I've just installed CMSms (with no problems) and starting to look at it (having found Drupal too complicated and overkill for my relatively simple needs) but I seem to be not getting something important about how it all works...
Basically how do I turn the default installation into my own personalized site?
For example, what I have at the moment has "CMS made simple" as the logo, and the sections are called "Home, Content, Menu Systems etc".
Do I have to go into the Content/Pages area and "turn off" all of the default sections and then start adding my own?
And where do I change the look/feel of things, like the logo and the colour scheme and so on?
Do I have to be able to write my own CSS or is there an analogue of Drupal's themes which control the entire look of the site?
I'm sure these are questions that are answered somewhere in the docs and/or have been asked before so I apologise for any repetition, but I can't seem to find the right place..
Thanks
Gordon
Just installed - what next?
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gfroyle
Re: Just installed - what next?
Maybe I didn't make my question clear... I did look through the User Handbook and it contains lots of detailed information about HOW to do various things, but it doesn't address the high level issue of WHAT things I should be doing, and in what order.mahjong wrote: http://wiki.cmsmadesimple.org/index.php/User_Handbook
The installation instructions were a model of clarity - do this, then this, next this and bingo.
But what next? Certainly the handbook tells me that pages are structured with templates and styled with stylesheets, but what is the next thing that I actually need to DO... do I need to start altering stylesheets? Does that mean learning CSS?
And what do I do with the existing content? Delete it? Hide it? Overwrite it? Keep it somewhere as an internal help system?
It just seems that after installation I face a bunch of tools that I don't know how to put together....
Is there somewhere a "step-by-step" guide that continues from installation through getting a simple 5-page site with your own logo, colour scheme etc, preferably without writing anything other than content?
Or am I just in dreamland
Gordon
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mahjong
Re: Just installed - what next?
- Now that I have acquired the tools and read the user manual that came with them, please teach me in ten easy lessons how to build websites/cars/houses/boats and many other wonderful things...
Yes, to be able to do useful thing with CMSMS, like with any other tool, you'll need learn the trade first. Designing a complete web site is a complex, diversified, task that cannot be acquired in "ten easy lessons". Start playing with all CMSMS functions, modify one by one each sample pages to your taste. Try and experiment. Have fun with it. Play. Don't worry about destroying the provided content while learning. You can always reinstall a fresh copy. Designing a web site is all about trial and error. Starting over, and over, until satisfied. If you have never made a web site with content management system like CMSMS, count on making four or five attempts before having something interesting to show.
There is a saying in French, « C'est en forgeant qu'on devient forgeron ». It's be doing the work of a blacksmith that one becomes a blacksmith. Practice makes perfect.
And, yes, you'll need eventually to learn XHTML, CSS, Javascript, typography, graphics, ..., maybe even take a computer course in a real brick an mortar school. But, it's all fun. A great pastime.
Yes, to be able to do useful thing with CMSMS, like with any other tool, you'll need learn the trade first. Designing a complete web site is a complex, diversified, task that cannot be acquired in "ten easy lessons". Start playing with all CMSMS functions, modify one by one each sample pages to your taste. Try and experiment. Have fun with it. Play. Don't worry about destroying the provided content while learning. You can always reinstall a fresh copy. Designing a web site is all about trial and error. Starting over, and over, until satisfied. If you have never made a web site with content management system like CMSMS, count on making four or five attempts before having something interesting to show.
There is a saying in French, « C'est en forgeant qu'on devient forgeron ». It's be doing the work of a blacksmith that one becomes a blacksmith. Practice makes perfect.
And, yes, you'll need eventually to learn XHTML, CSS, Javascript, typography, graphics, ..., maybe even take a computer course in a real brick an mortar school. But, it's all fun. A great pastime.
Last edited by mahjong on Wed Aug 02, 2006 4:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Just installed - what next?
Hello Gordon
One way to get a feel for how CSS effects the look of the pages is to use Firefox with the Web Developers toolbar available here... https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/60/ with this you can change the CSS with out actually destroying the real CSS and if you get something you like you can copy/paste it into the real CSS.
And yes you can delete the default content and write something new in it's place along with the page name, if you change the name go to the options tab and delete the alias and it will write the new one back in when you save the page.
As for themes there are some available at... http://themes.cmsmadesimple.org/Download_Themes.html but like the default themes you will need to change things to make it 'yours', you would look for things like header or logo in the CSS to see the path that points to the image used.
The words used in the logo or header are usually in the template itself sometimes with somewords tags around them.
The colors are usually called out in the CSS by numbers, #FFFFFF is white, also known as Hex numbers, so you would look thru the CSS to find any of these for changes you would want to make, a good place to get color numbers is... http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html ...
Having some working knowledge of HTML and CSS does help, I learned a lot from... http://www.w3schools.com/default.asp .
Hope this helps you get a start on your adventure with the IMO Best CMS available.
One way to get a feel for how CSS effects the look of the pages is to use Firefox with the Web Developers toolbar available here... https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/60/ with this you can change the CSS with out actually destroying the real CSS and if you get something you like you can copy/paste it into the real CSS.
And yes you can delete the default content and write something new in it's place along with the page name, if you change the name go to the options tab and delete the alias and it will write the new one back in when you save the page.
As for themes there are some available at... http://themes.cmsmadesimple.org/Download_Themes.html but like the default themes you will need to change things to make it 'yours', you would look for things like header or logo in the CSS to see the path that points to the image used.
The words used in the logo or header are usually in the template itself sometimes with somewords tags around them.
The colors are usually called out in the CSS by numbers, #FFFFFF is white, also known as Hex numbers, so you would look thru the CSS to find any of these for changes you would want to make, a good place to get color numbers is... http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html ...
Having some working knowledge of HTML and CSS does help, I learned a lot from... http://www.w3schools.com/default.asp .
Hope this helps you get a start on your adventure with the IMO Best CMS available.
