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Ported: Mimbo
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:45 pm
by yellowled
It's taken some time, some cursing, and a little help from my friends, but it's done: As requested in
http://board.s9y.org/viewtopic.php?t=12232, the
Mimbo template by Darren Hoyt, a magazine/news style template, has been ported to s9y
Garvin has agreed to host this on and already checked it into Spartacus, so it will be available at some point over the next couple of days (usually 24 to 48 hours, so maybe Sunday) either using the spartacus plugin or on spartacus.s9y.org. Until then,
a screenshot is available.
As you can see in that screenshot, Mimbo uses a different approach to the start page: It displays entries from selected categories (this can be done using the s9y theme options) in three areas (lead, features, and news), each area having it's own, unique look (and, yes, .tpl file). The images accompanying the entries shown in the screenshot are not included in the template, but users can assign their own images to each entry using extended entry properties. Instructions how to set this up are included in the theme options page, which also allows you to customize the navbar and assign s9y categories to the three Mimbo categories used on the start page.
This is not a 1:1 port. I had to drop the fancy dropdown menu as well as some of the sidebar stuff and some other features the original has. This is simply due to the fact that the original is for that other blog engine, and you simply can't port these things with reasonable effort. We may eventually add some of these later, if - and only if - there is a a reasonable demand for them among users.
I have to thank Garvin and Don for their invaluable suggestions and code examples. I also have to thank Carl for doing the Hemingway template, which has been an awesome code example. I can only advise any template designer to dig into the Hemingway code, it's a great learning experience!
YL
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 3:55 pm
by judebert
Great job, yellowled!
I decided to go look at the original template (you know, the one for that other blog). Pardon the chatspeak, but... O M G.
Serendipity makes things SO much easier! The original template required the user to "find an appropriate image and resize it to 269×178", then "upload it to the correct folder", then remember the name and enter it in a custom field!
Serendipity has Media buttons for its custom fields, so that selection is user friendly (with thumbnails!), and you can upload the image anywhere with the standard Media tool.
Worst of all, you actually had to hand-modify the code! Their templates are just PHP; because the Lead Story category's "id number will differ from user to user, depending on what number is assigned in your database", you had to actually edit the code to assign the correct category number! Then you had to do it again for the "Features" category -- but the instructions don't even mention that it has to be done. And then you had to do it yet again for the blurbs -- and this time, you had to program a PHP array! How many users are going to go through all that learning?
Yellowled's Serendipity template lets you simply pick the categories. No code modification!
Want to add sponsors, or ads? In the original template, you had to "open sidebar.php and add whatever code is needed". In Serendipity, you just add a new nugget plugin to your sidebar.
I know you spent a lot of time and effort on this, Yellowled. I can see the difficulty -- for the template designer. But for the user, this is a heck of a lot easier than that other blog.
I'd recommend making an entry on your blog on how to use Serendipity's Mimbo theme. It would make a nice contrast to the original template.
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 8:59 pm
by yellowled
judebert wrote:The original template required the user to "find an appropriate image and resize it to 269×178", then "upload it to the correct folder", then remember the name and enter it in a custom field!
You know, I had something like that in a very early version of the port, too. But I guess the whole Bulletproof development just taught me that almost anything is possible if template designers and php coders work together and help each other out. That's something we should definitely cultivate in the s9y world, it can do nothing but good to work together.
judebert wrote:Worst of all, you actually had to hand-modify the code!
I didn't even know that
I only looked at all those PHP files to get the structure for the subpages etc., but I never really saw it "live" in that other blog engine. Well, I saw it live in Darren Hoyts demo page, but I never installed it.
judebert wrote:Yellowled's Serendipity template lets you simply pick the categories. No code modification!
Which isn't really all because of "my" template (remember, it's just a port), but mainly because of s9y and it's plugins. Actually, this is one of the reasons why I originally picked s9y - you can do so much more without having to code a single line of PHP ...
judebert wrote:I know you spent a lot of time and effort on this, Yellowled. I can see the difficulty -- for the template designer. But for the user, this is a heck of a lot easier than that other blog.
Actually, if I consider what Carl mentioned about how long it took to port Hemingway, it wasn't even that much time and effort - mainly because of the awesome groundwork Carl layed with Hemingway. I've said it before, I'll say it again: It's a shame that almost nobody uses Hemingway. It's an awesome template, and a great source of inspiration.
judebert wrote:I'd recommend making an entry on your blog on how to use Serendipity's Mimbo theme. It would make a nice contrast to the original template.
I have already posted a
quick release announcement (in German only), but I guess I could post some more detailed instructions in both German and English some time next week (busy weekend coming up). Then again, I used the custom type in config.inc.php to add some detailed instructions to the theme options already, so users should be good to go for the time being anyway.
