PHPCow Help

phpcowfreaks,

Thanks for trying but it's still as clear as mud lol

Here is what I have.

I have 2 html templates.


After loading the classifieds template you will see that I have a custom block 155.


Here is how I created the custom block 155


So just as a test I would be expecting to see a banner displayed on that page and when clicked it would go to Google.

Now, it's not an article, if it was I would know how to call that page up.

I just don't know what to put in the url box of the dynamic menu to call this page up.

Sorry if the 3rd image is slow to load, this forum only allows 3 images per post so I had to combine 2 of them.

Chippie

Chippie,

Everything in Block Management is primarily for handling the content that's internal to PHPCow. From what i see you are trying to include some external code. So

(1) Delete the classifieds_article (it's a bug that even in HTML two templates are created).
(2) Next time you want to create a HTML template open classifieds and save that with new name. Two templates will not be created
(3) Put all your HTML code in classifieds HTML template
(4) Wherever you would want the classifieds template to appear in template use the "F" (function) Icon and include the HTML.

Another use of html template is what i have already posted. Views can differ but we prefer to keep templates manageable instead of putting everything in one template. Doing small html templates and including them in 1 of the 12 standard templates keeps templating easily manageable by anyone even if it changes hands.

phpcowfreaks,

Ok, got that. To test, I chose the news_default_subcategory template and using the functions inserted {insertHtml(269)}
and it showed my little html banner.

However I can rule out being able to use the news_default_subcategory template because it is already being used with single blocks set to auto.

I can't use the main template because I lose my front page.

What if I had 50 pages that I wanted to create? It's sounds like what I want to do is not possible if the only choice is to use an existing template and there are only 12 of them.

If I could just somehow take the schema html and post it into notepad then take the news_default_subcategory html and post it into notepad I'm almost there. The problem is I need to know what else in the header is being included to make all the functions and the single blocks and menu come alive.

Chippie

Unless you want the layout of each of category to look different, entire site would be controlled from the default 12 templates that come with installation.

I have posted a brief how to somewhere on the forums. Pl check that. To highlight what i say please preview all categories on http://www.odisha.in (except "Distrcit News"). You would see all are structurally the same. District news looks different (mapped templates for that is used and that has different html as compared to default).

So start adding content.
Start building blocks selecting auto detect category
Include your Category related blocks.
This is starting point.

If you want to have each category look different structurally from the other then use mapped templates but downside is if you have a huge list then any change to a common template (say schema) would take pretty long for changes to save and also would kick server load up during that period. This is because PHPCow writes templates to file system in addition to committing to database. The former takes quite a bit of time with huge numbers of mapped templates.

phpcowfreaks,

With all due respect, have you even visited my site since we started the conversation? It's in my sig line http://www.emachineshops.com It is is fully functioning.

After you have looked at it then visit the following page, maybe it will give you a better understanding.
http://www.emachineshops.com/temp/default.php

Am I making sense to other people reading this?

Chippie

Maybe what I should just do is standardize my menu. Then just copy the html like I did and just eliminate calling in any automatic news all together. Then everything between the header and footer I can do what I want with externally from phpcow.

I just thought I could simply milk a template out of the stupid cow. Apparantly not.

Chippie

Man, looking through this thread....you've got some fantastic ideas.......I'd like to see this work, and hopefully become some kind of guide.

I had an idea for something like this.......we have article "templates" that we use for each particular piece of hardware. so that the reviewer follows a strict guidline, sll products are covered equally, and scored fairly. Right now we have the templates saved as articles, and the staff simply cuts and pastes them into the article they are writing....but with an idea like yours, the could have that all done for them without having to cut and past....they could just select a template and all the important information is already there.

I think your site looks great Chippie! Did you get this issue figured out? It seems to look good to me, but not sure if you were looking for something else to add to it too?

From what i understand:
(1) You want to keep the header/footer/navigation common across the site.
(2) You may want to have a common right column
(3) You would need additional "Static Content" pages (content which is just placed once and not changed.

If above is true, i suggest:
(1) Build schema template with header/footer/right column and the content area (left column)
(2) All other templates you check the check box (show in schema)
(3) for static content pages go to CMS section in cowadmin
(4) Add categories there
(5) Add Pages to CMS category and there also select include in schema
(6) Add your content (this can be anything)

Please note CMS pages have no "F" in editor.

If you look at http://odisha.in the top row menu items are not any Content that is pulled from blocks but has same header/footer/right column.

Hope this helps and excuse my inability to understand if i did not understand what you were intending me to understand.

That site actually has a nice layout, very creative use of the different blocks.

How many different blocks(types) did you use?