

No look at where the class is on:
url}" class="currentpage"

[tryharder]

thank you for your reply ajporg

Please let me try to understand here,
so you are pointing out the tag has the class "currentpage"
if I want to change the appearance of the menu link this class needs to do that.
OK I prevoiusly only had a class "currentpage" for the tag
now I have:

currentpage {
text-decoration: line-through;
color: #AB4567;
}
but apparently I still do not understand because i am not getting the expected result.

thank you for your time and patience

[tryharder]

adding "a." does the trick -not usre why I have to make the class specific to thattag though

a.currentpage {
text-decoration: line-through;
color: #AB4567;
}

[lollipop27]

its not the 'a.' that does the trick, but the '.'

[owr_bgld]

There are class'es and id's

in css is used an '.' that the browser knows which css-Tag should be used for a class
and used an '#' for an id

class you can have in your html-code as often as you want - an id is unique

so if you use it in an template in the head (as example) you can't use it in the content again - also not twice in the head.

so if you have in the template
.... class="NAMEofCLASS" ....
in the css must be
.NAMEofCLASS

if you have in the template
.... id="NAMEofID" ....
in the css must be
#NAMEofID

[Dr.CSS]

I wasn't suggesting writing the page by hand, I'll be more specific as to what I thought you might benefit from reading...

http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

You were trying to target non existing classes, hence why I've said it helps to look in the source of your page to see what it holds that you can change/manipulate with css...

[tryharder]

thank you owr_blgd and lollipop27 for your very usefull and specific replies...

you have helped me move forward and for that I am very appreciative.

Some folks may be able to absorb and master reference material fully with one reading .. I am not one of them.

I have read all of w3c on css before attempting using this tool but of course we really learn by doing... and helping each other.

I am not a professional web worker but a business owner who uses the web - I have only built one web site www.idahoresortrentals.com It is a php/MySQL site that is a realtime booking engine - millions of dollars of commerce has gone throught that site without the use one single class ID - and has almost no javascript - most of it is not even validated

Five years later I am ready to update my methodolgies and tools which has led me to CMSMS which is sophisticated yet simple - a winning combination in design of anything. With help from folks like you I will learn it to the point that meets my business needs and try to help others along the way by creating jobs and posting to help forums

thank you