I'm kinda trying to adopt the following theme for Geeklog:

http://templates.arcsin.se/demo/simple-organization-website-template/

A few general questions:

• Does anyone have experience in a porting a similar theme to Geeklog?
  
• And if so, what parts would cause problems or will be difficult to port?
  

After a while of going back and forth I've decided to build my site in Geeklog but I also have a test setup using Wordpress, you can see both here:

• Geeklog test: http://test.pleh.info
  
• Wordpress test: http://test.pleh.info/wp/
  

I haven't started with the theming of Geeklog but I have a feeling that I'll have trouble with the following points:

• The horizontal menu, I haven't really seen a way of generating such a menu automatically. I'm guessing that I'll have to hardcode it but hopefully theres another way.
  
• The front page that you see on my WP Test site, I have an upcoming events block and latest forum posts block. I'm guessing it will be difficult to get something similar using Geeklog?
  
• Theming for the comments. I just immagine it being hard but it might end up being simple.
  
• The side menu and it's various items: Search box, Post categorie overview (Topics I guess), Tag cloud, login box (user functions) and archive.
  

Other then that I'm hoping that building the theme for Geeklog will be easy but it's unfamiliar ground so any tips for converting a standard template towards a Geeklog theme would be greatly welcome.

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"The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it." - Linus Torvalds

Hi,

You could start with this tutorial.

For an horizontal menu you can use glmenu or navman plugins.

::Ben

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We speak french on http://geeklog.fr

Hi, it should be possible to port that theme to GL. You can make the row with Mission Statement and Upcoming Events as a static page placed as a centerblock on top. The "Latest Forum Posts" will look a bit different but can have the same style as the row left of it.

The stoy template will be quite easy, but the "comment parts" will not look exactly the same but the first impression can be nearly the same as the original theme. How about the copyrights of that theme?

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Dutch Geeklog sites about camping/hiking: www.kampeerzaken.nl | www.campersite.nl | www.caravans.nl | www.caravans.net

Hi,

Thanks for the input, guess I'll just need to get started and see how far I can get.

I've seen a tutorial on wiki.geeklog.net but it was incomplete, didn't go further then adopting the CSS. It's good to know that Geeklog France has some good stuff in their wiki (shame though that it isn't all in one place)

About the copyright for that theme, it's rather simple really. I can change everything if I wanted to but as a token of appreciation to the creator I have to leave a link to his website in the footer stating that it's his work. As you can see on my WP test site it's there at the bottom, I can live with such a link ^_~

If I get this theme done I'll probably post it here for everyone to use or something like that, the copyright allows it as long as you link to the original author. But I don't have an eta for this so it might take a while

Anyways, I have some work to do

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"The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it." - Linus Torvalds

Hey 1ynx,

You may want to try starting from a CSS version of the profesional theme.

ProfessionalCSS_en for Geeklog1.7.0

I'm working on that one atm.

Here's the result so far:

- http://test.pleh.info

It's still a little rough, I'm kinda trying to get into the Geeklog way of thinking lol so some parts aren't ironed out yet. But it's beginning to look like something.

The part that's a little odd are the information blocks. As you can see, some block items are adopting the theme values and others aren't. Pretty odd, but I've only just started so I'll probably figure out how to fix it in the end.

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"The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it." - Linus Torvalds

Yes it's a nice start

Good luck

::Ben

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We speak french on http://geeklog.fr

It is fantastic. Realy greate.

thk.

Hi again.

I've ended up reading these pages:

• Porting howto: http://geeklog.fr/wiki/geeklog:development:themes:porting_a_theme
  
• A bit more in depth info: http://wiki.geeklog.net/index.php/Theme_Developers_Guide
  

The part that's going pretty well is the header and the footer, but mostly because that part is pretty straight forward.

The part that's giving me some trouble is the blocks and content.

I understand where I define the blocks, you do that using {right_blocks} and {left_blocks}.

The files that I kinda understand:

leftblocks.thtml
blockheader-left.thtml
blockfooter-left.thtml

rightblocks.thtml
blockheader-right.thtml
blockfooter-right.thtml

The other files I have but I don't know what to do with them:

blockfooter.thtml
blockfooter-config.thtml
blockfooter-list.thtml
blockfooter-message.thtml
blockfooter-related.thtml
blockheader-config.thtml
blockheader-list.thtml
blockheader-message.thtml
blockheader-related.thtml
blockheader.thtml
blockservices.thtml
topcenterblock-span.thtmlx

And then theres the developers documentation which only talks about these block files:

blockheader.thtml
blockfooter.thtml

Does this mean that I could simplify the blocks templates? E.g. having these files and be done with it:

rightblocks.thtml
leftblocks.thtml
blockheader.thtml
blockfooter.thtml

With the theory that this would give the left and right blocks the same header and footer?

