OK. I really don’t understand html or css very well. I’ve read and gone through a couple of the beginner tutorials (including codingpad and others), and the tutorials make sense to me on such a basic level, but the Code that my WYSIWYG produces is so different from most other source codes, that it’s like a totally different language to me. I copied the html from my website and pasted it into Modx to make a template, and it ended up displaying exactly how it’s supposed to look, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that. There is nowhere to put anything else with a template like that. Bottom line is: I can’t even figure out where to start. The little bit that the tutorials have covered so far, don’t make sense to me when it comes to trying to edit my Code. I’m not trying to take the easy way out. I know I could keep reading and progress slowly and eventually be able to make a decent template that resembles my site, but that’s a discouraging thought because I’ve already spent countless hours developing it the way I have been, and I don’t wanna start completely over if I don’t have to. Not to mention, I’m in a hurry to get this thing donw.
I know everybody’s busy, but my website is
http://www.themovietimeline.net. I don’t think the template would be that complicated once it’s simplified. It seems very basic. If somebody could just take a look at the code from my site, or just the site itself and get me going in the right direction (or just bust a template out real quick) I would more than appreciate it. I really have no idea what to do. Making a template out of my websites code seems impossible to me. Maybe just a few little tips will get me back on the right track. Thanks
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☆ A M B ☆
- 24,524 Posts
The trick is to look at your web page’s code as being in three parts:
1. content - the text your visitors see; this includes content common to all pages, such as your "masthead" and logo and main menu, and footer information.
2. Presentation - the HTML layout structure, plus the CSS and images used in creating the "skin" of the page (here your existing site is table-based; I never adapt such a thing, I do a total redesign that produces the same results in a more flexible HTML/CSS standards-compliant manner).
3. Functionality - any PHP code used for dynamic functions, such as generating a menu or creating a photo gallery.
A MODx template is the Presentation part. It contains the raw HTML code to form the skeleton of the page, which gets fleshed out with the content.
Documents (Resources), chunks and TVs are various methods of handling the content. The main content of the page will be taken from the document’s "content" field. Chunks are used for blocks of content that can be used across multiple templates; it’s common to use these for the footer and sometimes the header of a web page.
Snippets and plugins form the functionality part. They contain the PHP code that gets executed to generate dynamic content, such as the menu system, or a news or blog post listing (in your case, the Ditto snippet that would generate the actual movie listings from the individual movies’ documents).
Well, you made it seem a whole lot easier! I knew my existing code would be a problem. You did make a re-design sound a lot less daunting and more straight forward. I’ve done a few tutorials, and from what I gathered from you. My site should be pretty easy right, as far as modx goes? A number of chunks on each page, placed in the same area where I had my movies, nav links, text and images from the Timeline, and then a lot of them can just be updated by Ditto Snippet.
The biggest problem for me will be to come up with the right html and css to make it all look right, since I can’t just copy my site’s html. I guess it was inevitable that I’d have to learn coding one day! It sounds easier than trying to f** with my existing code anyway.
It’s still gonna take me a long time. Too long, relative to how fast I’d like to get it done. I don’t know if you’re interested in working on somebody else’s site, but if you were. How much would you charge to create a template for my site? Or do you know anyone who does that kind of work, and do you know the going rate?
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☆ A M B ☆
- 24,524 Posts
Your template would be very simple; it has four basic parts, the header, the left column, the main section, and the footer.
The main column would be populated by documents with Ditto calls: each "group" of movies would reside under a container document. This may or may not be the document with the Ditto calls; the "parent" documents can be unpublished documents to serve as containers only, and a listing page can have more than one Ditto call; or one Ditto call can retrieve the documents of more than one container.
I believe that if you installed MODx with the demo site option, you’ll find a template and CSS file with a general structure that you want. All you would need to do is modify the css to use colors and backgrounds that you prefer.
Alrighty. I’ll give that a try. I’ve tinkered with html before to alter the appearance a little bit. All of this just seemed overwhelming on first glance.
Thanks for your help.
