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Hello (First time poster here :-) Having watched several hours of tutorials about Astroid I have a decent grasp of how the Framework works. What my brain thinks should be happening in “Astroid” is that I…. a) Create pages & tweak pages. As far as I understand things there was a "JD builder" that has now also been discontined. (I just don’t get it… I have a decent Joomla experience 10 +/- years but not good with code/overwrites etc) thanks Paul |
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Replies: 9 comments 3 replies
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I @paurray For more than a year, I tested all the bigs Joomla Framework out there (including Helix) & Astroid win my vote by far. I’m happy to give some time (when I can) to the even better framework the NEW Astroid is become. You said:
Well, this is exactly how Joomla work. Astroid use the full native power of Joomla. See Astroid as a helper to build and modify easily the “Framework” and design of your Website with it’s great template manager + all the extras; articles Types, SEO, Control of typography, design, responsive design, types of Headers and all the other great stuff... You said:
In my year testing all the top Joomla frameworks, I also test all “Builders” that each company had and I wasn’t impressed (at that Time) — You can see my impression of them at that time on Joomla forum —> https://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=575&t=988600 In Fact, To create the content with the tandem Joomla/Astroid, you can use the Editor/Builder you want and fit your need. ————————————————————————————————— 1. TOTAL INTEGRATION with the native Joomla system. 2. Being simple & intuitive to use and at the same time as powerful as a traditional editor like JCE. Any Page Builder that doesn’t comply with these 2 criteria is simply NOT “Joomla Friendly” and not using the full power of Joomla properly and detrimental to Joomla itself. Personally, for now, I will continue to use JCE as my editor of choice, with its bootstrap columns ability, the custom template and styling ability, the clean HTML code generated and the total control of the code (with its powerful collapsing tags and searchable code editor), the ability to show a WYSIWYG view of your edition, the incredible set of tools that you can have or decide to limit depending of the user. I’m sticking with it for now. I also know that SP Page Builder is now more flexible and will probably be my choice. Using my little trick, You can use SP PageBuilder in complete integration with the native Joomla system and, if I’m right, they even have a special custom module that work with SP. That way, you get a drag and drop Editor that work perfectly with Joomla. One way to edit everything. |
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@Chacapamac Thanks for your detailed response. I read this article recently: And decided to go back to the start after building crazy complex sites that got out of control. After a decade of Joomla I have a lot of really bad habits as in reaching for big fat components before getting the basics down. Thanks for reminding me of the JCE Editor. I will install it and look at it again. Always seemed very down to earth to me. I have used SP Pro with Helix (many other components good/bad & ugly as well) for years. Specifically with respect to SP Pro I have a love/hate thing with it. Seems to me to be...
Without wanting to get into a pros & cons template discussion ;-)
But back to getting Astroid working with Joomla (tutorials I am watching are all out of date)…. Understanding the workflow so far...
a) Header
Need to get this knot out of my brain before moving onto different modules on different pages…
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Update this video here: I need to create custom module positions by simply adding them in the Position filed of the custom module. I probably knew at some point. But forgot about it :-( 4a) I created a custom hero position 1 & 2 in custom modules in Joomla Next up Step 5 getting different modules for different pages!
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Yes, this one of the great force of Joomla, it’s flexibility... Yes JCE is hard to beat • One of the best new stuff in JCE is the ability to create responsive collapsing columns
• Create easily applicable complex custom Styles • JCE can be a completely WYSIWYG editor with its basic by default use of all the css files in your template > css folder with powerful custom settings. Note: If you want to add the ability to see Awesome icons in you editor you can add something like —> @import "../../../media/astroid/assets/vendor/fontawesome/css/all.min.css"; • and also the powerful ability to insert complex pre-prepared simple or complex templates in one click and so much more...... Do You have other questions on the custom modules creation @paurray ? |
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Hi @Chacapamac Joomla is great sometimes however the sheer number of possibilities can be overwhelming. This is one of the reason I am trying to keep things as simple as possible for as long as possible. My guess is that this is the main reason why people give up on Joomla and move on to lesser Content Management Systems ;-) Thanks for more details about JCE. Yessss thank you I could really do with some help with respect to nailing the menus using standard Joomla stuff. My thing number 5 to get done. The whole menu thing. Again I have another knot in my brain… I set up a main menu (english). I watched this video here which is in German. (I understand German.) I am in a stalemate situation at the moment. a) Going to my existing “Home” menu.
And I get the following error: “Save failed with the following error: The home menu item must be a component.” b) Creating a new menu “Home tk2 EN”
Is all good. Butttt
And I get the following errors: So I am stuck. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 01 multilingual site with EN as the default language
02 How things are set up now with 2 attempts to nail home page
a) The exisitng menu attempt to change to "Separator"
b) having created a 2nd "separator" menu item and attemting to make it a home page via Actions menu
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I think you cannot put the home menu type as a delimiter/separator. Just like the error say it need to point to something; a component, a single article or Featured article (even if you have no Featured article set) Why do you want a Separator as you menu item? Separator are normally use as a no content main menu item to choose/categorize sub-menus. |
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Hi @Chacapamac Yes my bad. Sorry the Separator idea was rubbish. I was getting mixed up between formatting a Mega Module and getting a basic menu up and working. The last thing I need for my simple site is a Mega Menu. Please ignore the last section from me above. As also mentioned previously I have been contaminated by way to many fancy components. A case in point being “Easy Blog” from Stackideas which I love don’t get me wrong. But my bad fluffy habits die hard. I have never actually used Joomla´s Blog capabilities. Ever! Any way I switched from Joomla Blog Category to Single Joomla blog Article in the menu type options for the home page and other pages as well. And posted a blog called “Dumb Article” with the content “Dumb Article” which I can hide later. I now have my 2nd page up and running with different modules going to it formatted using the Astroid Template Frame work. So I am definitely on the right track. The solution does seem strange to me with the single article option and then hiding the article but hey what would I know. I will play with this for a couple of days and see how it goes. I will write a summary of what I did in case it helps any one else…. Maybe you want to look over it and correct any mistakes I might make. Astroid rocks. Sorry about the pun but it is true. If it remains freely available and is developed further that would be awesome.
