help lol

[Sinfullilblonde]

Hi, I am very confused on how to edit our pages since the upgrade. I understand the tpl files, is this what we edit? I am seeing our changes that I have made, they just aren't showing on the site..... Thanks

[natio :: phpFox]

Hello,

Yeah this new change is a bit different off how things were setup before.
At the moment there are only 2 sections fitted with the .tpl files.

The main file to edit is the "/inc/template/new/main_body.tpl".
This file controls the top, menus, main and bottom body of your site. So basically this one file controls the whole layout for your site. Before we had the main_top.php, main_menu.php, main_index.php and main_bottom.php all split up so with this setup all those files are put into the main_body.tpl file.

Once more updates come along more sections of the site will be fitted in this way.

The other section fitted with this latest update is the Singup section.

[Sinfullilblonde]

Thanks for responding so quickly....by editing this main_body tpl can we use OUR template? We have changed alot on the front page...I tried to edit this but wasn't sucessful at all... lol

[natio :: phpFox]

oh yes, that section was also added into the .tpl system. If you want to make changes to the main page then look for the file called "index_welcome.tpl"

The main_body.tpl is just like the outer shell of the site and then the main part will be build with pages like the "index_welcome.tpl".

Try and edit that file and see if that was what you were looking for. :D

[Sinfullilblonde]

Hi Mike,

I have done this and it completely messes up the entire layout. No graphics show, coding shows...it's a mess. Also we have a redid the main_top and ..hmm well this is just all very confusing. Can we just delete the tpl files and will the upgrade still work...with our old layout? Thanks

[Sinfullilblonde]

The coding that is showing in the body of our page on the index page is the Who's online and who's chatting. I know you took this out but we still would like this feature. Our members liked it and so did we...is it possible to keep this or do we need to trash this altogether with the newest version?

[natio :: phpFox]

well actually i think the best thing for you to do since you made alot of changes to your main page and want to keep the whos online list you can simply replace the old "/inc/html/html_welcome.php" which was used before to display all the HTML and PHP source.

Regarding the whole template this might be hard to keep the old files cause of certain changes in key functions off the site. The "main_body.tpl" is simply just the HTML file, and alot of people are trying to add in PHP in this file and that could be a reason why its not working. Also another reason why images arent showing up is cause you will need to use the {%HOME%} tag. This tag once its parsed with via the PHP will be replace with your web site URL, example: http://www.yoursite.com

I do understand that it is a bit confusing seeing it setup like this, but this was mainly puy into place to users can edit the HTML of their site to fit how they want it to look and be able to download future updates without messing up the design of the site, which is how it is setup now on most pages still.

anywho give it a try and get back to me if you still dont understand how certain parts of the .tpl files work and ill do my best to help out. :D

[Sinfullilblonde]

I was thinking my my fuse was on fire.... lol

Ok Mike, I was making this harder then it was...however, when we try changing the menu links on the top of the page and on the bottom we are getting "not found" how do we change some of the menu item names on the top and bottom without getting these errors..the not found one.

Example....Rate we don't really want...we want that to say chat....you are just going to hate us when we get this new version done aren't you? lol

[natio :: phpFox]

hehe.

ok i see what might be wrong, but not to sure.

So when you try to edit the links on the bottom of the top or bottom
you get the "not found" on page where the link is right?

If so, then for example you wanted to change the Rate into Chat.
So if you open up the "main_body.tpl" you will find this link:
Content visible to registered users only.

now if you look at the html code above you will find this:
Content visible to registered users only.

this is a code routine that will be used to connect to the language pack. As the site is being build to fit other languages now the whole site will have those "LANG_" tags.

The language pack is located in "/inc/language/english/"
at the moment there is only english. So if you open up the
"/inc/language/english/main.php" and look for:
Content visible to registered users only.

and that is how it connects to the language pack. Now if you want to add that to say CHAT instead. You can go about this in different ways. One way is if your site is going to be just in english then you dont need to worry about this and just add your HTML code in the main_body.tpl like so:
Content visible to registered users only.

so you wont need the whole {%LANG_ tag.
but if you do want it to be in the lang package then create this in the language file first:
Content visible to registered users only.
and then add this html in the html_body.tpl
Content visible to registered users only.
so now this tag:
Content visible to registered users only.
will connect to the language pack and say "CHAT"

get back to me if i wasnt to clear to on how this works.
i look at what i wrote above and looks confusing to me now. hehe. :D