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This one will never fly but here it is anyway. [message #13097]

Mon, 22 September 2003 14:20

JamesS

Messages: 275
Registered: July 2002
Location: Atlanta, GA

Karma: 0

Senior Member

I came up with, what I think to be, a solution to the theme problem. What if there was an index.tpl that decided which content would be in the body? An example is just easier:

{* Done smarty style for convience. *}
<html>
<head>
<title>FUDForum</title>
<head>
<body>

{* User stuff could easily be added here and the user would never have to worry about the rest of the templates and just mess with the stylesheet. *}

{if $t = post}
{include file=post.tpl}
{/if}

{if $t = index}
{include file=frontpage.tpl}
{/if}

</body>
</html>

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Re: This one will never fly but here it is anyway. [message #13099 is a reply to message #13097]

Mon, 22 September 2003 14:22

Ilia

Messages: 13241
Registered: January 2002

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User can already 'mess' with the stylesheet without touching other templates and the stylesheet has not changed in many versions so people just modifying forum.css.tmpl were not affected.

FUDforum Core Developer

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Re: This one will never fly but here it is anyway. [message #13101 is a reply to message #13097]

Mon, 22 September 2003 14:25

JamesS

Messages: 275
Registered: July 2002
Location: Atlanta, GA

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Senior Member

Yes, I know that. I am talking about more than colors though. Something along the lines of what I wrote out would make the software more lucrative for people that want to integrate the board into their site.

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Re: This one will never fly but here it is anyway. [message #13108 is a reply to message #13101]

Mon, 22 September 2003 16:06

Ilia

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Registered: January 2002

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I fail to see how it would work any differently...

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Re: This one will never fly but here it is anyway. [message #13109 is a reply to message #13097]

Mon, 22 September 2003 16:40

JamesS

Messages: 275
Registered: July 2002
Location: Atlanta, GA

Karma: 0

Senior Member

Take a look at index.tmpl and search.tmpl as an example. If someone wants to intertwine the forum with their site they need to edit both (as far as I can tell) so that their own content shows up both places. I know it is possible to use the header.tmpl to halfway do that but not all sites use a navigation at the top of the site.

Also, if someone did go in and change all the templates to look the way they want them they will eventually get broken in an upgrade. What I am trying to suggest is a toplevel file, that changes very little, which encapsulates all of the other template files.

I know that you are not going to rewrite the forum to accomodate such a thing but I figured I would just toss the idea out there.

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Re: This one will never fly but here it is anyway. [message #13116 is a reply to message #13109]

Mon, 22 September 2003 18:57

Ilia

Messages: 13241
Registered: January 2002

Karma: 0

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Administrator
Core Developer

Wrong.

First of all in most cases you should edit header.tmpl & footer.tmpl. That will allow you to add HTML & PHP code to the top & bottom of all your pages.
Then if you want to modify the forum's color theme to fit your site's design you modify forum.css.tmpl. The 3 files I've mentioned very rarely change and are not affected by upgrades.

FUDforum Core Developer

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Re: This one will never fly but here it is anyway. [message #13127 is a reply to message #13097]

Mon, 22 September 2003 20:37

JamesS

Messages: 275
Registered: July 2002
Location: Atlanta, GA

Karma: 0

Senior Member

What is wrong about my statement? I said myself that it is possible to edit the header and footer templates to add custom content to them.

Let's for discussion sake say that the folks running http://www.hashweb.org/ want to add FUDForum to their site and have it fill in where the news items are and keep their menu to the left. So far the only way I have been able to come up with to do such a thing is to embed the forum into the page. I have not found an easy way to integrate the forum into a page, like the one mentioned, and be able to easily upgrade the forum in the future.

Take a look through the sites that were posted to this thread http://fud.prohost.org/forum/index.php?t=msg&goto=340&rid=267 (the ones still around anyway). Notice how all the ones that still use FUD put it in its own little section that has to link back to the main site? I imagine that in most cases they did that because of the, sorry to put it so bluntly, pain in the ass it is to do otherwise.

This is the only problem that I, and people that I have recommended FUD to, have with FUD. I have sat at work a few times perusing the FUD source trying to decide if it would be worth it to rip the software apart and rework how it outputs content. I came to the conclusion that it would be a huge headache. I am currently considering starting my own project but I know anything I write is not going to be half as comparable to FUD. *shrug*

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Re: This one will never fly but here it is anyway. [message #13133 is a reply to message #13127]

Tue, 23 September 2003 00:22

Ilia

Messages: 13241
Registered: January 2002

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The example site once you take away the dynamic news really becomes a side bar and a small piece of content at the top. It would trivial for anyone who knows HTML to simply copy & paste that into forum's header.tmpl rebuilt the template and go for a beer to celebrate their accomplishments.

