Usergroup: Administrator
Joined: Dec 21, 2001
Location: Northern California
Total Topics: 56
Total Posts: 5844
Posted 09/19/04 - 08:13 AM:
#2
That doesn't really make any sense at all to me. I've no idea what a "second page" would be or how it'd be linked to, or what exactly you want to do with your home page other than html (if it's just html, the procedure is to write the html or use an editor).
_____________________
"Do things you love doing, because then it ain't work. Don't do something you don't really enjoy, because you're never going to work hard enough at it." - Bob Young, founder of Red Hat
Usergroup: Administrator
Joined: Dec 21, 2001
Location: Northern California
Total Topics: 56
Total Posts: 5844
Posted 09/19/04 - 11:44 PM:
#4
You can make your home page be a custom template with a category toplist, or if you're not using it for anything else then you would just use the existing main page template.
So, do I design my own html homepage(ie how I want it to look with all the main categories)and a secondary sub category page?
Depending on what you're trying to do, you create whatever it is you want. If you're trying to modify an existing page, then you modify the existing templates. If you're trying to add a new page, then you add a custom template.
_____________________
"Do things you love doing, because then it ain't work. Don't do something you don't really enjoy, because you're never going to work hard enough at it." - Bob Young, founder of Red Hat
What is the main page for WSN links...is this the toplist generator? How do I reverse any changes I make to the WSN templates/top lists etc (in case of mistakes)?
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Feb 19, 2004
Location: Michigan
Total Topics: 59
Total Posts: 189
Last Blog:
Posted 09/20/04 - 12:40 PM:
#6
"Then how do I integrate the WSN script with these pages?"
Generally the look and feel of your site is controlled by the "wrapper" template, which includes all the stuff at the top and bottom of all pages.
When I use WSN Links I usually start by making this template look the way I want. If you use style sheets (you should) then do this now also.
After you get the "wrapper" template the way you want then you can start your main index page. The stuff you see in the middle of the index page is controlled through the "main" template.
It sounds like you want your main page to display only the top-level categories in a 4-column format.
* Go to your admin panel > General Appearance
Here you can control quite a bit of the sites appearance. Go to the section:
"Number of columns to display of each: For main page category list and category link listing pages."
Set this to 4
You also only want to display the top-level categories on the main page (no sub-categories)
Look through the "main" template and find the area that looks like the below:
{CATADMIN}
,
This is the area that controls the category display.
Delete
Everything in between
This means that none of the subcategories will be displayed, just high level categories, in 4 columns, on your home page.
I don't understand the part about having the subcategories on a second page. It would seem to me that top-level categories alone are ok, but subcategories without top-level categories would be confusing. Specifically, if you have a list of sub-categories, without top categories then they wouldn't be in context. Perhaps if you could give us an idea of what kind of categories they are, or what your end goal is, then we could help.
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Feb 19, 2004
Location: Michigan
Total Topics: 59
Total Posts: 189
Last Blog:
Posted 09/20/04 - 12:58 PM:
#7
It looks like you DO want subcategories to display on the home page.
Don’t delete the are as described in the previous post.
Also set the column number of subcategories to 4 in the admin panel here.
Looks like you probably need to add all these categories into the database also. Why don’t you put in some of the categories into WSN Links, set up the columns numbers in the admin panel, and change your "wrapper" template. That way you can get a better idea of what it will look like. If we have a working version to look at, then we could probably help you more.
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Feb 19, 2004
Location: Michigan
Total Topics: 59
Total Posts: 189
Last Blog:
Posted 09/20/04 - 03:15 PM:
#9
In your example the category structure will be:
Colorado Media -Television Stations --Denver ---West ----Colorado Media -----Television Stations ------Links here
Thats because all the bold red words are also categories, which makes things kind of redundant.
I would suggest either going
Colorado Media -Television Stations --Denver ---West ----Links here
or
Denver -West --Media ---Television Stations ----Links here
Just get WSN installed with default installs. Add some of the top level categories, then add subcategories, and subcategories of these until you get to the category that you want link in. After the data is there, you can change the number of columns, table size, colors, etc though the admin interface and templates. For a directory such as this its important to get a handle on the category structure early.
I think that if you just get some categories and links into the system, you'll be surprised at how customizable it is.
Usergroup: Member
Joined: Sep 11, 2004
Total Topics: 5
Total Posts: 14
Posted 09/21/04 - 06:14 AM:
#12
Thanks for the feedback.
After reading about customization of templates in the manual, I still don't understand about how to alter the templates using variables.
I tried pasteing the template code in Dreamweaver, to edit it for changes. What variables do I use to display my home page similar to what I created here: http://www.hereiscolorado.ihost-websites.com/
Do I need to be a php programmer to make changes?
I wish there was a step by step procedure how to achieve these modification tasks.
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