I am running a wordpress website, and i am going to create a "Meet The Team" page.
We have our own custom built system internally which has users and their positions in the company already in the database so i will be using this information.
I am unsure whether to make a wordpress plugin to display this data or just simply create a page template to display it.
Does anyone have any ideas what would be best or does it really not matter?
Since the team is probably not that likely to change often I would say go with a Page Template. The main benefit being that in the future you might want to teak it a bit (sort members in a particular fashion, have different sized avatars, etc) and doing these changes would be much easier if its just a page template. If your team changes often and there is a lot of dynamic data you pretty much have to go with the plugin though
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I am to develop a Joomla 3.1 Template. The template should consist of a static header and footer, as well as multiple pages, all of which need their own styling. Further, the client would like to be able to add 'events' to a specific listings page. Customers should be able to book said events via a simple form.
Thanks to some really basic guides, I have the header and footer down, as well as some simple template options. However, I am now running into some problems;
How would I approach the content section? Ideally, a page would consist of multiple, editable sections. The client would be able to edit said sections in the backend without having to deal with or accidentally changing the layout or styling of the page itself. Since there are multiple pages, I obviously need different views/containers for each of them. Is this possible and if so, how?
Another problem is the documentation, which I found to be very lacking. Even google only got me so far (basic structure, index.php, templateDetails.xml and so forth). Are there any other resources I may have missed or do I really need to refer to other templates (most of which, obviously, aren't free) and use var_dump all the time?
Writing this, I just realized that I could theoretically build a template for every single page but ... that surely can't be right, right?
If someone could provide a basic outline or at least tell me how you personally would tackle a project like this, it'd be very much appreciated.
All the best
Edit;
I just found some video tutorials but since my bandwidth is limited, I cannot watch them. Please take this into account when writing an answer. Thanks.
I have only one word for you :
GANTRY :D
gantry-framework.org
Joomla revolves around menu items that point to components. For each menu item, you can assign modules to different positions within the template to create a unique page. You only need one template if you really understand how Joomla templating works.
Joomla has very good documentation here - http://docs.joomla.org/
Few things to remember -
Component - this is a type of content or app of sorts. A component will define what content is and how it is displayed. This can be anything from blog articles and categories to an event registration system to a message board or social network. Menu items generally will point to a view in a component.
Modules - these are used to display additional content around the component output. This can be a menu, or a login box, or a weather widget or anything else you can come up with. Modules can be assigned to or excluded from the various menu items on your site.
Plugin - plugins are used to change the final output on a site. They can be used to insert Youtube videos, or forms within content, or even to alter the meta tags on a page.
Understanding how extensions work is an important first step. Once you get how those work, learning how templates and template overrides work will give you most of what you need to know to build a basic Joomla site.
I am currently working on a content management system to be used by future clients sites. The project is currently in its infancy, and whilst thinking through some of the workings I have come across an issue.
I want the CMS to be very easy to use and edit site content, and add new content with minimal technical knowledge for the end user. What I am struggling with is creating a page designer for the admin backend. It will essentially allow the admin of the site to add new content, whether it be image, text, a twitter feed or some custom HTML. My aim is for it to be similar to the content editor used by Concrete5. I have done research and tried to figure out how they do it, but it has alluded me. Unlike Concrete5 I am hoping mine will just display simple blocks in the editor, rather than editing the full site. The blocks will then be stored in a database individually and then output when the page is requested.
I have experimented with the jQuery UI, using draggable elements and constraining them to a set layout, which seems okay but it is not ideal.
I am flexible to changing the way of doing this and very open to any suggestions you can give.
Sounds like you want the admin-users to be able to add some sort of widgets to the site. I would take a look at how for instance Kentico CMS is solving this: http://www.kentico.com/Product/All-Features/Content-Management/Widgets. You may download a free demo from http://www.kentico.com/Download-Demo/Trial-Version.
I want to, create blog page in my website.
There are bunch of huge blogging platforms such as: Wordpress, Blogger ... But the problem is, they are offering a loads of unneeded functions. Of course, I can create simple blog. But it will cost a lots of time and I don't want to reinvent the wheel.
