CMS Made Simple Forums

Has anyone else had the same experience? Using the editors template list only to find
(a) Some do not work at all
(b) Some have no or conflicting instructions
(c) Some ask for amendments that break the default templates (BizBuzz)

I am currently attempting to get "Ocean" working only to be faced with a ambiguous error of: So am I a rank amateur? No I may be new to CMSMS, but regularly code in php,curl and smarty and yes I have tried the debug mode.

My plan of action is try out all the potential templates, see which ones actually work without errors and then re-install again.

Don't get me wrong, I am happy to accept dependencies, I live with these with Joomla and Wordpress. But if we have to recode standard templates then the template is hardly plug and play.

I spent a fair bit of time researching options to replace Wordpress and Joomla as they both have a steep learning curve for the occasional user. The main app and default templates are great, and I may well customise anyway, I simply do not ubndersatnd why error-prone templates are listed. Why not have a user rating so that we can see the merits of each template?

I would be interested to hear of other peoples experience. Having Googled my error, I found loads of sites in a non working condition with the same error.

Mick
(Brand new CMSMS User)

Most of the templates were created before CMSMS 1.11.x Version, which means that as in 1.11.x Smarty engine was changed to Smarty 3 which is far more restrictive and some features in Core were changed, removed, replaced nobody can guarantee that those Templates created by community user in their free time will work forever and have eternal support.
Usually errors are due to changed plugin tags like {stylesheet} vs {cms_stylesheet} and so on or some code errors like unclosed smarty tag or semicolon or whatever.

If you are from php, curl, smarty world than it should not be hard to understand a error that actually explains what the problem is already without having to know super science:

Unable = i can not
to load = read, execute, find...
template module_db_tpl 'MenuManager; = a Template in MenuManager Module
ocean : simple-nav = with name ocean : simple-nav

So either template is not there or Smarty fails to load it due to template name.

PS: all the changes in CMSMS core can be found in backend in changelog under "Site Admin -> System Maintenance"

I don't have a problem sorting the errors. The example above was fixed by correcting the menu calls.

However it has been our experience that every template we tried had errors. Without demos available (I know some do) we wanted to simply install themes and see.

Yet every theme we tried needed work. I accept dependecies (obviously) the {stylesheet} to {cms_stylesheet} changes and in fact we set up typeitin to automatically correct templates for us. All the errors we experienced were caused by other errors/omissions/version changes.

Having finished reading the documentation and battled wioth various templates, I am somewhat wiser to the structure and design of CMSMS. However our experience could have been so much better.

As it is we will design our own jquery/HTML5/CSS3 templates exactly as we would approach a standard web site.

Hence my suggestion for a user rating and possibly a

tested with version x.x

as the templates are submitted. If this was shown with the theme, then the potential user/developer has an idea of the age and possible errors.

I am really impressed by CMSMS and as a company we will contribute if the software hits the production stage. I stand by my first comment that trying the downloadable themes is not a pleasant experience and very nearly made us look elsewhere.