Dizkus

I don't understand what the heck I did wrong.
I'm working in 2 windows. I have the xanthia editting part of administration open in one and the index.php?theme=pnDefault open in another and I refresh this after my changes to see results.
I enter in a simple tag.
Blank Page(404 error as if doesn't exist).
OK Didn't like that, I delete that img src line.
still blank
I come here look at that theme tutorial at the top. Oh yeah just before the img src, I figured I want to make a template for myheadlines module and I clicked create module template.
That tutorial tells me to look for theme zone next. There is none. I click on everything in the menu, no theme zone option listed. I look back at tutorial, it is not where it says it should be.
Is it not configured properly?
I go into theme configuration
check off cache and well basically everything but the 2 short urls check boxes.
nothing different, still no theme zone, still blank home page.
I go to view theme then click view(or preview?) theme next to pnsilver, seabreeze...every theme there. Every single one gives me a Blank Page.
nothing.
I don't get it. I was making such headway yesterday and was close to being done.

I found theme zone is under content wrapper, created a theme zone, doesn't solve anything. I still have no homepage.
I pasted the entire contents of my master.htm file into home.htm (for kicks) as I know that works and still nothing. I openned up the zip file that came with PN 750. I pasted in the contents of pnDefault homepage.htm and....yet again no homepage.
I am soooo stumped, please help

I've read this post three times and still don't understand what your saying. Please try and restate the problem in a less conversation way. What exactly is the problem? What have you tried so far to resolve it? What is your current configuration?

A demonstration of the problem also helps.

-Mark

I go to administration and click on Xanthia. On that page is a menu with active themes and inactive themes. All I have listed is what PN came with and minimaplus which I haven't had time to do anything with yet. I have been editting pnDefault.
I made the theme how I like.
I came here and went to the second pinned post.
I tried to add a "module template" for MyHeadlines(barely did this...one sec)
I created a module template and enterred in just this:

so that I had something there and not a blank file, totally intending to go back and work on it later.
Next step(in pinned post) tells me to create a theme zone and I did. I didn't understand what the options are so I decided to make it like my mainmenu.htm from the pull down menu.
I'm done for the day, just wanted to preview the theme one more time. I vlick "view themes" to get to Xanthia main menu and then click "view theme" next to pnDefault. Sonofagun it's a Blank Page.
In the past, I've gotten a Blank Page if I goofed enterring code or alterring the page some.So I looked and I haven't really messed with it in a while. I've been "playing" with master.html.
I go back to xanthia main menu and click on "configure xanthia".
I figure I checked something off wrong here.
I try checking and unchecking stuff and click submit and I still get a blank homepage.
I go to "view themes" again and next to pnsilver, seabreeze etc(whatever is there) I click "view theme" next to the active ones. I get a blank 404 page for all of them as if the page is not on my server.
I go back and look for that myheadlines module template. There's an "edit template" and "download template" next to it but no delete option. I hadn't worked on the home page in a while so I don't believe there's any problem in that code. I come back here and go thru the directions on that pinned post again, I did all that.
Next I copy all the code from my master.htm file. That's working so it should work in the homepage.html template right? Well I paste it in and nothing changes.
Grrr
I unzip the PN750 download and open the original pnDefault homepage.html file in my HTML editor. I copy and paste that code in. Still a Blank Page.
I click on all the other themes "view theme" link again and again I have nothing for any of them. I CAN switch to those themes and view the entire rest of my site except homepages.
Right now(again I think I tried every combo of checked boxes) I have "block visual editor" "pnflashgames(not cached input box) "check for update version of templates" "3600"(cache time) and "store templates in database" checked.
Here's the code for that page


Oh one more thing. I realized I had no banners displaying anywhere. I placed a post here awaiting a reply. ZBanner is in the code and I thought that makes them appear. I do have banners if I use an old style theme. I doubt it has anything to do with this but I'm trying to mention absolutely eeverything.

humpff... too hard to follow I admit............

Here is a trick, do NOT work your templates within the Xanthia administration template form... Work in the file instead and active "Force compilation" in the Xanthia config when working on it.

To create a specific mod template :

1 - Create a file yourmod.tpl (or htm) in YOURTHEME/templates/modules/yourmod.tpl
Take the home.htm that comes with the pnDefault or something alike and do a little modification to be sure it is yours...

2 - In Xanthia / yourtheme / Theme templates
- Create a new module template and give it the exact same name of your file and in the body, write an X just so there is something.

3 - After it is done, click the reload template near the new line youhave done in the theme templates wich should be yourmod.tpl

4 - In THEME ZONES... Add a new zone, Select your module you want to be wrapped by your template in the select list, this will add automatically a zone label... add a name for your zone in the other field. Validate...

5 - The zone is not active, you must configure it with the link for that purpose. When configuring the new zone, choose your yourmod.tpl.

6 - Activate the zone...

That's it, that's about I did probably 40 mods that way on a site or another... working flawlessly.

--
Chestnut !
Support via Private message won't be answered...
http://dev.pnconcept.com
http://www.postnuke-france.org

I'm glad I can work on live themes using the revolutionary (and free) AutoTheme module without crashing my site when I mistype something. Surely there is a way to eliminate this nasty Xanthia behavior.

--
Over 500 Xanthia and AutoThemes

XanthiaThemes.com

AutoThemes.com

You can work on Xanthia themes without this happening also.

