Hi everyone,

 

Well I'm a long time reader first, time poster and I need some help!

 

I've built a few static sites and a couple of forums in a free lance capacity but have no dynamic coding experience. Ive decided to build my next site for a client in joomla 1.5. I've never used it before and have done nothing but install it.

 

I'm now having the problem of installing a template. It's installed but the modules aren't positioned correctly. I'm pretty sure this is because I've been unable to completely follow the instructions supplied with the template. I follow it as far as possible and get to a part where i can't find the menus / settings to modify.

 

Here are the instructions supplied, I 've annotated it to show where I have issues.

 

 

 

The following instructions will help you to install your template.

 

2. Changing modules position and applying class suffixes.

Our templates are supplied with predefined module positions, for instance top menu is placed on the top

block. That means that the “top menu” module should be assigned to Top position in the modules section.

Right after Joomla installation, modules are assigned to different positions, in order to make template look

as it is given on our live demo you have to assign modules to their positions and change the class suffix

value in the following way.

a) In the administrator section go to Extension-> Module Manager

open each module from the list bellow and assign to the given position and apply the class suffix

to it :

Module Name Position Suffix Published Show title

Login Form user2 _s2 yes no

Poll user1 _s3 yes yes

Who's on-line user1 _s4 yes yes

Search user3 _s6 yes no

Main Menu user7 _s1 yes no

Top Menu top - yes no

Welcome user4 _s9 yes yes // ---- I can't find this one anywhere

Popular user1 _s7 yes yes

 

c) after all necessary changes are applied you have to save values of each module by clicking

“save”.

 

 

Attention! : By default Joomla! 1.5 installation comes with only Main Menu module installed

therefore to make your Joomla site look like our live demo you have to install all necessary modules

through the administration section of your site. Also you have to add All menu Items and articles yourself. // ---- what do they mean by this? where do i get the modules that need installing? menu item and articles are my own content right? so i can forget about that till i start adding conten?t

 

 

3. Changing page suffixes

In order to change a page suffix you have to be logged in as an administrator into the admin panel

of your site. Then go to “content”, select all content items // ---- there is a drop down menu called 'content' but there is obviously no way to 'select all items' from a drop down box. i've gone through all the sub menus and can't figure out what to do, select the page you want, open it for

editing. In the right section choose parameters in the tabbed menu, and set Page Class Suffix to the

following: // ---- I changed the modules suffix as described above but i can't find this 'page class suffix' option anywhere

 

Page name: Class Suffix

Search _search

 

4. Changing Menu Style:

The top menu style should be set to “Legacy Flat List” // ---- already default. To change the style go to

Extensions->Module Manager, there chose Top Menu. In the opened window find parameters field set the

Menu Style property to “Legacy -Flat list”.

The main menu style should be set to “List” // ---- already done. To change the style go to

Extensions->Module Manager, there chose Main Menu. In the opened window find parameters field set

the Menu Style property to “List”.

 

Any help deciphering this would be really appreciated because i've spent hours on it! I chose joomla for this site because i don't have the time at the moment! i need to learn it anyway so it will all help but i just need to get this up and running for now.

 

Thanks

I can't really offer you any advice with regard to Joomla! other than, unless you've chosen it for a feature you can't find elsewhere, don't use it!

Have a look at wordpress - it's so easy to install, configure and add/ design a template, and loads of folks on the forum are familiar with it, so you'll have lots of help should you need it.

really? i thought wordpress was only any good for blogging. i always heard that joomla was the 'proffesional' CMS. Is there plugin / module / bridge functionality in wordpress?

 

i need a CMS that i can learn to use as an advanced user. should i go with wordpress?

 

i also like the fact that you can remove the 'powered by joomla' in the footer.

 

any advice would be greatly appreciated

 

thanks for the reply

ok im switching to wordpress as i dont have the time right now to do this. i need a way of listing products ( construction drilling machines ) as a kind of web shop but i don't need a shopping cart. these piling rigs are worth a couple of thousand each so i doubt people will want ti use paypal. they will call up when interested in a listing, enquire and pay by other means if required.

 

the thing is all the scripts i have found have a shopping cart which is annoying. i don't know if this shopping cart can be turned off, can anyone advise?

 

anyway so i'm switching to wordpress and hoping there are some good plugins to fulfill this role. does anyone know the best way to go about this?

