Content is tied to areas. If two themes have areas with matching names, then content from one theme will show in the other theme.

If an area name is in one theme and not in another theme, then the content will not show (it won't be lost, swapping the theme back will show it again).

The convention is that all themes should have a 'Main' area. Other conventions are 'Sidebar', 'Site Name', 'Header Nav', 'Header', 'Footer'.

However, these names are case sensitive and some themes inconsiderately have the names in lower case. Also, some theme developers get creative with the names and numbers of areas, making it very hard to swap in and out of a theme.

Unfortunately, once a theme is established, even when a theme developer knows there is mistake in area naming, to correct that mistake would create problems for all existing users of a theme. A case in point is the recent Jacket theme released by the core team, where it uses 'main' rather than 'Main' (and a few others).

A way round this I have advocated (afaik without success) is for such themes to have a compatibility switch that can be set in config/site, so as to provide an option on corrected area names.

If you are going to be using several themes and are happy modifying some php, you can override a theme and change the area names to suit you. This can be worthwhile if you have a lot of work invested in one theme and then want to swap to another theme with different area names for some pages or the entire site.

If you are good with phpMyAdmin and know your way round a database and have not used any layouts, it is not that difficult to hack the tables to map areas into a new set of area names. Maybe such an area name tweaker would make a useful addon if someone wanted to develop it.

See
http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/developers/pages/themes-2/...
http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/developers/system/submit-the...

Thanks John,

None of this really helps me, so i think I may try and find someone to do some of the core layouts for me on this new project. I have built several sites using RapidWeaver with PulseCMS, but this is all proving too time consuming and to steep a learning curve.

Andy

What theme did you design the site with and what theme are you wanting to change to?

There is probably a way to have the theme you want to change to display correctly, I just need to know which themes you are using.

I have bought a few themes to try out. Experience tells me that buying themes from designers that have a similar framework for all their themes is usually the way to go.

I have done lots of theme work myself (developing for Rapidweaver) even if only at a fairly low level, but I do know my way round HTML and CSS and I tend to find it easier to hand code things. The RW sites I have built also include some plugin CMS modules, but I need something greater power to allow more users for this project.

I have decided to do a clean install of C5 on the project server and then I will try and re-install themes and see how I go.

Ok. Have fun!

It sometimes takes time to get your head around how concrete5 does things but when the light goes on, you will find it hard NOT to build with concrete5. I find that the more time a client has spent developing in raw HTML, Dreamweaver or FrontPage, the harder it is for them to 'get it'. The problem I ran into when I first started learning it was that there are usually about 5 different ways to accomplish the same thing within concrete5 and the 'art' is determining which technique to use at what time with what type of client. That's what I love about it. You can lock it down and define everything in the PHP/HTML or you can open it up and let the client 'have at it'. Usually it's somewhere in between and you can easily start with one technique and move to lock it down or open it up later as the need arises.

Don't give up. Perhaps buy Remo's book :

http://www.packtpub.com/concrete5-beginners-guide/book...

Thanks for the encouragement, but I went through about 3 years teaching myself css/html code and all the rest of it a while back only to find that the web moves so fast that I cannot keep up with it. I also know that I am not a designer and I have absolutely no interest in it. I make films. I just wish that the themes that people offer a) work and b) were simple to implement and produce the elegant results they claim too. They never are. I have just busted the footer in the theme that i am trying to implement.

I simply do not have the time to devote to fiddling about with C5, sorry, but I find it clunky and irritating to work with. Changes never seem to update (I have cleared my cache) and I just do not love code and the web enough for all this pain.

I have tried to contact a designer to step in and fix things for me, so that we can just add content to a site that looks nice. I need to get on with other stuff!

I feel for ya!

Some tips...

Make sure you turn off the concrete5 caching (Dashboard->System and Settings->Cache and Speed Settings) as well as all our browser caching.

Your HTML/css training is still very much needed, you just have to figure out what file to change to make your dreams come true.

All that being said, I hate to be blunt but if you don't love building websites and this really isn't 'your thing' then nothing I say will make it enjoyable. For heaven's sake, hire someone to do this for you and go enjoy your life!

I am looking at doing that at the moment.