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By R. Kevin on
Recently, a very popular site that I've been visiting for years made the choice to switch from primarily being a Bulletin Board site to being a site that had a larger range of content.
The then-project manager, who has some decent skills, converted the very popular site from a vBulletin message board to the Drupal system.
Many users of the site simply up and left and a once vibrant, active site has seen a mammoth loss of traffic and participating.
After consulting with the site's owner, who has been pretty busy lately, I offered to do what I could do to try and tackle the many issues the users had with the current site.
Setting aside the "it isn't vBulletin" complaint (which is the major issue), I've made it my goal for the message boards to address a rather hefty list of complaint.
So, here is my first major issue.
I'm working with SmartFTP and Kompozer. Do I need to have some sort of administrative mask at the site itself in order to make changes to the site? Obviously, if I could do the editing at the site instead of via my extremely limited coding abilities, life would be much easier.
Thank you and I'll try to keep my desperate requests for help to a minimum.
Comments
"Inherited." How appalling.
"Inherited." How appalling.
...
What do you mean by this?
What are you trying to change?
Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.
Well, at the moment, I'd
Well, at the moment, I'd like to change the theme, but the information I'm reading in the documentation suggests that this is not specifically done via FTP and page editor - that it is done from the site via some sort of admin panel.
I figure, if I've been asked to make changes, and the best way to make changes is via an admin panel at the site I'm editing, it would probably be wise for me to request admin access. If there's some easy way to alter the theme via ftp and page editor, that would be great, too.
Guess the bottom line is I'm as big a newbie to the world of Drupal as I can be. I'm hoping to change a number of things regarding the message board (starting with the theme, but also including a bunch of readability changes that are implemented on this forum's bulletin board layout, but not on our site's layout) in the short term so that I can maybe help staunch the flow of veteran users from the site.
Theme is a good place to start, though.
OK, so I take you mean you
OK, so I take you mean you want edit the CSS and templates to modify the look of the current theme?
If so, then FTP, Firebug/Firefox and decent text editor are going to be your best friends, and the Drupal theme guides. Kompozer looks like junkware to me, get something decent like http://www.e-texteditor.com/ - you cannot WYSIWYG Drupal theme files.
Best to set up a test site on your local host and make all changes there first. Test, test and test some more.
Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.
If FTP is a pain, you can
If FTP is a pain, you can also consider the AlterCSS Module.
- Pavan Keshavamurthy
http://grahana.net/
- Pavan Keshavamurthy
http://grahana.net/
...
Just thought I'd add that perhaps you want to take a look at the Advanced Forum module.
Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.
Thank you! Your advice is
Thank you!
Your advice is sound and timely.
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If you decide to use it, I'd be interested in hearing about your progress. AF is pretty good for replacing phpbb but vbulletin is a lot more advanced and harder to replicate. If you're willing, this would be an awesome test case for me to see what vb features people _really_ miss and what are just fluff that no one uses anyway.
Thanks,
Michelle
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See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out life in the Coulee Region.
Heh. Do I have a list of
Heh. Do I have a list of complaints for you... Let me know if you'd like me to send it your way.
(For your own interest, I mean)
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Sure. My contact tab is on. I can't guarantee I can fix everything. I'm only one person working for free and vb has a team of paid professionals. LOL! But it's always useful to know what actual users are looking for rather than just trying to match a feature set.
Michelle
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See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out life in the Coulee Region.