One thing I am getting a little sick and tired of in these forumns is post from people who have no idea of what Xanthia is capable of doing. If you do not have advice on how to correct something in Xanthia that a user is having a problem with, keep you opinion to yourself about Xanthia. Your post have nothing constructive in them


As for AT being "revolutionary" that makes me laugh. XTE is where things are going in PostNuke so I would call that revolutionary. AT does not have the ability to control the output of templated modules the way XTE does, XTE is more than just themes!!

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Larry E. Masters

oh god... you sure made my night...
Please refer to my other post on the "self-promoting" and diffamation you are apparently accustomed to...

You won't make AT the official theme engine... it just won't work Warrick no matter how you try.

This is a support forum... stick to that.

--
Chestnut !
Support via Private message won't be answered...
http://dev.pnconcept.com
http://www.postnuke-france.org

phpnut, next xanthia please increase ease of use for beginners. Please consider implementing an error page or debugging tool of sorts. Thanks

Don't worry Bri...

We'll make sure that Xanthia gets better and better, both for the beginners and more advanced.
Xanthia is very young and people may feel uneasy at first... that it will only improve.

:wink:

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Chestnut !
Support via Private message won't be answered...
http://dev.pnconcept.com
http://www.postnuke-france.org

PHPNut If I may, as someone with HTML and javascript experience and a handful of PHP and cgi. The old themes are easier to use. I can do more 1,2,3. With Xanthia I can do more things, it's obviously powerful but with a bit of thought about the functionality and all.
I am learning, I haven't given up on it. My opinion is you're probably a heckuva coder but not the greatest teacher. It's written for you. Mark and Lars and pndev folks can jump in and follow along but IMO that's not an accomplishment. They're bright and PN is an everyday thing in their life. They SHOULD be able to understand anything, I'd expect that.
I've noticed guys like alarconcepts, craigh, coldrolledsteel(I think them, don't hold me to it, point is not to quibble on names) that know PN well and are an asset to this support community. They are shakey on the use of xanthia. I think that should set off flares or be a red flag for you. Make ya think, wait a sec those guys are good they should have "picked this up", hmmm how could I reword the instructions or change something with how the pages are structured. Something like that.
I feel for you. When any of us get frustrated with a script we are all GRRR and xanthia gives some of us a similar feeling. Right now you're the devil. However I CAN see the power of it and usefulness. Someday in the future you'll probably be revered for your work on xanthia.
For now, get some "guinea pigs" from the forum. Maybe even ignore the pndev team as "testers" for the next version. It may be enlightenning for you and someone like craigh that's bright and creative might just offer an idea you love and set off your design work on a whole new tangent. Enuff rambling

This is something that I am going to be doing, what some people do not understand is I am a coder who adds functions to a system, not a useability expert. I have asked people in the forums before to help me with these issues of usability. I know the power that Xanthia has, but being able to make it user friendly is not something I do very well, at least not at this point, but that is changing.

On another note:

Look at this post then go to the site and view the demo

Configuring your Pos…Tabs in version .76

just a little teaser of the help that will be coming to Xanthia soon :)

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Larry E. Masters

bri,

we must have posted at the same time, as I mentioned in the previous post I made that I would like someone to help with the useability of Xanthia, naming of links, docs, things like that.

For all the people that use PostNuke I got one person to reply to me about it, and I did not find their message in the forums until almost 6 months after the fact. Then personal things took me away from any coding, but I am back now.

Things are changing you will see :)

BTW: contact me via the forums PM system if you are interested in going over Xanthia and helping with useability and docs.

I use Skype so we could talk and I would explain what each thing does, and then you give your opinion. I am not offering to be someones tech support on using the system, unless they are giving back to the community by helping also

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Larry E. Masters

maybe getting "guinea pigs" is where guys like Mark and Lars and Chestnut etc could help. Those guys have alot of respect for all their knowledge and help they give on these boards. If help=favor, I owe Mark quite a few favors and so do alot of us. Xanthia's quite large, maybe people won't have the time to help with everything. Maybe figure out a way to make it "quick and dirty" like a few guys offer input on the theme colors page, a few on content wrappers page, a few on.....etc.

I have an unusually very busy day today and nothing planned for tomorrow. I'll PM you when I've got some time.
Two quick things:The debugging or error aspect. I was thinking about this late last night. The goof=Blank Page is really self defeating. Is there a way to have xanthia revert to last known good page and display "error"? Or the grrr hack emails I get, can they become error emails? The other is I would like some comments in the code. I like when guys do that. To the coder it's easy but to the guy looking after the fact, it's like street signs along a road or somesuch.
One thing in which you "missed the boat" IMO is with those Smarty tags like <--username, date, or whatever. I found a post here that listed a bunch of em' and that got me a little excited. Take extra-lite or pndefault and copy it. Make a center block and display a bunch of these with comments like "Below, these are PN Smarty commands. There are 30 variables you can use."
Couple (more) easy ideas: for the rest of the theme, make it have so many colors it's ugly. It'd be silly looking but show all the color1, color 2, color3 sepcolor etc.
Definitely(Lobos would tahnk you for sure ) definitely add a comment line that says "to learn about style sheets go to w3c.org/style/css/whatever the URL is.
Oh one more thing-When I start editting a theme, for the block title, I look for a caption or TH tag in the code. There never is, people always make it a TD. (absolutely pot calling the kettle black) I think this is poor coding and it clearly is one of them. You can't control how they make themes but maybe add a TH in the style sheet as a hint to get em' to use it.