By rexwood on

Hi All,

A newbie at Drupal so hope this is the right place to ask for some help with the following.

I have just purchased a website template from one of the large sites that market them. I spent a long time researching the optimum type and read so much good staff about Drupal, I searched for and purchased a Drupal website template specifically [ http://templates.entheosweb.com/template_number/25110.asp ]

Then the fun started.

I am no dummy but it certainly hasn't been easy. I have managed to get it started somewhat [theme - http://www.performancehq.com.au ] but none of the other structure is there.... and then I read comments from a couple of people on here that have had similar experiences.

however the website structure works for my wife's business, the content structure is 80% there [ as per the demo of the original sample template] and I am keen to get it working, after investing a lot of hours over a lot of days, trying to put it all together.

I have decided I need to put up my hand and ask for help.

Much of the discussion and information and tutorials that I have researched on Drupal.org deals with the development and construction of a website from 'within' Drupal. I haven't found any information on getting existing code to work. I believe I have all the 'dots' [ based on my limited knowledge and deduction] in looking at the files I uploaded. I'm just doing my head in trying to join them up.

can anyone provide any experience or direction about how to successfully put these components together, or direct me to some relevant person/organisation who could provide some idea of cost to have them resolve this?

I would rather not simply toss it all out and start from scratch, apart from the waste of money it is a time issue. The providers of the template have said they can accommodate and get it sorted out, which is an option i have considered, but i don;t want to simply utilise some less than competent resource and wanted to come to the group that clearly knows about Drupal to get an expert opinion.

I appreciate any assistance anyone is able to provide

Regards

Rex

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

DoctorWho’s picture

DoctorWho commented

You'll probably have to ask more specific questions to get some help here, at the moment I can only guess what your problems are.

I can see that you have no menu on your page, I guess that is what you mean by missing structure. Your page consists of blocks, one type of block can display a menu. In you admin menu under site building/blocks you can add blocks (the default menu is called "Navigation").

Generally you should get to know the main Drupal terms, e.g. node, block, .. (See http://drupal.org/node/19828 ). If you don't understand the principles, administering a Drupal site is sure to be very frustrating. You can of course also ask some more specific questions here.

sierrawayfarer’s picture

sierrawayfarer commented

Are you trying to create a website that resembles the template you bought or are you trying to merge your current website into a new drupal site with this template. Hopefully the first.

This site was very helpful to me in getting the basics down pat: http://nanwich.info/DrupalCookbook.htm . Read through the cookbook. Try to create some content (nodes). Look through your prebuilt blocks that come with the template and play with them a little and see what changes it causes. Play around and after getting some experience with the cookbook then comeback and ask some more specific questions. Drupal is very powerful and therefore complicated.

rexwood’s picture

rexwood commented

Thanks for the very helpful responses.

i was mindful of not firing straight off with a 3 page question... and thought I should test the water first to make sure it was the right forum to do so. Your responses have been very helpful and I have already started reading through the links provided.
To provide a bit more deatil, the website was a complete website with all the relevant pages etc alreday set up. When I look through some of the files rec'd I can only assume from the detail of coding that there should b far more than the banner and theme colours.
My intention is
(a) to change the green to match my wife's business colour [#c1d72e] which is close to the colour already used.
(b) Change the flash loop that starts on first loading the page to stop after the first loop on the picture of the older businessman, it is the most appropriate for the type of business [replacement of pictures can come later}
(c) change the logo to the correct logo
(d) change the content appropriately, there is a fair bit of it which is fine, but at least all the 'bones of the site and menu links etc are there.
(e) set up the relevant blogs and contact details
(f) then include an online e-commerce component

I had expected having loaded everything it should all work as the demo site does [which today is working properly] and you can see the functionality that I had expected to see. That's what was presented.

I have been through many of the files that came with the download and were uploaded to the hosting server it would appear that the required coding is in there somewhere, just setting it up seems to be the key.

For instance I just set up the Primary Links [Info and Stuff] to see how it managed them and it has picked up the theme format for the menu. When I went to set up menus etc, as they didn't come up of their own accord when loaded, I thought that the Primary Links menu items from the demo site would already be there as a selection - because the whole site was purchased not just the from page. But they weren't.
Similarly the Navigation menu on the demo site has a link to Advanced Search - which takes to an appropriately designed page. Again when using Administer to set this up i was expecting to see that as an item on the list that I could select and have it set up. But again it's not.