Oh, and thanks for all the kind words, Jude
YL
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 11:26 pm
by ormus7577
Looking great! Pity it hasn't surfaced on spartacus yet...
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:22 am
by vavai
Hi Yellowled,
Wow, it's amazing ! Greatly appreciated what you have done by porting the Mimbo themes into S9y.
The original template required the user to "find an appropriate image and resize it to 269×178", then "upload it to the correct folder", then remember the name and enter it in a custom field!
Absolutely yes. I have
a live blog based on Wordpress with Mimbo themes and what Judebert said is what I do to write a post.
As I said before, It's
really help me. I will contact you as soon as possible or by making some of your wish come true.
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 3:32 pm
by ormus7577
Is it possible to create a link to a list of all categories? I would like to add one in the navbar to a 'classic' list of all entries. It is possible to select multiple categories via the categories sidebar plugin (with the checkboxes activated), but how would a single html link look like?
*edit* should have searched first. For the record:
Code: Select all
index.php?serendipity[category]=1;3;5
*edit 2* hmm, it's not working, any ideas? see
http://familie.lobenstein.info/ link 'Liste aller Beiträge' in the navbar...
Re: Ported: Mimbo
Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 6:22 am
by fischer
Hi.
I'm not sure what is wrong so anyone got an idea why my blog has this look?
http://www.fischer.as
I have zero categories and hence nothing to choose from in the template settings.
I really like this theme, but ...
Peter Fischer, Denmark
Re: Ported: Mimbo
Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 12:25 pm
by yellowled
fischer wrote:I have zero categories and hence nothing to choose from in the template settings.
Well, if you don't assign your entries to categories in s9y, you can't assign these s9y categories to the Mimbo categories. This is a possibility which isn't covered in the Mimbo port - obviously, there is some kind of fallback, otherwise your blog's start page wouldn't show anything at all. But this is a s9y fallback, not a Mimbo fallback.
Without entry categories, Mimbo will not work properly. That's simply a core function of this template
YL
Re: Ported: Mimbo
Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 5:57 pm
by fischer
yellowled wrote:
Without entry categories, Mimbo will not work properly. That's simply a core function of this template
That worked perfectly, thx
So I kept finetuning my plugins, removing old "obsulete" and non-working plugins ... and suddenly the bottom txt and bottom startpage links and copyrights notes moved to the right.
Why????
http://www.fischer.as
Re: Ported: Mimbo
Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 6:16 pm
by fischer
fischer wrote:
So I kept finetuning my plugins, removing old "obsulete" and non-working plugins ... and suddenly the bottom txt and bottom startpage links and copyrights notes moved to the right.
Problem solved.
Simply a matter of enough articles in the frontpage layout.
Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:02 am
by vavai
Hi,
How to customized count of article displayed on Feature or News. How if I need more feature article (ie : 5 articles in Feature instead 3)
Thanks & Regards,
Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 12:28 pm
by yellowled
vavai wrote:How to customized count of article displayed on Feature or News. How if I need more feature article (ie : 5 articles in Feature instead 3)
I'll see what I can do to add theme options for that and update Mimbo, that'll be much easier. May take some days, though.
YL
Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:58 pm
by yellowled
vavai wrote:How to customized count of article displayed on Feature or News. How if I need more feature article (ie : 5 articles in Feature instead 3)
You know what? Since this is a single request, I don't see the necessity to modify the version in spartacus again. Plus, it's really very easy to customize. Find this part in your /templates/mimbo/index.tpl:
Code: Select all
<div id="leftcol">
{serendipity_fetchPrintEntries category=$template_option.catfeat full=true fetchDrafts=false noSticky=true limit="0,3" template="entries_lcol.tpl"}
</div><!-- /#leftcol -->
In the middle line, there's the limit="0,3" statement. Change the 3 to whatever number of features you need. That's it
(Don't forget to save these changes!)
YL
Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 4:26 pm
by fischer
Hi.
I just wanna say that this theme rocks.
It's so "pro"-looking nice and the CSS is rocksolid.
Thx!
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:29 am
by vavai
Hi Yellowled,
yellowled wrote:
You know what? Since this is a single request, I don't see the necessity to modify the version in spartacus again. Plus, it's really very easy to customize. Find this part in your /templates/mimbo/index.tpl:
Code: Select all
<div id="leftcol">
{serendipity_fetchPrintEntries category=$template_option.catfeat full=true fetchDrafts=false noSticky=true limit="0,3" template="entries_lcol.tpl"}
</div><!-- /#leftcol -->
In the middle line, there's the limit="0,3" statement. Change the 3 to whatever number of features you need. That's it
(Don't forget to save these changes!)
YL
Sorry for requesting this one. I've search it manually before posted the request but I missed the primary file, index.tpl
. I tried it with entries_lcol.tpl
Thank you. It's worked like a charm.