Where is the difficulty?

FUDforum Core Developer

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Re: This one will never fly but here it is anyway. [message #13134 is a reply to message #13127]

Tue, 23 September 2003 00:33

esm2002

Messages: 339
Registered: May 2002
Location: Atlanta Georgia

Karma: 0

Senior Member

I'm not sure that I have anything to add to this discussion but I think many folks want to integrate FF to their site.

Having done HTML pages the hard way I finally adopted a 5 column template (using tables, ugh!) which I recently reduced to 3 columns by removing the 2nd and 4th columns (both of which just provided separation from center column and the columns on the outside).

And I recently came across a site that had a 3 column format using just the DIV tag for its structure. So I'll spend some time learning it. Until then, here is what I did. For my site I removed the left and right columns since I didn't use anything on the sides but I have added them back in the below presentation ( so if I made a mistake, please forgive me, but you get the idea ).

go into the Admin Control Panel and edit the header.tmpl file thru the Template Editor. I saved the original header to a file and replaced it with the following:

code

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Your title here</title>
<meta name="DESCRIPTION" content="all the meta stuff here">

<style type="text/css">
.tbl_caption {
font-family: tahoma, verdana, myriad web, syntax, sans-serif;
background-color: #0084B5;
color: white;
font-size: 11px;
font-weight : bold;
}

</style>
<script language="JavaScript">

</script>

<script language="javascript" src="lib.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<link rel="StyleSheet" href="/ff.css" type="text/css">

</head>

<body text=#000000 vLink=black aLink=#ff0000 link=black leftmargin=0 topmargin=0>
<br>
<div align=center>

<img src="http://www.your_site.com/images/banners/logo3.jpg" width="150" height="100" border=0 alt="">
<br><br>
<table border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=4 width="886" bordercolor="#ffffff" bordercolorlight="#000000">
<tbody>
<tr class="tbl_caption">
<td>
<p align=right>
I put a menu here across the top
</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

<br>




<table>
<tr>
<td>left menu/content here</td>
<td>


<table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="3" cellpadding="5">
<tr><td class="ForumBackground">

I then did the following to the footer.tmpl after saving the original:

Quote:

</td></tr></table>
<table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="3" cellpadding="5"><tr><td class="ForumBackground" align="center">
<b>.::</b> <a href="mailto:{GVAR: ADMIN_EMAIL}">{MSG: forum_contact}</a> <b>::</b> <a href="{ROOT}?t=index&{DEF: _rsid}">{MSG: forum_home}</a> <b>::.</b>
<p>
<span class="SmallText">Powered by: FUDforum {GVAR: FORUM_VERSION}<br />Copyright ©2001-2003 <a href="http://fud.prohost.org/" class="GenLink">Advanced Internet Designs Inc.</a></span>
</td></tr></table>





</td>
<td>right menu/content goes here</td>
</tr>
</table>


<br><br>
<table width="100%">
<tr>
<td>
<div align="center">
<p class=copyright>Copyright �2003 <a href=#>your_site.com</a><br>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>

I tried to add some comments to show what I did. Basically, what I did was to wrap my standard template around FUDForum by taking my 3 column template and splitting it at the top of the 2nd (the middle ) column and putting the top half into the header.tmpl (with some adjustments for including the FF code needed there) and putting the bottom half of my template into the footer.tmpl.

The key to what I did, I think, was to have a standard 3 column template which I could spit and wrap around FUDForum. My early templates, years ago, were not set up that way and I doubt that I could "wrap" them around FUDForum.

Obviously, you don't need to use the 1st or 3rd column but they are there if you need them. You could use jus the 1st column ( for say a menu or ads ) and 2nd column for FUDForum.

I also created a new css to move it out of the "protected" area. Just made it easier to edit.

Hope I am not addressing some other problem...

Gene
"The older I get, the more I admire competence, just simple competence in any field from adultery to zoology."

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Re: This one will never fly but here it is anyway. [message #161194 is a reply to message #13134]

Sun, 22 November 2009 17:55

naudefj

Messages: 3771
Registered: December 2004

Karma: 28

Senior Member
Administrator
Core Developer

I like the idea! It would be great if administrators, when posting a message, can instruct FUDforum to display the message in the left or right sidebar. This will basically turn FUDforum into a content management system that can manage an entire site instead of just a forum section.

What do you guys think?

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Re: This one will never fly but here it is anyway. [message #161197 is a reply to message #161194]

Sun, 22 November 2009 18:34

The Witcher

Messages: 675
Registered: May 2009
Location: USA

Karma: 3

Senior Member

From what I can make of it all it sounds like a fine idea!

"I'm a Witcher, I solve human problems; not always using a sword!"

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