not css - searching for template-file... or something...

sph · Post by **sph** » Fri May 12, 2006 12:33 am

hello world!

so, i'm fine with my blog-css now. finished, ready. so i thought about some fine-tuning.

especially in the admin-area i thought about re-sort some different things, like 'put these box on top because i use it very often' or 'move this item down, i don't really need it'

thats not really necessary, it's just like... well.. the final polish or something.

but - where to manage this?

i'm no php-guy. i can handle html and css a little, and my first thought was "there has to be some .tpl-file". i can edit templates, too.

but i found nothing... so... is it really a .php which defines the admin-area-page?

where are this files..?

sorry if this is a "i cant hear it anymore"-question, but neither the documentation nor the web search helped me. so, any help welcome!

cheers&beers, nice days!

d_cee · Post by **d_cee** » Fri May 12, 2006 1:50 am

Hi sph

you'll find all the admin files in the templates/default/ directory - unless the theme you're using has a custom admin area. If you download a copy to edit, when you've done all your edits just upload the admin folder to your theme folder.

Dave

Post by **garvinhicking** » Fri May 12, 2006 11:33 am

Hi!

In fact, you can only adjust the CSS for the output of the Admin backend.

The admin area is not smartified, because of two reasons:

1. It's a painful lot of work that no developer has yet opted to do

2. Many times the frontend breaks because of missing Smarty privileges or other missing Smarty files. Currently the admin panel was always still accessible even though when Smarty had a problem. IF the admin panel was smartified, it might happen that you lock yourself out of the admin panel. Especially if you change the paths to your smarty templates, or move your blog to a new server you wouldn't get it to work before manually altering configuration settings.

Best regards,
Garvin

sph · Post by **sph** » Fri May 12, 2006 1:23 pm

hello world, again!

@d-cee:
i'm this far, allready

i made my admin-css and images and stuff, but even in the default-templates folder there are no admin-files i need to 'mod' the admin-panel

@garvin:
oh. mh. well... then.... dammit! ^^
you found really nice words to say "DONT FUCKING TOUCH THIS!"

mh, this smarty-thing is something i don't understand at all. i found some hints in the documentation, but i can't really understand, so i guess it will be better to leave these things as they are...

well, i thought it would be easy to re-order some kind of tables there, but i was wrong. 1:0 for my blog.

but your argument #1 leads me to another question:
if i don't understand, i shouldn't touch. but where should i go to learn to understand? i mean - there MUST be some files. there MUST be a scheme, a system, a CODE.

if it is not too much work for you, could you explain where i could start to learn to handle those smarty-thing? or some other hints which could help to get me and my understanding closer to my idea?

if its not too hard work, maybe i'd really get trough this stuff. maybe. depending on the time it takes to learn, depending on time it takes to see first results

(seems there's only one main developer of s9y and his name begins with 'gar'... o0

)

nice weekend, thank you both for your answers

Post by **garvinhicking** » Fri May 12, 2006 1:43 pm

Hi sph!

Sadly, yes, what it boils down to: "Don't touch it, t's too complicated".

However, you can also sometimes reorder elements just with CSS magic, by using position: absolute and tricks like that.

Ther surely will sometime be a smartyfied backend, but at least not in the next months.

The "code" you are looking for can be found in the files

serendipity_admin.php
include/admin/*
include/functions_entries_admin.inc.php

But when you touch that, you block your upgrade path for future serendipity versions, as they will overwrite the modification you made.

Learning smarty is best done at http://smarty.php.net/ They have a great documentation, and when you're through that you could start with looking at the serendipity smarty stuff in files like include/functions_entries.inc.php and include/functions_smarty.inc.php and index.php

And about "how hard it is", let's put it like this: I have done the Smarty frontendification and I know Serendipity fairly well. It would take me about 2 whole weeks (80 hours) to smartify the backend. Without offense, I think you should multiple this with 4 or 5 to get the amount of hours it would take you for a full smarty-driven backend.

Sadly, currently it really is me being the main developer. Some very talented hands help with plugin development, but the core code is mostly being combed by me.

Best regards,
Garvin

sph · Post by **sph** » Fri May 12, 2006 1:55 pm

that's a clear statement.

in times i'm bored i will follow your suggests and visit this site and view this files. but your little calculation about time you spent is really frightening me. for now...

ty, bye!