Or, if that doesn't work that way then could someone clarify the blocks templating a little? I'm kinda lost at the part where I've defined e.g. the right block files and still having parts that don't adopt the theme properly.

Also, a little on the sideline. I saw that I was able to make a center block out of a static page, which is nice because that's kinda what I need. But, I need the center block to show-up just below the header, so basically before the content part. Right now it seems to put itself above the content which isn't exactly where I want it to be.

Is there a way to force the center block to only show in a specific spot? (e.g. defining {center_block} or something like that?)

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"The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it." - Linus Torvalds

Yes

Take a look at this http://www.geeklog.net/docs/english/theme.html and it should help explain some of the updates to the theme engine along with some of the files.

If I recall correctly files like

blockheader-message.thtml = deal with any system messages displayed to the user (like if you use the email form)

blockfooter-config.thtml = used by Geeklogs admin configurattion.

Tom

Ok, looks like I've got the block's part (almost) ironed out. Even got the search box on there just the way I wanted to. (in an offline environment, so can't really show anyone at this point)

But, I noticed that in the process I kinda demolished the admin UI. No biggy really, means that I have to template that part as well.

Ah well, just wanted to say that I'm beginning to understand the GL way of theming.

Only side note I would like to add.

Why not separate the Admin and the Site theming? Still keeping it open to theme both but simply having the choice to just do one. (just a thought)

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"The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it." - Linus Torvalds

if u think making it available to public
u can zip what u have and upload it somewhere
and then ppl can dl it and contribute to it
helping u with files u dont understand exactly 4ex

I'll definitely put it in public, no worries there. But I think I will at least need to get most of the basics working before I do so, I still want to put some more time into it myself ^_~

The public place would probably my own site with the test subdomain (test.pleh.info).

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"The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it." - Linus Torvalds

probably
just zip what u have - so others (me 4 ex) can dl it and work on it further
to avoid double work - ppl could write what they are working on
u can then decide if u wanna use the solution ...

That's because regular users can post stories/ links and events as well. It's meant to be a community script, so it needs a consistent look, just like the profile editor in Hyves (a dutch Facebook clone)

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Dutch Geeklog sites about camping/hiking: www.kampeerzaken.nl | www.campersite.nl | www.caravans.nl | www.caravans.net

How goes the theme development?

That is really a impressive topic..Thank you for sharing this with us…

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Remixen

Not so good sadly, I didn't get much further then what you see on the test page a.t.m.

Every time I change something it breaks something else.

It turns out that I'm simply not good enough with HTML and CSS to fix this myself, and I really don't want to rely on others for this either.
I can manage small changes, or tweaks but I'm in over my head with a theming job this big (entire frontend website + config/admin/backend pages + any plugin involved, etc.).

So, I regretfully had to rethink my options since theming took too much of my time where I'd rather spend that time creating content for my site.

The end result is me going with Wordpress + a few plugins (e.g. a plugin for a table of content, events calendar) and MyBB as forum software, I managed to functionally get exactly what I want out of those 2 software packages so I decided to stick with them.

It's a shame really, Geeklog was able to do allot of things for me but the theming ended up becoming a bigger job then I'd expect and functionally there are a few things I'm now getting that Geeklog wouldn't be able to give (though they aren't my main needs but still handy to have).

I'll still keep an eye out Geeklog though, but for now I just want to start writing content and actually get my site up and running.

Hope you can understand,

1ynx

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"The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it." - Linus Torvalds

I recently converted Karin Schloß's Cherry Blossom theme for GL if anyone's interested.
http://www.choppygirl.com/

-s

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FlashYourWeb and Your Gallery with the E2 XML Media Player for Gallery2 - http://www.flashyourweb.com

Hi 1ynx, can you send me the files of your theme? Perhaps I can try to finish it. I would be a shame if spend all that time without a result. I've made some GL themes myself, so I know my way around in the several blocks, blockheaders and blockfooters, and the functions.php.

Send me a PM (in Dutch, if you like).

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Dutch Geeklog sites about camping/hiking: www.kampeerzaken.nl | www.campersite.nl | www.caravans.nl | www.caravans.net