 

any help would be great as i have very little time left from messing about with joomla and looking for scripts.

 

thanks

i've taken the advice on here and switched to wordpress.

 

I can't disable comments!! What use is it as a CMS if you can't even turn off the comments feature? i know you can go in and disable the comments feature but then it displays stupid messages like 'no comments' or 'comments disabled' ahhhhh!! I'm tearing my hair out. Since I've opened this thread I've pretty much spent all waking hours on this, I've allocated set time for this and in 2 days I've gone round in circles. I've got WP installed and a template installed and that's it.

 

there's plenty of threads around about this comments thing and there are workarounds but i follow them and it doesn't have any effect or my template doesn't have a certain php file.

 

What do i do? What's drupal like? I can't have this stupid blog comment thing. The WP devs are really limiting themselves by ommitting a function like this. That instantly renders this project completely useless to people in my position ( who need a quick and easy CMS to build a commercial site ).

 

I'm sure there are plugins to disable this but I can't find any.

 

I really need some help guys, this is stressing me out big time. I could potentialy mess up any future jobs from this guy, i'm running out of time.

 

Thanks

i've taken the advice on here and switched to wordpress.

 

I can't disable comments!! What use is it as a CMS if you can't even turn off the comments feature? i know you can go in and disable the comments feature but then it displays stupid messages like 'no comments' or 'comments disabled' ahhhhh!! I'm tearing my hair out. Since I've opened this thread I've pretty much spent all waking hours on this, I've allocated set time for this and in 2 days I've gone round in circles. I've got WP installed and a template installed and that's it.

 

there's plenty of threads around about this comments thing and there are workarounds but i follow them and it doesn't have any effect or my template doesn't have a certain php file.

 

What do i do? What's drupal like? I can't have this stupid blog comment thing. The WP devs are really limiting themselves by ommitting a function like this. That instantly renders this project completely useless to people in my position ( who need a quick and easy CMS to build a commercial site ).

 

I'm sure there are plugins to disable this but I can't find any.

 

I really need some help guys, this is stressing me out big time. I could potentialy mess up any future jobs from this guy, i'm running out of time.

 

Thanks

Hi

I think the bit of code you need to delete is this: (example default theme) go to file wp-content/themes/default/index.php

and on line 17 remove this:

 <?php comments_popup_link('No Comments »', '1 Comment »', '% Comments »'); ?>

My limited experience of WP tells me this should be enough. Good luck

thanks for the reply m8.

 

that's the piece of code that keeps popping up and i've followed your instructions with no effect. it appears in a few other files aswell. i tried modifiying them before with no effect i have been modifiying all the files in my own theme. i.e. wp-content/themes/demolision-black

 

here is the link to my site the no comments bit is still there.

 

any more guidance would be majorly appreciated. are you good with php? if you have a few minutes maybe you could modify it for me. ill repay the favour anyway i can

i see you have managed it on sites you have done so it is possible! do you think im using a bad template?

 

i've gone through every file and looked for anything resembiling the above code and deleted it. i've also come across this in comments-popup.php

 

<?php } else { // this is displayed if there are no comments so far ?>
<p>No comments yet.</p>
<?php } ?>

 

Surely if i do something in this file i can stop it at the source, but i dont know what affect it will have on every thing else.

 

if the above chap is gone feel free to post people!

 

edit: i deleted this also and it's still there!

i see you have managed it on sites you have done so it is possible! do you think im using a bad template?

 

i've gone through every file and looked for anything resembiling the above code and deleted it. i've also come across this in comments-popup.php

 

<?php } else { // this is displayed if there are no comments so far ?>
<p>No comments yet.</p>
<?php } ?>

 

Surely if i do something in this file i can stop it at the source, but i dont know what affect it will have on every thing else.

 

if the above chap is gone feel free to post people!

 

edit: i deleted this also and it's still there!

can you post the index.php file?

 

[edit]

a quick workaround if this persists could be to add this to your CSS file:

.comments_bg {
display:none;
}

Not the best solution long term, but it could get you out of trouble

 

[another edit]

remove this from your index.php file, line 16

<div class="comments_bg"> <span class="comments_count"><?php comments_popup_link('0 Comments', 'one comment', '% comments'); ?>

and this from line 17

</div>