Just curious if anyone has imported their own html template to phpcow and used that instead of modifying their existing templates to their sites look? I just read that this was possible and will probably try it in the future, but it would be nice to hear someone has already had success with this first before I move forward on it.
Hello,
I use cow for some years and it is really simple using own made template. You can do anything you want with templates. The only difference are some codes for the article, single blocks etc etc.
I always make the template with real text en sample articles, category links as full preview how it will look like online (I use dreamweaver). When I'm satisfied, I'll remove the faketext and links and place the codes like singleblocks, article, showhmenu etc etc. Ofcourse you have to make those blocks in cowpanel to suit your template.
Don't forget to ad a function metatags anywhere on your site, metatags in plain html won't work/show online.
It's hard to explain in english because I'm dutch
But if someone has questions, ask them.
Bloemkool
Are you a coder Broccoli?I'm just a designer and know very little code but I'm considering trying a template of my own on my cow site...when I find the time to redesign it that is. I was wondering how many template edits it would take. Especially since my current template I use has a main section, and separate schema for the entire right sidebar. I was wondering how I could use a regular html template with this type of issue.
Don't forget to ad a function metatags anywhere on your site, metatags in plain html won't work/show online.
Hi Broccoli,
Can you explain more about use of metatags? What does this function do for the website?
Thanks
Metatags (keywords,description and a lots more) is usefull to searchengines, so people can find you on the internet. Cow has keywords and description, but if you need to put more metatags (I often do so) you have to do it through custom functions or it will not work.
I will write a quick tutorial soon here about templating. It is easier than you think. I'm not a coder too.
That would be great if you can write that for us...better yet to me that you're not a coder because I will hopefully be able to do this too LOL
If one is comfortable with doing html and css on notepad then integrating any design based on existing template from readymade sources or doing everything from scratch based on Wireframe sketch is really simple (though time taking) job.
In that case I would suggest:
(1) Delete all data /skins from PHPCow installation
(2) Create your own categories/subcategories
(3) Post articles (for realistic templating there should be at least 10 times the number of ct/subcat). So if you have 15 cat/subcat then you should have 150 articles before you start templating.
(4) Use CUSTOM Blocks for everything as far as possible.
We must have done more than 10 custom templates for clients and all are different in design (except for two done for same client). We found it pretty easy. This is our experience working with range of CMS's.
Cheers
Actually, creating templates is very simple using the editor....a fantastic feature of PHPCOW.
The only problem is the editor they have right now is not so good....but what I do is use the demo editor over at Cute Editor's website, then cut and paste the generated HTML code into the PHPCOW editor.
I'd recommend using one of the PHPCOW prebuilt templates so that you have the CSS you want, then clear out all the actual templates and create your own using different tables and the block function..
We simply avoid cut and paste. We type each and every bit in SOURCE Mode directly into editor (as we would do on notepad) and Save. Works without any hitch. CSS also done in same way typing out in notepad and uploading the css file. We never had the chance to use any of prebuilt PHPCow templates.