Joomla Templates Club 406,261 posts

[vtgav Friend vtgavJoin date: January 2006Posts: 46Downloads:0Uploads:1 Thanks: 4 Thanked: 6 times in 1 posts]

#193070

Perhaps I’m alone with this . . .

I’ve been with Joomlart many years now and I’ve seen the templates get better, more interesting and flexible, but over the last couple of years they’ve been hard work, and researching this one seems even worse.

For sure the templates are superb and I can follow the documentation to a certain extent, but the complexity is just so high now, and it isn’t clear how it all hangs together, how to do simple things. Also, much of the time you have to descend into html and css classes – not being here ( because I do understand all that, and could do it all myself ) but isn’t one of the reasons for the joomla framework and the power of templates / modules etc. to make things simpler ? why should I need to mess around with css / html myself ??

A minor complaint here is how accurate the documentation is – for example, it mentions onepage quite a lot, then I check out the configuration on the installed quickstart I have and there’s nothing in that position – its all in parallax – yet when I search the docs for info on parallax I don’t find anything ?!?!?

So yes I can be impressed to install the kickstart and then randomly play to replace your images with mine, your text with mine, but so what ?? It’s so hard, and I feel a well written document, a real idiot level ‘if you want to get this, then do this’ would be so helpful . . .

rant over 🙂

Gav

1 user says Thank You to vtgav for this useful post

1. fortesvk

[TomC Moderator TomCJoin date: October 2014Posts: 14077Downloads:58Uploads:137 Thanks: 948 Thanked: 3155 times in 2495 posts]

#515892

I completely understand and empathize with some of your frustrations, Gav. When I started learning how to work with Joomla based templates and websites (from back in the Joomla 1.x days), I remember feeling many of the same feelings you’re expressing above – including learning the basics of CSS styling, and the bare-basics (enough to try to understand the basic syntax) of PHP.

I actually wrote a piece a few years back on this very issue – which holds true today just as it did when originally posted. I’m thinking, perhaps, you might enjoy reading this and, hopefully, feel a little bit better afterward about moving forward with your website development.

THE THREE “P’s” – PATIENCE, PRACTICE and PERSEVERANCE

As always, we here within the JA Community Forum are here to try to assist you as best we can with your questions and issues as you develop your website.

😎

[vtgav Friend vtgavJoin date: January 2006Posts: 46Downloads:0Uploads:1 Thanks: 4 Thanked: 6 times in 1 posts]

#515915

Thanks for your response, but to clarify I joined a template club (a) for awesome ideas and (b) to save time – I can program in many languages having been a pro developer for about a million years, I can write in php, js, html, css ( and have ) but as my day job is developing I don’t want to do the same thing for my out of hours projects, hence joomlart, but what I’m seeing more and more is that the templates are for sure becoming very advanced and powerful, but to be honest some areas are not keeping up – documentation for instance is not in my opinion, and its hard work to understand and customise for my sites. The other thing is, and I feel quite strongly about this, when you dig into how to get something to look a particular way ( like the examples for instance ) you wander straight into a bunch of css / html and even js I’ve seen.

I have a direct analogy in my professional life where we developed a UI development tool for industrial plant mimics that appeared to be really powerful, but threw you straight into writing js if you wanted to provide any dynamic behaviour. Guess what, our customers were less than impressed, seriously unhappy, and we developed a new generation that was truly drag and drop – no sodding about with js, you use the editor to create the dynamic behaviour you want, and the editor generates the js – so you get to concentrate on the important – the design and NOT the detailed code – and that is exactly what we have here. Seeing the examples are very misleading because you end up in js land to make them happen.

From a professional perspective, the template tools need to catch up with the templates – and frankly while I can appreciate what you’re saying to a certain extent, hitting me with ‘patience, practice and perseverance’ does not cut it at all – I bought into joomlart ( for about 7 or 8 years ) now to save time, not to learn the joomlart css details ( which are not well documented at all, and you end up rooting through file after file to understand ) and write my own code.

My complaint stands as I originally stated it.

Gav

4 users say Thank You to vtgav for this useful post

1. tfosnom
2. phong nam
3. Arvind Chauhan
4. sublimemag

[Arvind Chauhan Moderator Arvind ChauhanJoin date: September 2014Posts: 3835Downloads:74Uploads:92 Thanks: 1240 Thanked: 1334 times in 848 posts]

#516077

Hi Guys,

There are some major changes in the new version of JA Appolio and the documentation has been updated :

http://www.joomlart.com/documentation/joomla-templates/ja-appolio#upgrade

have a look and hope that it helps.