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I understand You!
Personally, I try to do the most I can with Joomla first before bringing a component in the mix. I always work with the native Joomla blog option and maybe adding some plugins for added fonctions, if needed. When you said;
In Joomla you don’t have a Single Joomla blog Article menu item, you have a Single Article item. The Category blog item give you something like that —> https://efoilsurf.ca/en/blog-events-news-efoilsurf-canada |
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For my future self and any one else who might be interested, disclaimer, I do not really know what I am doing…
Get some Joomla pages/menus up and running that are essential blank/place holders.
Creating Content for Specific Menus/Pages in Joomla 2a) Add Content by creating Site Modules (eg Custom Modules) using standard Joomla Site module manager. 2b) Assign Modules to Joomla pages using standard Joomla module manager. It is important to realise that you can give Modules a unique position names like home left & home right or about header about text etc. At this point you are only preparing the modules for exact placement later. (Steps 2c & 3b & 3c) Give the positions names that you will understand later. Do so in the position field on the right hand side of the first page in the module editor.
2c) Assign the module to the page you want it to appear on in the Menu Assignment page. Again it will only actually get assigned afterSstep 3b & 3c later. 2d) Make sure the module is published. 2e) Having gone to the trouble of nailing the above you can always use the Save as Copy function in the drop down menu under the point Save and Close (top left) to get things done more efficiently and potentially making fewer mistakes. As in give copy a new name and change where appropriate. EG currently building 3rd page (Where EN is english) With the following Joomla Modules: 03a EN Work (Image Films-Adverts) Each with the following as defined by me position: 03a EN Work TV-Web All on the following (selected only) page: 03 Edit Work (third page on my site) Here are some screen shots for getting things working at the Joomla end...
(Above) Inside a Custom Joomla Module. Adding content. Setting custom Module Position & naming stuff.
(Above) Have made sure that each custom Module with custom module position is set too desired page ONLY.
(Above) Have assigned Custom Modules to custom module positions. Nothing showing anywhere yet. Putting the content in a specific place on a Menu/Page with Astroid Layout Manager 3a) Obviously you have the Astroid Frame Work & at least one Template installed. Navigate to the Astroid Layout setting of your Astroid Template. 3b) In the Astroid Layout section you need to first create and configure a section. EG Continuing with my 3rd page: Select “new Section” which you find above one of the existing sections. (Technically you could put the section anywhere on the Astroids layout page. I am placing it between the Section after (01) “Home” & (02) “About” and before the Section (04) “Work” which I will make later….) But back to the current Section which will be displayed on Joomla Menu/Page 3 when populated with Joomla modules pointing to Menu/Page 3!!! Having selected New section then Select module and select a Grid layout. In my case I am selecting 3 3 3 3. For my 4 modules. Give the section a name that makes sense. EG Astroid Section Edit Work Page 3c) Click the Plus button in the first row of the Astroid Section Edit Work Page and type the name of your custom module position. Name, make design tweaks in the design tab and Save the change to the Element containing a Joomla module in the Astroid Section and save bottom right of dialogue box. Save also the change to the layout page in astroid at top left of Astroid Layout page. Note. Select Edit Element (top right of Module in Section) if you need to go back and tweak again. Also be careful you might have cache issues switching from Joomla to Astroid. You might want to Clear Cache & Reload pages etc. Here are some screen shots for getting things working at the Astroid end...
(Above) Have set up a section on the Layout Page in Astroid will use this section to load the custom Joomla Modules.
(Above) Inside a Section inside a row inside and added Astroid Module that point to the Custom Joomla Module/Position! Here is a screen shot of how things are starting to look on the Joomla front end...
(Above) The result with my Dumb Article that I used to set up page. Maybe not my brightest idea. Who knows. Next steps... Having got all the knots out of my brain. And actually building something I am finding that the trickiest thing is some time having to clear the cache to get Joomla & Astroid to work hand in hand. Often just refreshing the Astroid page seems to do the trick. In all fairness Cache is always a bit tricky in my experience. Next up I will
@Chacapamac if there any glaring mistakes in above please feel free to chip in. Thank you. I really do not pretend to know what I am doing. I will probably spot mistakes and update minor things above at the latest next week. |
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I @paurray, I can see that you are working hard on that..... You said:
This is the basic rule of professionally making a website with any CMS. My personal strategy, when a website is online: |
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Update. Just wanted to add that I am now using JCE Editor Pro (thanks for the tip @Chacapamac ) and love it in combination with Astroid. All very intuitive and straight forward having learnt how it all works together!!! Amazing tools, resources & community. Thanks.
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JCE is building absolutely clean minimalist html and is a WYSIWYG editor with so much power. It can be make simple for authors/editors. For me it beat all those Drag & Drop builders as you can do the same with the Templates and Styles. Worse, these Builders create complex, buggy html and their content break down as you update them. Also, so far, none are using the full power of Joomla where you can edit, with the same editor in backend and frontend and get the full flexibility of the article manager and also edit custom modules front & back Oh, I maybe forget to say that with the flexibility of Astroid you can easily create a full front page with only one article (main Joomla component) or one custom module by using a special layout for you front page. |
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Update. Just wanted to add that I am now using JCE Editor Pro (thanks for the tip @Chacapamac ) and love it in combination with Astroid. All very intuitive and straight forward having learnt how it all works together!!! Amazing tools, resources & community. Thanks.