Beginner help needed, please
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I'm a retired IT professional with self-taught HTML, CSS and Javascript skills. I have a hand-coded site that I'd like to convert to Concrete5, which I'm currently studying. And, I'm completely lost!
At this point I have 3 questions:
1 - I need some site-wide CSS to customize items. Where the heck do I put those bits of CSS?
2 - I need to have my own page headers and footers. I'm using the Bootswatch theme presently and can't figure out how to do that. Does a solution to this depend on the theme?
3 - I need to have some pages with custom PHP driven content and graphics. Can I move these over intact to Concrete5?
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. I don't mind being pointed to tutorials, documentation, etc. My current (amateurish) site ishttp://www.spokanemagic.org if anyone wants to look.
Thanks in advance!!
At this point I have 3 questions:
1 - I need some site-wide CSS to customize items. Where the heck do I put those bits of CSS?
2 - I need to have my own page headers and footers. I'm using the Bootswatch theme presently and can't figure out how to do that. Does a solution to this depend on the theme?
3 - I need to have some pages with custom PHP driven content and graphics. Can I move these over intact to Concrete5?
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. I don't mind being pointed to tutorials, documentation, etc. My current (amateurish) site ishttp://www.spokanemagic.org if anyone wants to look.
Thanks in advance!!
MrKDilkington - thanks so much for your reply! I spent most of the weekend reading the developer documention for concrete5 as you suggested. This was most helpful and let me to the following conclusion.
I am running concrete5 on my on localserver and am running 5.6. I is now apparent that somehow my install of C5 has become corrupted and maybe even the server system itself. I am now going to wipe out the server installation, start with a fresh WAMP install and then install Version 5.7.x of C5. That should put me on a stable platform and allow me to properly investigate the system for my use.
I do have PHP background and some JS also, so it shouldn't be too hard to follow the examples and tutorials. Once I work through those I dive back into working on my own site.
I really do appreciate your taking time to reply. The community forum is very helpful and I'm sure I'll have more questions later.
Ron
I am running concrete5 on my on localserver and am running 5.6. I is now apparent that somehow my install of C5 has become corrupted and maybe even the server system itself. I am now going to wipe out the server installation, start with a fresh WAMP install and then install Version 5.7.x of C5. That should put me on a stable platform and allow me to properly investigate the system for my use.
I do have PHP background and some JS also, so it shouldn't be too hard to follow the examples and tutorials. Once I work through those I dive back into working on my own site.
I really do appreciate your taking time to reply. The community forum is very helpful and I'm sure I'll have more questions later.
Ron
Since you have a programming background, I have a few additional recommendations.
1. bookmark the version 7 API
http://www.concrete5.org/api/
2. for learning how to make blocks, I recommend looking at the code for the core blocks
concrete\blocks
3. download ExchangeCore Developer Tools
https://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/exchangecore-developer-...
1. bookmark the version 7 API
http://www.concrete5.org/api/
2. for learning how to make blocks, I recommend looking at the code for the core blocks
concrete\blocks
3. download ExchangeCore Developer Tools
https://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/exchangecore-developer-...
Hi Ron,
> stable platform and allow me to properly
It's good to learn 5.7 directly as people are already migrating to it. However, just be warned though, on stability I find 5.6 as more stable at the moment as 5.7 still has improvements still going on. In fact I had to change a lot of my add-ons when 5.7.5 because they were mostly using AJAX. Also when looking for tutorials make sure you are looking at 5.7 and not 5.6 because most stuffs in 5.6 doesn't apply to 5.7 anymore so beware with that. Anyway to answer your questions:
1. For creating themes you can follow the tutorial herehttps://www.concrete5.org/documentation/developers/5.7/designing-for...
For your CSS concern this should helphttps://www.concrete5.org/documentation/developers/5.7/designing-for...
2. As they said Elemental theme is a good start. Here is the instruction on reusing the elementshttps://www.concrete5.org/documentation/developers/5.7/designing-for... This theme also using the CSS framework Bootstraphttp://getbootstrap.com so it will be easier for to make it. So I suggest you learn from that theme instead of more advanced themes.
3. What do you mean by PHP driven content and graphics? Do you mean these elements are retrieved from a Database? If so, then I think you'll have to either do it manually by copying and pasting your content. Unless you can build a migration script to get the contents from your DB and then into C5 Content block which is very complicated. In fact, migrating from 5.6 site to 5.7 sites is not easy as clicking an update button because there is no upgrade path to it.
Anyway, I hope this helps.
-
BFS
> stable platform and allow me to properly
It's good to learn 5.7 directly as people are already migrating to it. However, just be warned though, on stability I find 5.6 as more stable at the moment as 5.7 still has improvements still going on. In fact I had to change a lot of my add-ons when 5.7.5 because they were mostly using AJAX. Also when looking for tutorials make sure you are looking at 5.7 and not 5.6 because most stuffs in 5.6 doesn't apply to 5.7 anymore so beware with that. Anyway to answer your questions:
1. For creating themes you can follow the tutorial herehttps://www.concrete5.org/documentation/developers/5.7/designing-for...
For your CSS concern this should helphttps://www.concrete5.org/documentation/developers/5.7/designing-for...
2. As they said Elemental theme is a good start. Here is the instruction on reusing the elementshttps://www.concrete5.org/documentation/developers/5.7/designing-for... This theme also using the CSS framework Bootstraphttp://getbootstrap.com so it will be easier for to make it. So I suggest you learn from that theme instead of more advanced themes.
3. What do you mean by PHP driven content and graphics? Do you mean these elements are retrieved from a Database? If so, then I think you'll have to either do it manually by copying and pasting your content. Unless you can build a migration script to get the contents from your DB and then into C5 Content block which is very complicated. In fact, migrating from 5.6 site to 5.7 sites is not easy as clicking an update button because there is no upgrade path to it.
Anyway, I hope this helps.
-
BFS
I recommend reading through the "Building a Concrete5 Theme" documentation:
https://www.concrete5.org/documentation/developers/5.7/designing-for...
Another good source for learning is the default Elemental theme that comes with concrete5. It demonstrates many of the features that concrete5 offers.
"I need to have some pages with custom PHP driven content and graphics. Can I move these over intact to Concrete5?"
Commonly code like this is made into blocks. This allows for more flexibility and reuse.
If you are not comfortable using PHP, there is an add-on that helps create blocks for you:
https://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/block-designer...