Regards

Arvind

2 users say Thank You to Arvind Chauhan for this useful post

1. TomC
2. phong nam

[zorroh Friend zorrohJoin date: November 2006Posts: 422Downloads:20Uploads:43 Thanks: 88 Thanked: 80 times in 1 posts]

#516201

and what would be suffixes for
1) our team
2) leadership

and there is no example for:
onepage-1 onepage-center

??

[phong nam Friend phong namJoin date: May 2015Posts: 3779Downloads:1Uploads:587 Thanks: 499 Thanked: 974 times in 888 posts]

#516207

Hi zorroh,

At this time, we still try to keep 2 user-guide versions corresponding to 2 version of our JA Appolio template. If you are using the latest update of this template, you just need to change the onepage position to parallax and related class suffixes.

i.e

– Our team (JA Content Popup)
Position: parallax
Class suffix: section-center column-6

– Leadership (JA Content Popup)
Position: parallax
Class suffix: section-center column-3

[skillfulken Friend skillfulkenJoin date: August 2013Posts: 78Downloads:159Uploads:26 Thanks: 1 Thanked: 5 times in 1 posts]

#518567

The quickstart isn’t really quick enough. When I installed the quickstart, what I got is a big difference with the demo site. Really disappointed.

[phong nam Friend phong namJoin date: May 2015Posts: 3779Downloads:1Uploads:587 Thanks: 499 Thanked: 974 times in 888 posts]

#518624

@skillfulken: Glad to hear of your feedback. We have checked and updated the missing info of module configuration inside the template documentation.

On the 1st section (Discover Play and Share) of JA Appolio demo, we use the a 3rd party module called “SLogin” that is not included inside the quickstart package due to the copyright restriction. That is why you see the difference when using quickstart.

In order to make this section look like our template demo, you need to download and install the Slogin module in http://joomline.net/downloads/slogin.html . Then configure the module as follows:

Module Position: action
Module Suffix: NOT USED
Alternative layout: appolio

Default backend configuration for your reference: http://static.joomlart.com/images/userguide/ja_templates/ja-appolio/login1-back.png

[winston baccus Friend winston baccusJoin date: August 2013Posts: 13Downloads:4Uploads:0 Thanks: 3 Thanked: 1 times in 1 posts]

#520687

So far, I’m with skillfulken, disappointed with the quickstart not being like the demo site.

Documentation needs way more content to make this easy to use.

[winston baccus Friend winston baccusJoin date: August 2013Posts: 13Downloads:4Uploads:0 Thanks: 3 Thanked: 1 times in 1 posts]

#520688

<em>@Leo Burnetts 406130 wrote:</em><blockquote>@skillfulken:
In order to make this section look like our template demo, you need to download and install the Slogin module in http://joomline.net/downloads/slogin.html . Then configure the module as follows:

Module Position: action
Module Suffix: NOT USED
Alternative layout: appolio
</blockquote>

What if I want to put a custom HTML module into that position to use as a sort of hero-unit? How would I do that?

[phong nam Friend phong namJoin date: May 2015Posts: 3779Downloads:1Uploads:587 Thanks: 499 Thanked: 974 times in 888 posts]

#520718

@ winston,

We really appreciate your feedback. I refer to the first Custom HTML module (i.e Bring it everywhere.) as a hero unit section to instruct as follows:

– Assign JA_Appolio – Home Page template style with home-1 layout to Home menu item.
– Create a Custom HTML module at parallax position and assign it to Home menu item.
– Order this module so that the template loads it before other modules at the same position.

---

Attachments:

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[winston baccus Friend winston baccusJoin date: August 2013Posts: 13Downloads:4Uploads:0 Thanks: 3 Thanked: 1 times in 1 posts]

#521004

<em>@Leo Burnetts 408842 wrote:</em><blockquote>@ winston,

We really appreciate your feedback. I refer to the first Custom HTML module (i.e Bring it everywhere.) as a hero unit section to instruct as follows:

– Assign JA_Appolio – Home Page template style with home-1 layout to Home menu item.
– Create a Custom HTML module at parallax position and assign it to Home menu item.
– Order this module so that the template loads it before other modules at the same position.</blockquote>

Thanks for the response. I am actually trying to get something into the Discover Play and Share spot as shown in the demo. I realize that content is driven by slogin, but I just want to add my own custom-html module there with my own action buttons.

I’m using the template for a conference info and registration site. I want a statement of some sort and a Register button.

I can handle the custom html, I just need to know how to get a module to show up in that space.

[phong nam Friend phong namJoin date: May 2015Posts: 3779Downloads:1Uploads:587 Thanks: 499 Thanked: 974 times in 888 posts]

#521277

@winston: You can display your Custom HTML module at video position on Homepage menu and add the class suffix “ slogin container” to Module Class suffix option of the new module (make sure you add a space before class suffix text).

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