So what I need is, "core" functions of blogging system such as:
Adding, removing, editing posts, inserting attachments, images o posts
Pagination
I don't want to integrate wordpress because of reasons that I explained above.
Any suggestions?
I used cutewnews for a while when I was new to coding (http://cutephp.com) it's pretty much the same as a blogging system. Create posts, edit posts, archive posts, categories, template is very customizable, allow/block comments, require users to register in order to add comments, block IPs, WYSIWYG editor, etc. It's all done in the back end and then you add a few lines of code in your page and the posts will appear. You can also designate how many you want to display per page. It's simple but effective and free. I believe there is a link at the bottom of the script going back to http://cutephp.com/ but you should be able to find it and delete it. It takes about 2 minutes to install and get set up. You don't even need mysql. Will work with any php frame work or coding style as long as you have the ability to create your own blank page where you can plop the code.
What is the best method, if there is one, of using Wordpress as a CMS for users to input data while not actually building the website on the Wordpress platform?
One possible solution I've found is using a PHP class called "WPGet" (http://peter.upfold.org.uk/projects/wpget) which fetches directly from the database.
You could use Wordpress' API calls, but depending where your "custom built application" sits, it might require including numerous files in your code (not very fun/efficient)
I have a site that requires constant updating. It's a golf club site: results, news etc all updated via wordpress by the club, or individuals with interest (juniors, ladies, seniors each have a mini-site) - and not always by me - so i have a front end, the standard site with static .php pages, which i then feed data to, by calling on posts marked in categories from wordpress, relevent to the site's page. The coding is easy and it's a quick and simple way of using wordpress as a cms, but it does strip away most of the Wordprss functionality, eg. comments, But I even use it for galleries with lightbox.
Like i say - it's nothing major, but sounds similar to what you're asking...?
Is this a common task in your Drupal work when you're asked to create a custom admin section in Drupal for your content?
For instance, you have a few content types and user wants not only to view them, but to search using different filters, to add new items - all inside the same admin subsection.
In essence, this is classic search/grid/record screen/pages and while in typical Drupal distribution content management screents are kind of scattered around, I am talking about more organized spage, e.g. in which Grid (View) also has "Add new" link and you don't have to scroll to "Create content" menu which relates to a different section.
What is your experience and opinion in this relation?
I'm actually working on something like this right now where I work. We've built a custom module to solve Drupal's biggest problem of having unorganized content by organizing it in a nice tree structure. What we've decided to do is go ahead and create a whole new section within the admin just for managing content through this module (it contains a lot more functionality than just a tree structure). There were two big deciding factors when deciding to do this.
We knew we weren't going to be releasing this module so we didn't need to worry about integration with other modules because any such integration would be done by us.
The non-technical staff that this was presented to preferred this method over having several different admin pages with different pieces of functionality on each one, despite all the functionality being related. They viewed at as simply being easier to use.
The point behind my explanation is this: if it makes sense in your situation, then I'd say make either a new section or a new page with several tabs on it. There's a lot of deciding factors to consider:
Do I (or my) clients like the Drupal admin as is?
Do I need to worry about integration with third party modules?
Is time of the essence (this one is a big one)?
How extensible do I need the new admin page(s) to be?
Is upgrading to the newest version of Drupal of big importance (from 5 to 6 and later from 6 to 7 and so on)?
Many non-developers I've talked to abhor the Drupal admin and most content editors I've talked to or worked with prefer having a single admin page they can go to to manage all of their content. As a result, our setup is well received by our clients even though some within the Drupal community may not agree with it.
you can use views_bulk_operation module to show content (or users) to execute (batch) operations on them. in this way you get a sortable grid with search capabilities (exposed filters), pagination and the possibility to execute custom bulk actions. from here it's easy to add a link "create new" in the view footer. furthermore, you can use link as "local tasks" to organize views in tabs.
usually i use simplemenu for the admin backend and i hide the navigation menu in the sidebar for all but administrators.
Another option - much easier to deliver - would be to create a new menu only visible to the administrators - and dependent on the content displayed - with links to the pages for common tasks. Particular views, for example, or to add new content of the currently displayed type, etc.