I am running e-fiction 3.5 and I recently had to get new skins because of the upgrade from 2.0. The only problem is that these new skins don't have a big enough content area to display the story banners that are already uploaded with many of my stories. The banner crosses over and overlaps the sidebar. I do not want to get rid of the banners or re-size them. Is there a way to have the sidebar appear only on the index page so that the main content when you are reading a story of browsing for a story would fill up the layout instead of having the sidebar there? then nothing would have to be re-sized or removed?
I've tried going to all the blocks in the admin panel and choosing index only but that doesn't seem to do anything.
My site is at http://loveunchained.com/fiction/
Turning them to index only is good if you don't intend them to appear other places. That will make the contents of the blocks disappear. However, it won't get rid of the containing elements. To do that, you have to edit the skin files. In the site default skin (HarryPotter02) that's in the header.tpl file.
<div id="column">
<h3>{categories_title}</h3>
{categories_content}
<h3>{info_title}</h3>
{info_content}
<h3>{recent_title}</h3>
{recent_content}
<h3>{random_title}</h3>
{random_content}
<h3>{featured_title}</h3>
{featured_content}
<h3>{online_title}</h3>
{online_content}
<h3>{skinchange_title}</h3>
{skinchange_content}
<br>{xml}
<h3>{poll_title}</h3>
{poll_content}
<h3>{shoutbox_title}</h3>
{shoutbox_content}
</div>
You'll want to remove that from the header and put it in index.tpl instead. It will probably require some tweaking. Actually, you'll likely want to put the {skinchange_content} somewhere in either your header or footer so that it does actually appear everywhere on the site.
I've got it working in Harry Potter 03 all except getting the sidebar to display on the index. I can only make it display above or below the news 🙁
Hmm, it looks as though you've got the sidebar there now on the HP03 skin. The only thing you'll probably want to do is put the main content (news area) ending div outside the sidebar ending div so that the white background there is surrounding the sidebar. Haven't looked at that one's HTML though, so maybe that's easier said than done.
I've tried it every which way i can think of! Maybe this will help?
This is my index.tpl:
<!-- INCLUDE BLOCK : header -->
{welcome}
<h1>{news_title}</h1>
{news_content}
<br><br>
<div align="center">{login_content}
<div id="column">
<h3>{categories_title}</h3>
{categories_content}
<h3>{info_title}</h3>
{info_content}
<h3>{recent_title}</h3>
{recent_content}
<h3>{random_title}</h3>
{random_content}
<h3>{featured_title}</h3>
{featured_content}
<h3>{online_title}</h3>
{online_content}
<h3>{skinchange_title}</h3>
{skinchange_content}
<br>{xml}
<h3>{poll_title}</h3>
{poll_content}
<h3>{shoutbox_title}</h3>
{shoutbox_content}
<!-- INCLUDE BLOCK : footer --></div>
and this is my header.tpl:
<!-- START BLOCK : header -->
<body>
<div id="mainContainer">
<div id="sitename">{sitename}</div>
<div id="siteslogan">{slogan}</div>
<div id="menu">{menu_content}</div>
<div id="header"></div>
<div id="content">
<!-- END BLOCK : header -->
Well, for index.tpl you've got two beginning div tags but only one ending. Try adding another </div> to the end, after the first. It may close in the footer.tpl file, though...
No that didn't worlk 🙁
I'm trying to make a second header that will only be displayed on the index page. I tried renaming the original header header 2 and changing headerto header 2 in the code but it's not working. There must be somewhere other than index and header that I need to change it at.
That's going to be pretty complicated. I've never seen it done, but in theory this is how it would work.
There are blocks in every tpl file, so you'll have to redefine the blocks. You'll see lines like this in header.tpl.
<!-- START BLOCK : header -->
<!-- END BLOCK : header -->
In your secondary header.tpl file (header2.tpl or whatever) you'll want to change these to something else, like header to secondheader, for example. Then, you'll want to go into every other tpl file but the index and change any instance of this to match:
<!-- INCLUDE BLOCK : header -->
THEN, you'll have to look through the default_tpls folder for other files that have the line to include header block. You'll want to copy these (make sure you copy; you don't want to modify the ones in default_tpls or your other skins will be affected) into the HarryPotter03 folder. Then change all of their references to including header block to secondheader (or whatever you want to call it).
Again, I have no idea if this will actually work or not. You may have to match the name of the block to the name of the file? I think there are some instances of multiple blocks being defined in the same .tpl, though, so it might not be necessary.
In conclusion I think it's much easier to get the skin working properly as-is rather than defining a second header.
wow that really is way too much for something that I thought would be very simple.I'm not used to working with .tpl files. It would be much easier in php.
I'm gonna keep working at it the first way instead of defining a second header. If I don't find something soon, I might just completley remove the sidebar from the entire site even though I don't really want to.
I may have overcomplicated it, since I've never tried before. That's what I think would be the way to do it, though. I think you might have more luck if you look at header, index, and footer.tpl as one unit - of course, making sure not to change stuff in header and footer that would affect others like viewstory.tpl. Tomorrow when I get a chance I can look at it.
It's really not all that complicated. Just put the html code for the second header in the index.tpl.
Any help I can get is much appreciated! I cannot code to save my life. Only do simple things. And I'm probably missing something very simple 🙁
So, the main issue was that the "content" div was beginning in the header and ending in the footer. So I had to change that, and put the reference to that in the other tpls (like browse, user - the ones that include header and footer block). That was just some copying and pasting and then creating a new div id in the CSS to be used on the index page, and changing a couple of width numbers around in the "content" div.
http://efictiontest.verilyviridian.com/index.php?skin=HarryPotter03
I zipped up the modified files and you can download them here: http://www.verilyviridian.com/lyndsie/butterflyHP3.zip Just save over the existing ones in the HarryPotter03 folder.
Oh thank youso much! You've been a huge help! If there is EVER anything that you need please let me know!
Just make sure to go to Admin > Blocks and set any blocks that are now only on the index page to "Index Only". I notice you don't even have some of them on or installed, so you may want to pull them out of the skin. Also, I discovered something else that should be changed. In index.tpl, {xml} should be changed to {rss}.
