Dizkus

Are short URLs for v7.6 readily available only in Xanthia themes, or by modifying ColdRolledSteel hacks?

I found references to a dp-shorturl mod, but it doesn't seem to be available any longer. I'm using a modified Extralight for simplicity sake and would rather fit URLS to the theme rather than retheming to accomodate Xanthia short urls.

What about xExtraLite? It's ExtraLite for Xanthia, available at http://www.markwest.me.uk/

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-- Teb
-- Dutch Zikula Community

Support questions in a Personal Message will be ignored. Use the forums at all times!

Yes, you have dpshorturls here:
http://www.dev-postn…s-item-dlid-54.html
(last revision was for .750)
I think that it work for .762, but sure that is necessary change some urls definitions.


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Also I believe that Auto-Theme now support short URL also.

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pnDev.com ~ featuring the PostNuke paid services forum

Yes, AutoTheme support shorturls perfectly.

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Thanks for the replies. I'll relate my experience on following up with each suggestion. Though my responses are critical, please don't take it to mean they are not good suggestions - I simply intend to relate why they are, or are not convenient for me.

First, I had hoped to avoid Xanthia or any other theme system. A simple PHP file and a CSS file suffices quite well, and is easier to manage for me when I am only working with one site and one theme. Even if I want to tweak the theme, it is easy enough to write div tags on the theme page, which can put anything anywhere. It doesn't take much PHP skill to understand that any HTML one wants on a page can be included between the single-quotes of a PHP command that says: echo ' (HTML here) ';

I've yet to fully understand the reason Xanthia's theme engine is incorporated in PostNuke -- not because I think it is useless, but because I have never found the uses. In earlier installations, I ran into problems related to operating Xanthia that dissabled the sites. Rather than attempting to debug a theme engine that served me no clear purpose, it was easier to use a simple "classic" theme that I could edit with basic HTML and PHP skills. With some add-ones, especially with early versions of Nate Welch's tabbed content blocks, classic themes were less buggy.

That doesn't mean I'm done with Xanthia. As it currently stands, I'll probably upload and tweak xExtralight to my specs so I can use Xanthia's short URL schema.

AutoTheme might be useful, but it's primary reason d etre seems to be allowing people with no PHP skills to create themes. For my part, I don't know who would be creating multiple themes or CMS-driven Web sites without trying to learn PHP, but if the author can get $99.95 per license, there must be a market. For my purposes, the money would be better spent on three texts that would teach me PHP, and if I were creating multiple sites with multiple themes, I would want to understand at least the fundamentals of the languages driving the sites I'm creating. But that's just me. I don't use Dreamweaver, either, and many Web designers with far more market for their skills than I have prefer to use editing engines than to understand the basics of the languages behind the products they sell. I don't understand complex PHP architecture, or any hex language, so I'm not exactly articulate in all the language either.

dp-ShortUrls might be my preferred solution, but even after being pointed to a working download site, I still can't access it. First, I had to register to get the download. That's no big problem, and I did. But then I found the download was in a .RAR format. I searched for a software to read .RAR and found two so far. One was a payware, and I didn't feel inclined to pay for a software to open another software to learn if it would serve my purposes. That's just too much cost and speculation to investigate potential functionality that would remove a few letters from a URL for a site that doesn't make me any money. My primary purpose in the site is mostly to collect resources I use at various remote locations, such as RSS news feeds, and secondarily, to remain familiar with PostNuke. The freeware I downloaded to read the RAR file -- WinAce -- just didn't operate when I tried to run it.

If dp-ShortUrls was packaged as a .zip or .tar file I would no doubt try it. For my purposes, though, whatever advantage .rar might offer (multimedia compression, repairs damaged archives?) it doesn't overcome the inconvenience of trying to find, or having to purchase, something that can read them.

At this point, it looks like I'll spend a couple hours or more switching over to Xanthia, morphing one of the themes to do what I need, and merging the style sheets I've built to suit the Xanthia theme.

Thanks to all for the input. I'll post back if I get a short URL scheme working under any system. I'm sure if I put in the time, I'll get at least one schema working.

hmm... the previous message was by me, Luzdelsol, and I know I was logged in because I could review my previous posts, but for some reason it logged as an anonymous post by an unregistered user.

-- Luz

I agree on your statements about AutoTheme and dp-ShortUrls. I do think Xanthia will bring you what you want. Since this is a built-in advanced theme engine, and an improved version is also shipped with the upcoming 0.8, your efforts of porting a theme into Xanthia will eventuelly pay off in time: no double work needed.

Cons of Xanthia: to build a theme, one should understand what Smarty is, and how to use it. Pros of Xanthia: PostNuke's Smarty renderer (pnRender) already gives lots of plugins to easily create any HTML page. With blockcontrol and theme zones, you could achieve anything you want. Template overrides guarantees that you could fit any layout to any different module.

Check the XTE forum here for lots of information and tuorials. Looking forward to your progression.

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-- Teb
-- Dutch Zikula Community

Support questions in a Personal Message will be ignored. Use the forums at all times!