Confused Newbie

Hi Finz,

I think that most of us will agree that designing pages (especially at first) seems to work best if you mock up your page in a static form before you create your section editors. Then look over your design, decide which areas of your page need to be dynamic, and begin to create database fields for those dynamic areas.

As you begin to create the data fields, copy the required php code from the code generator and paste it into your static page. Populate the field with some data, then test to see if it appears on your viewer page and if it works as expected.

Create and insert only one or two fields at a time, so that you can locate errors more easily.

One place to get clues about problems is to look at the source code of your live page.

It get's easier as you get more familiar with the process.

Good luck,

Jerry Kornbluth

Hi there.

Thanks for posting!

Jerry's definitely got some good advice for you there. I also agree that your template is going to be the best place to start. Once you have the template done, you'll know exactly what parts need to be updated and from there, you'll know exactly what needs to be setup in CMS Builder so you can update everything. And then you start the integration.

Did you already have your template finalized? Perhaps you could send me a link to it so I can start walking you through setting up CMS Builder.

Let me know :). We'll be here every step of the way.

Hi everyone Thank you all for your input....
I was looking for a web development package and ecentually cms builder is that. The problem area is when you hand over to the client if they want to add a page then you have to manually add it to the site map, category or menu system...
Having a CMS with a wysiwyg editor for static content with your database development ability for the automated type content like product catalogue staff prophiles etc. is what I am trying to achieve.... tell me I am a pipe dreamer..

Thanks again for all your great support I may take up your offer however I want to get my head around things first.

Can the categories system provide a structure where by I can organize a company into Departments then sub departments eg Planning Department >> Roads, Building etc.

Similar to a City council is there a tutorial on how could use the category system to make a dynamic menu that would present all content assocciated with a category.... news, links, documents events etc. ....or is this not what the category system is ment for.

This topic seems to be a re-occurring in the forum however there doesn't seem to be a diffinative answer.

Thanks In advance

Finz

Hi

The best place to start on a project like this is going to be with your template. With a working template, you'll see exactly how the code works and then from there will be able to start integrating the CMS Builder code.

Just as a quick time, menus that are basically just a combination of <ul> and <li> tags typically work best. You would handle the actual drop down effects through CSS.

That's not to say it's the only way. Just one that I've found works quite nicely :).

Hi again I have a few replys repeating the same theme of templates... what little i knowledge i have of CMS systems is that one template file is required.
This template generally has cms tags or code for the menu, main content, side bars and so on. These tags call various content or modules as installed from the database....

I know that this software is different and I have put together the basic news pages etc.

Where i am confused a little is everyone is saying build a template however I am thinking they mean build a static website with all the pages I am wanting in the site.

I was looking for a solution for a more than 50 page web site and one that the client can just add a new page of content which dynamically updates the menu system.

This is why I was wandering about the category system my be the solution. still don't know how the category system works.... Can you have sub Cats if so how many levels can each level be linked to a field in all of the sections? or do you add a category field to each section you use?

sorry I am a bit slow on this however when I get it I will be you biggest Fan....

regards Finz

Hi Finz,

You don't need to build all the pages, just one of each different kind of page.

If you're creating a multi-record section which will have records belonging to different categories, then yes, you would add a category field to that section. If your new section is supposed to appear under one category, then it wouldn't need the category field.

What kinds of pages will your client be adding? If you can describe how your 50+ page site is going to be organized for your web visitors, we can help you figure out how to organize the sections for CMS Builder.

If you're having trouble figuring out what the pages should look like, you can list what content your client has.

Hopefully this helps! Please let us know if you have any further questions.