Custom Blocks

[uk_martin]

Hi

Great Custom Block feature . I just had a play and added a Photo Wall into it - www.brummiesfans.com/test

So refreshing that it works in phpBB3 because it certainly doesn't on my phpBB2 board (well...it does work in Firefox but not in Internet Explorer) - www.brummiesfans.com.forum/portal_test.php

Because this Photo Wall has proven unreliable in the past, I'd appreciate confirmation from others that my test in the phpBB3 environment can be signed off positively.

THE NEXT thing though, having become spoilt by how easy one custom block is to add, can more be added? Please?

Thanks

Martin

[LDM]

Working fine for me and looks really good running coolaris on the portal, not seen that before.

Slight pause in loading the page but nothing to put anyone off, it's still pretty fast.

Not know really too much about board 3 portal, but I think you can add as many blocks as you want. Rememeber there is instructions around this forum to add your gallery, arcade blocks, etc.

Looks good mate, you're doing well and will forget all about phpBB2 once you have that up and live.

[uk_martin]

Thanks for the kind words. That delay can be shortened. The Cooliris gizmo is fed from an RSS feed (generated from a Plugin in my Coppermine Gallery) I've set the RSS feed to bring up 300 images. If I'd have selected a smaller number, I don't think it would take so long to initialise.

Much as I'd like to dump the phpBB2 forum (& its MODS) there's a lot on my shopping list to sort out on phpBB3 before I can migrate, so that from the user's point of view, there is a seamless transition, including:
1. TinyMCE snag
2. Converting Smartor Album database to the Nick Vergessen Gallery format
3. Installing that phpBB CMS MOD (& copying over the articles on the current live site)
4. Skinning the forum into the team colours (keep those sunglasses handy!)

[LDM]

Nick's site will probably have a lot of info re converting from smartor as well as the phpbb.com topic. For a CMS, did you know about the new rokbridge Joomla - phpBB3 bridge?
I haven't tried the new one yet, but did have the old bridge running here last year.

I didn't realise they were your team colours, I'll be ready

[uk_martin]

Thanks, I didn't know about Joomla. I had this one in mind.

What do you think of it?

[LDM]

I have not even seen that in use until just now on the demo. If you run a portal why not create your own custom pages and link them from the menu or are you looking for a blog style?

[uk_martin]

This is the bit of the current web site that I will need to migrate over, hopefully with a less cumbersome menu/navigation system, so whichever is the easiest way to do it.

The existing pages are also from a CMS plugin to phpBB2, which integrates with the Admin Panel etc, so I'm pretty used to that way of doing things.

[LDM]

Maybe it could build into the portal or at least the main links added to the menu?

Just was a bit confused as to using the portal and the CMS.

[uk_martin]

Not know really too much about board 3 portal, but I think you can add as many blocks as you want. Rememeber there is instructions around this forum to add your gallery, arcade blocks, etc.

I've been looking at the MOD in the ACP and there seems to be one mini block for the sides, and one centre block available for cutomisation. I've not seen a way to add a second centre block, or additional mini blocks for the left or right columns.

Or maybe I've not fully grasped its potential yet. All nudges in the right direction gratefully appreciated. I need the extra blocks to insert stuff like I have on my live site, such as the RSS News Tickes (2 of them) the Weather Block, and the YouTube block.

Granted that there are other blocks that are part of the Portal that are "easily switch off and onable" (copyright - Creature COmforts) but these are freestyle blocks which I wrote into phpBB2's portal_body.tpl, however I#ve not yet quite sussed how to do it into the new templates without breaking anything.



ANYWAY, digressing slightly, I did a bit more Modding last night. I installed AutoMOD, which went well. Using it then, I installed the CMS MOD and the Blank Template MOD, both of which went well. Good to see that automated complicated processes actually DO work. I was expecting minor disasters (natural cynic here lol) but was quite surprised. Now that these MODs are installed, it's time to see how do do stuff with them.

[uk_martin]

I'm having problems with blocks.

I've added two MODs into my test site - www.brummiesfans.com/test -

1. Gallery Block MOD 1.22
2. LastRSS Aggregator 2

Both of these are supposed to show blocks in the portal, and maybe the RSS MOD shows elsewhere too.

HOWEVER, despite configuring them in ACP to show, they don't.

Not sure what the problem is, however in looking, I noticed that certain template files (overall_header for one) seemed to have a CHMOD of 715 (everyone can execute and only owner can read - ????) Seems strange to me when most HTML files are CHMOD of 644. Can you confirm what they ought to be please?

[LDM]

Sorry Martin, just opened this thread to see I missed a post of yours before that one.

As far as adding blocks, you can add anything you can't do in ACP via opening the index file for the portal. You will see the code in three different sections, right, middle and left. It is easy to add the code of whatever block you are adding in that file.

Most template files if not all, should at least be 644 permissions.

Be careful adding too many resource hungry blocks. I did get a slight load page lag on your test site which I think could be a mix of the call to youtubes and the weather block.
I really like that youtube block you done, looks good!

[uk_martin]

I'm going to give the situation the benefit of a night's sleep and a fresh pair of eyes in the morning.

The lag isn't anything specific to the portal as such. The web host is having a bad hair day. The FTP and mail service is even slower!

Thanks about the YouTube Block comment. It's a breeze to do. I used the built-in Custom Block and just added in this code, obtained from the YouTube developers site:

Code: Select all

<!-- ++Begin Video Bar Wizard Generated Code++ -->
   <div align="center">
  <div id="videoBar-bar">
    <span style="color:#676767;font-size:11px;margin:10px;padding:4px;">Loading...</span>
  </div>
 
  <!-- Ajax Search Api and Stylesheet
  // Note: If you are already using the AJAX Search API, then do not include it
  //       or its stylesheet again
  -->
  <script src="http://www.google.com/uds/api?file=uds.js&v=1.0&source=uds-vbw"
    type="text/javascript"></script>
  <style type="text/css">
    @import url("http://www.google.com/uds/css/gsearch.css");
  </style>
 
  <!-- Video Bar Code and Stylesheet -->
  <script type="text/javascript">
    window._uds_vbw_donotrepair = true;
  </script>
  <script src="http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/videobar/gsvideobar.js?mode=new"
    type="text/javascript"></script>
  <style type="text/css">
    @import url("http://www.brummiesfans.com/gsvideobar.css");
  </style>
 
  <style type="text/css">
    .playerInnerBox_gsvb .player_gsvb {
      width : 320px;
      height : 260px;
    }
  </style>
  <script type="text/javascript">
    function LoadVideoBar() {
 
    var videoBar;
    var options = {
        largeResultSet : !false,
        horizontal : false,
        autoExecuteList : {
          cycleTime : GSvideoBar.CYCLE_TIME_MEDIUM,
          cycleMode : GSvideoBar.CYCLE_MODE_LINEAR,
          executeList : ["ytchannel:brummiesfans"]
        }
      }
 
    videoBar = new GSvideoBar(document.getElementById("videoBar-bar"),
                              GSvideoBar.PLAYER_ROOT_FLOATING,
                              options);
    }
    // arrange for this function to be called during body.onload
    // event processing
    GSearch.setOnLoadCallback(LoadVideoBar);
  </script>
</div>
<!-- ++End Video Bar Wizard Generated Code++ -->

Ahhh, the delights of copy & paste.

Cheers

Martin