So when i say i am trying to 'connect the dots', I mean that I think the coding is there to allow the functionality required, but from the Drupal site Administer, I can't see it. and through CPanel, whilst i can see and view a number of files with a lot of coding with a reasonable amount of logic included, I can't set them up from there either.

It's almost as if there is something really simple, like the folder that this information resides in needs to be changed/updated to allows Drupal to pick up the necessary coding.

I certainly don't want to try and recreate a look-alike website. I don't have the skill to recreate the sort of functionality that is apparent. I'd be spending my life learning to try and catch up! However phase 1 for me is to see that the functionality is there and working and then phase 2 will be about update content.

I will read over the links you have directed me to, and hope this provides a bit better picture.

When taking the Drupal view, it is about 'creating' a website with the many tools and information at hand to build the website. From the Templates view it is about 'installing' already functioning elements 'into' the Drupal framework. I am afraid I am a novie at both and wasn't really expecting these issues when getting started. My short Xmas break has been long days of education trying to learn what I don't know to see if I can fix what I can't make work!

Thanks again for all of your help

Best regards

Rex

sierrawayfarer’s picture

sierrawayfarer commented

First, spend a couple of hours in that cookbook. It will answer many of your questions.

(a) to change the green to match my wife's business colour [#c1d72e] which is close to the colour already used.

You might hold off on this but it is probably set in something link a 'style.css' file in your theme folder. If you decide to mess with this, do one thing and then undo it until you find what you want.

(b) Change the flash loop that starts on first loading the page to stop after the first loop on the picture of the older businessman, it is the most appropriate for the type of business [replacement of pictures can come later}

I don't mess with flash because I run Linux and adobe is not friendly.

(c) change the logo to the correct logo

Again, somewhere in your theme you should find your logo. A good free tool for making a new one is Gimp if you haven't spent the big bucks for something like dreamweaver.

(d) change the content appropriately, there is a fair bit of it which is fine, but at least all the 'bones of the site and menu links etc are there.

If the site already has content it will show under admin/content mgmt/content. Look under admin/content mgmt/content types to see what sorts of predefined content types are supplied.

(e) set up the relevant blogs and contact details

I would use the 'story' content type for setting up blog(s).

(f) then include an online e-commerce component

Lots of modules for this. Finding one that you can configure the CSS for so it matches your site would be nice.

In general it seems that you just need general knowledge of drupal. Like the menu headings that you created need to be initialized under blocks before they show up. Go through that drupal cookbook.

Don't give up. It always seems overwhelming at first.

rexwood’s picture

rexwood commented

Thanks again for your tremendous help. I know what I will be doing today!!

Also appreciate your welcome advice re the Flash loop etc. I have an editor [not Flash CS4 - SoThink] that i had a test run on the content [colour change to elements etc] with some success, but I am cautious about playing with things in a test space before considering any 'production' changes. So I play around with it a lot and make sure I at least have it right before taking on the real McCoy. So I welcome your note of caution. the animation is not the biggest issue to be honest, the content and the logo are.

Already have a logo which I tested on the trial run, but positioning wasn't quite correct. I took from that that when I worked out how to link all of the Blocks and content that logo positioning would form part of that process, and I could make the necessary adjustments at that point - so left the for the mo while I get things functioning and can then worry about that.

Thanks for your 'persist' comment, I am pretty determined and don't mind studying to get answers, but I was beginning to feel like I was on an endless loop [ no pun intended] and not making any progress and not knowing how.

Your pointers and advice have helped immeasurably.

Best regards

Rex

sierrawayfarer’s picture

sierrawayfarer commented

Glad to hear that it sounds like you are making progress. If you have further questions please make them as specific as possible. I think you are now on the right track.

apmsooner’s picture

apmsooner commented

I would recommend installing firebug which is an addon for the firefox browser. Thats a safe way of styling elements on the page such as changing colors and repositioning logos. It will also tell you the style id or class associated with the stylesheet (most likely style.css) that exists in your theme folder that will need to be modified.