I'm about halfway through with a primer/guide on how to use templates in LinkSQL, with the differences between 2.0 and some tricks for setting up a large, easily maintained site. I've DUMPED .css in this example, since I prefer straight HTML (until, and if that changes netwide).

If you have tricks, hints, helps, etc that you've found out in designing templates, please forward them to me. You can reply to this thread to share them, or email them if you'd rather. I'll credit the first person who sends a new one if it's not already in.

They don't have to be real fancy things either... just what you wish you had known when you were starting to design or fix up your templates.

Anything you've noticed between using nph-build and page.cgi, etc.

Thanks!

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POSTCARDS.COM -- Everything Postcards on the Internet www.postcards.com
LinkSQL FAQ: www.postcards.com/FAQ/LinkSQL/

No one with any other input?

Hi pugdog,

my biggest problem in the beginning was that I didn't have a list of available <%Tags%> for the templates.

And it would have helped alot if I had known more about the <%include any_textfile%> statement for modular templates.

Good! I should put that up. Thing is, Alex keeps changing them, <G>.... But I'll add a list of tags that are available and where they are available. Some of that information is available in the template editors area, but it's often overlooked.



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POSTCARDS.COM -- Everything Postcards on the Internet www.postcards.com
LinkSQL FAQ: www.postcards.com/FAQ/LinkSQL/

Hi Pugdog,

One suggestion is to never use frontpage editor. Yeah, it might be easier to design the layout, but it will mess your %tags% and everything around them

About page.cgi, it doesn't process nested includes and nph-build.cgi does =)

 
Really?! They both parse/display templates in the same way, and as far as I can tell, you shouldn't be able to use nested includes at all.

Cheers,

Alex

Alex,

page.cgi and nph-build do do different things at times. they are often minor, but they do exist. This is why I made the suggestion that all calls be centralized...

I thought it was due to the mods I made to the template routines, but it's not just that. Page.cgi generated sites and nph-build.cgi sites do have minor differences.

 
If you do notice anything, please point it out to me as it's most likely a bug.

Cheers,

Alex

ekaram,

You can customize FP to allow special tags, like the ones used in LINKS. FP 2000 is a lot easier to configure to do this, but FP 98 also allows for this. In addition, if you know about raw HTML, you can easily add the tags in the correct spot after formatting the templates via FP or any other WYSIWYG editor.



Regards,


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Eliot Lee
Anthro TECH,L.L.C
www.anthrotech.com
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