CMS Made Simple Forums

Hi there

I'm new to CMS and am going to be attempting to build my first CMSMS site over the next couple of weeks. I've already created all my site layouts in XHTML + CSS...examples here:

http://www.techsinthecity.co.uk/site/layout_home.html

I have lots of xhtml files and one css file and I have no idea what to do with them...how do I begin the process of making templates or pages in the CMS. I have read through the documentation and it's really good at explaining separate elements of the CMS and how they work, but I can't find a simple guide of what to do first anywhere.

Do I set up Global settings first and admin controls etc or do I just leave that and get on with the layouts. I know a lot of people reading this thread will probably get annoyed by it and tell me to read the documentation...I have read it but as I'm a complete CMS beginner, it doesn't really help to get me started and will probably only help and begin to make sense once I get into doing a template or stylesheet using the cms.

How do I know what template to choose to edit or whether to just try an create one myself? For instance I know that my primary navigation is going to be a CSS menu that uses one single image that holds the active and inactive button states and I've found a good tutorial about that here:

http://themes.cmsmadesimple.org/Image_menu.html

And I thought maybe I could start with that...but how do I start? The tutorial doesn't say where all this code has to go. I've already created my css for my navigation so I guess I just need to copy and paste it somewhere.

I won't go on as there are far too many questions to ask...if I could just get my homepage done today, I'll be really happy and I would appreciate any help and guidance in my intial steps and I'm sorry I'm dragging you all back to the raw BASICS! I'll be really embarrased about this post in a few weeks to come no doubt...everyone's got to start somewhere though.

Thanks in advance.
E

Start by taking a look at one of the existing templates to see which special tags CMSMS uses (such as {stylesheet}, {content}) and view the code of an output page to see the output of that tag.

Take your coded XHTML page and start putting those tags into your page; once you've finished that, create a new Template and paste your modified code into it.

Then create a new Stylesheet and paste your CSS into it. Go to the list of templates and click the CSS icon on the row of the template you created. Choose the stylesheet you just made from the dropdown, and click Add A Stylesheet.

Then go into Pages and Add New Content. From the Template dropdown, choose the one you created.

You should now have a Page with a Template assigned to it, and a Stylesheet assigned to that Template. Go to the site and find the page you just created, and see how it looks. Now you can begin to troubleshoot.

Really, it's not that hard; just take a look at the sample content and see how it all fits together.

Thanks for the replay - that's a great help...I know it can't be that difficult, but I think I'm suffering from the 'FEAR' as I've never done this before and it's all just mind boggling. I'll have a go at what you suggest and see how I get on.

Eskymo wrote: Thanks for the replay - that's a great help...

There is a visual guide from a generic page also 

Alby

the visual guide would make a lot more sense if there was a voice over that explained what any things were getting done. I've watched it several times now and get lost half way through when all the black screens with code appear on the page...

Do I need all the hacks that appear in all the stylesheets? There seem to be an awful lots of them?

Do I need to take out the bits of CSS that relate to my navigation and put them in a separate stylesheet or module or something or can I keep everything in one stylesheet?

Eskymo wrote: Do I need all the hacks that appear in all the stylesheets? There seem to be an awful lots of them?

Do I need to take out the bits of CSS that relate to my navigation and put them in a separate stylesheet or module or something or can I keep everything in one stylesheet?

Where you want, you have maximum flexibility:
- separated stylesheets (associated to your template!)
- one full stylesheet (associated to your template!)
- include whole stylesheet directly in your template in tag

Alby

I was typring this as you replied...but it still applies - i think this might be a good thing to do...

ok - stylesheets. Every section of my site is going to have a slightly different layout depending on the content so I'm wondering if this would be a good thing to do:

1. strip out all the css elements that apply to all pages - like the
- body
- wrapper
- footer
- float clearing
- typographic styles
- navigation styles
- subnav styles

2. have a separate css file for each section that contains all the css elements for
- section specific content
- column layouts

is that good practice?

Eskymo wrote: is that good practice?

Am I not a layout guru but (IMHO) better solution is a common stylesheet for ALL templates AND specific stylesheet for specific template

Alby

Right, I think I'm going to create all my separate stylesheets and then try and create my homepage template.

I'm really confused about the navigation and sub nav and how that works and whether that is governed by a stylesheet or module.

Also is there a way of creating include files for my primary nav and my footer as these elements are going to appear on everypage. I do remember reading something about that in the documentation, but can't remember where.

so many questions...

IMAGES?

Where do I store my site assets - i.e. the graphics used for backgrounds, navigation, icons etc.
On site I normally build, I have an assets forlder. Where do I upload this folder or do I have to used the image manager to pull in all my files?

Eskymo wrote: Also is there a way of creating include files for my primary nav and my footer as these elements are going to appear on everypage. I do remember reading something about that in the documentation, but can't remember where.

This can be done easily with Global Content Blocks.  You create a name for the block and add the actual content, and then you can call that block on any page.  Just like creating an include and calling it.

thanks for pointing that out...will check that out now!

all this help is just so brilliant...my homepage is actually looking like my site design and it validates - wow. 
I didn't think I would get this far today!

I think I'll close this thread now as the next load of questions I will need to ask will be specific to the next set of challenges - naviagtion and subnav and other stuff no doubt.

;DThanks to everyone for getting me on the right track. I really appreciate it!!!

Guess I didn't type fast enuf...

For images you upload, FTP, them to folder uploads/images/assests you can put template images in this new separate folder so you don't see them when creating an album or such then your css calls are background: url(uploads/images/assets/bgrpt_pagegrad.jpg) center top repeat-y #f2f2f2;

For the rest...



 
    {metadata}
   
      {title} @ {sitename}
   
    {stylesheet}
 
 
   
     
       
         
           
         
         
           
            {menu template="yourname" number_of_levels='1'} to keep second level out of it
         
         
         
       
       
         
          {content}
         
         
          {content block="column2"}
         
         
          {content block="column3"}
         
         
         
       
       
        {global_content name="footer"}
       
     
   
   
   
 


Menu template... most minimal...

{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 $node->current == true}
url}" class="currentpage"> {$node->menutext}

{else}
url}"> {$node->menutext}

{/if}

{/foreach}

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

{/if}

WOW! Thanks for all of that.
I was about to finish up for today, but think I try the menu thing out after I've had my dinner.

looks like I need to rejig a few things too as I don't have a {content} tag anywhere at the moment as I presumed that if you had multiple content blocks you didn't need just {content} on it's own anywhere - didn't realise you could mix them.

the menu module thing looks really complicated, but it will probably make more sense when I start typing in the code.

Can't thank you enough!
Muchly apreciated!