Newbie is totally overwhelmed

[rmfred]

Hello;
I've been reading posts on the forums for two days and have RTFM three times and I still can't see the forest for the trees.
I have developed lots of sites using xhtml, css, asp and ms access but this is my first foray into php, mysql and a cms.
I chose CMSMS for my experimentation because the name appealed to me... thinking anything "made simple" would be a good starting point and that it appeared from my reading that CMSMS produced valid compliant xhtml.  However, I must be incredibly dumb because I see nothing simple about it at all. I am having an extremely hard time wrapping my head around the concepts of using CMSMS.

I'm experimenting on an XP Pro box with IIS so I can continue to develop with ASP. I have Xampp installed in the default location of program files\xampp. The initial install of CMSMS is in the htdocs folder of xampp\htdocs\cmsmadesimple. So far so good.

Some questions:
If I wanted to create another site do I have to do another install of CMSMS?
In playing with the default install and creating content... I see there are inline styles in the source, why? I don't see those in some of the sites created with CMSMS that I've looked at via the forum show off section.
Is it difficult to get CMSMS to function with a strict doctype rather than the transitional one?
I don't see definition lists as an option with the wysiwyg editor, or did I just miss it?
I thought I could just sort of plug in CMSMS into an existing layout... but I guess you need to plug in the existing layout into CMSMS instead?

Sorry for the rambling and obtuse nature of the post... just had vent a bit before I go back to reading TFM. Thanks

[tsw]

If I wanted to create another site do I have to do another install of CMSMS?

yes

In playing with the default install and creating content... I see there are inline styles in the source, why? I don't see those in some of the sites created with CMSMS that I've looked at via the forum show off section.

hmm, there might be some inline styles somewhere.. but I think you can override them in module calls... if there are hardcoded inline styles in some modules it should be fixed. (just make a bug report and someone will check it out)

Is it difficult to get CMSMS to function with a strict doctype rather than the transitional one?

shouldn't be hard, it depends on what kind of layout you create

I don't see definition lists as an option with the wysiwyg editor, or did I just miss it?

I dont use wysiwygs so cant really answer this, but there are multiple wysiwygs to choose from and you can always write plain html in content

I thought I could just sort of plug in CMSMS into an existing layout... but I guess you need to plug in the existing layout into CMSMS instead?

creating a template in cms is as easy as 1 2 3

1) copy paste your whole html into a template, replace menu html with {menu} and content area with {content} and so on
2) copy paste css to a new stylesheet
3) make assosiation between the new template and the stylesheet

you can check out this screencast of a oswd layout ported to cmsms:
http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/uploads/me ... colate.htm

hope this clarifies some things, ask away if you have further questions.

[rmfred]

tsw; thanks for the reply... I feel a little less newbie today. So I was able to create a template without any trouble. Now I have to dig into this a lot more.... regarding menus and so on.

The template I created and am playing with (still using the default install content etc) works pretty well... you can see what I'm trying to recreate here http://www.skurdal.org/rssa2/rssa2.html which is simple xhtml and css.  I anticipated major problems with the menu area with using the default install content since my menu has far less items etc...

I'm guessing if I wanted to use my own menu, I would either have to hard code it on every page, or use a php include if I wanted a consistent menu across the site? But, if either option is used, then if a user created a page it would not show up in the menu structure since I wouldn't be using a module for the menu, is this correct?

For grins and chuckles I put the news module into the template since the design I'm trying to recreate has a section for news and while it shows up where it is supposed to, I can't get it to fit into the right hand column. (I'm using the faux column technique for this two column layout). I've commented out all the margins and padding in the news module style sheet and it still doesn't fit into the column. Are there perhaps some "global" styles that need adjusting?

Anyway, I'll keep playing around and see what happens. I'm sorry I don't have a link to this cmsms template on line for you to look at... this particular host doesn't support php. I'm eventually going to create an account with a host that does.

thanks

[Pierre M.]

Welcome not-so-newbie from the Wyoming !

...I'm guessing if I wanted to use my own menu, I would either have to hard code it on every page, or use a php include if I wanted a consistent menu across the site? But, if either option is used, then if a user created a page it would not show up in the menu structure since I wouldn't be using a module for the menu, is this correct?

If I understand well, I think you are correct. And this is why I would advice you to use built in menus with only some sections headers for private hard coded links. Hope it helps.
Have fun.
PM

[chead]

Instead of hardcoding or an included PHP, a better solution would be to use a Global Content Block. I've done this for a "shortcut menu" that had links to intranets and other websites at the top of every page. You do have to update it manually if it changes, but you (or a user) can easily update it from within CMSMS, and changes will apply across the entire site.

This way, you could use a {global_content} tag in your page template for your menu if that helps you get your site up and running faster, and later replace it with a {menu} tag when you learn more about the menu module.

Really, though, you'll want to use the menu module unless your menu is really simple, since it manages the whole process automatically, and manually creating menus and submenus is a pain. Actually, the hardest thing about the menu manager is styling the CSS to make it look like you want.

For this, and for your question about formatting the news module, I'd recommend the Firefox Web Developer plugin. With it, you can mouse-over the page and see what elements are affecting the style, and edit the CSS in real-time to figure out what to adjust on the CSS. There's something similar for IE as well.

[rmfred]

Instead of hardcoding or an included PHP, a better solution would be to use a Global Content Block. I've done this for a "shortcut menu" that had links to intranets and other websites at the top of every page. You do have to update it manually if it changes, but you (or a user) can easily update it from within CMSMS, and changes will apply across the entire site.

This way, you could use a {global_content} tag in your page template for your menu if that helps you get your site up and running faster, and later replace it with a {menu} tag when you learn more about the menu module.

Really, though, you'll want to use the menu module unless your menu is really simple, since it manages the whole process automatically, and manually creating menus and submenus is a pain. Actually, the hardest thing about the menu manager is styling the CSS to make it look like you want.

For this, and for your question about formatting the news module, I'd recommend the Firefox Web Developer plugin. With it, you can mouse-over the page and see what elements are affecting the style, and edit the CSS in real-time to figure out what to adjust on the CSS. There's something similar for IE as well.

Yes, I'm finding the styling of the menu manager a bit daunting. I use the web developer plugin for firefox. I am unable as of yet to determine the cause of it not fitting into my right hand column. I would have thought commenting out any reference to margins,padding and font sizes for the menu module would have at least made it fit into the column. There must be some global setting I'm not seeing? Could it be related to the fact that I'm using a fixed width design with a background image for the faux column technique?
thanks for the reply.

[chead]

Try explicitly setting widths for the menu stylesheet items. Also, if you're only commenting out margin/padding, it's using default or parent-level values. Explicitly set them to 0px and adjust from there.

Use the Edit CSS option on the Web Developer plugin and work with the CSS there. Throw a "border: 1px solid #00CC00;" on items so you can see their dimensions and you'll begin to narrow down the offender.

[rmfred]

Ah.... newbie error me thinks. I didn't have the news module stylesheet attached to my template. I had just inserted the html tag for the module and "assumed" it would work. Attached the stylesheet for the news module and it looks like this has done the trick.

Now... on to working with the menu.
Thanks