Circumspective: uh... now what?
Permalink
Noob at c5, but been developing sites since '96, rolled my own simplistic CMSes since 2000. Tired of that... that's not my job anymore. My 'bigger picture' no longer includes keeping tens of thousands of lines of code in my head. So, my question is one of general philosophy.
I buy into the usefulness of a CMS, and my criteria include role-based permissions system (5.6 seem very robust in that regard). However, I generally start from scratch, or even buy a template to get me jump-started quickly. I need to change the big things (gfx, text, etc), and could usually care less about changing a param from 0.2em to 0.23em, or worse yet, spending hours or days dissecting someone else's design in order to know that I have to change a param from 0.2em to 0.23em.
Should I just bite the bullet and read the Packt book cover to cover? I've looked at some of the c5 themes available, and I can't say they excite me. I'm also concerned about having the ability to insert third-party js goodies wherever I need to. Short of pulling a crazy Ivan and exploring Cushy or PageLime (where you retrofit CMS behavior into an existing design). Am I missing something? I got a dozen websites to build in the next year. I want the one ring to rule them all.
Thanks...
I buy into the usefulness of a CMS, and my criteria include role-based permissions system (5.6 seem very robust in that regard). However, I generally start from scratch, or even buy a template to get me jump-started quickly. I need to change the big things (gfx, text, etc), and could usually care less about changing a param from 0.2em to 0.23em, or worse yet, spending hours or days dissecting someone else's design in order to know that I have to change a param from 0.2em to 0.23em.
Should I just bite the bullet and read the Packt book cover to cover? I've looked at some of the c5 themes available, and I can't say they excite me. I'm also concerned about having the ability to insert third-party js goodies wherever I need to. Short of pulling a crazy Ivan and exploring Cushy or PageLime (where you retrofit CMS behavior into an existing design). Am I missing something? I got a dozen websites to build in the next year. I want the one ring to rule them all.
Thanks...
I would suggest reading the book, it's definitely on my to-do list (the extracts are detailed and easy to follow)!
From what I understand, it is the block over-ride and templating that you need to understand.
These are created in the top level block folder in the form
blocks
-nameofblock
-templates
-yourtemplate
view.php (a copy of concrete/blocks/nameofblock/blockname.php)
view.css
-js
view.js (this is where your js would go )
jquery.yourplugin.js (automatically pulled in by concrete on page load)
they will then become available in the custom templates menu when clicking on your block in edit mode.
you might also findhttp://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/jquickie/... useful although I have never used it myself.
good luck and happy building
From what I understand, it is the block over-ride and templating that you need to understand.
These are created in the top level block folder in the form
blocks
-nameofblock
-templates
-yourtemplate
view.php (a copy of concrete/blocks/nameofblock/blockname.php)
view.css
-js
view.js (this is where your js would go )
jquery.yourplugin.js (automatically pulled in by concrete on page load)
they will then become available in the custom templates menu when clicking on your block in edit mode.
you might also findhttp://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/jquickie/... useful although I have never used it myself.
good luck and happy building
Your own HTML should drive your theme development with concrete5. Check out this oldie but goodie:
http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/how-tos/designers/make-a-the...
http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/how-tos/designers/make-a-the...
Ahhh.... So the biggest pain is the rewiring of resource references with the getThemePath() call, followed by encapsulating code (content) you want to be editable by an appropriate c5 "area."
Good. Thanks.
Good. Thanks.
I think where C5 differs from systems like Wordpress in that there isn't quite the range of awesome themes to choose from. But C5 is exceptionally well suited for customising your own theme. There just aren't that many rules imposed by C5 and I find it pretty well stays out of your way at the theming stage.
If coding HTML/CSS isn't your thing, you can always pay people to do it. There are sites that will turn your PSD into a top notch HTML template for about $300 and C5 is as easy as they come for moving your template into the CMS.
If coding HTML/CSS isn't your thing, you can always pay people to do it. There are sites that will turn your PSD into a top notch HTML template for about $300 and C5 is as easy as they come for moving your template into the CMS.
Creating themes is really easy. Create it all up in HTML & CSS before worrying about the C5 integration (the only exception here is the navigation, have a look at how C5 autonav block outputs the data so you can make your menu work with it).
Theres some great how-to's out there for making your pre-existing theme C5 friendly and doesn't take long at all.
In terms of throwing in JS wherever you want - not sure why you can't do this. If it's page type wide, you can put the code in your page type file. If it's block specific, you can tell the block to embed it.
If it's neither, and I can't think of a situation for this, but you could write a block that included the file for you but then didn't display anything I guess.
I can't comment on Packt's book as I haven't read it. Remo is certainly a knowledgeable guy though so I'm sure its awesome.
Hope this helps.
Don't forget to mark it as an answer if it does.