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[faktapress Friend faktapressJoin date: January 2009Posts: 25Downloads:0Uploads:2 Thanks: 25]

#139264

Hello, I am using Teline for my sajt http://www.foraldrakraft.se and is considering changing to Teline II. Is that something you would recommend? Any disadvanteges or problems I should know about before taking the step? What about speed, is Teline II faster or slower? I am grateful for all opinions and experiences.

[cgc0202 Friend cgc0202Join date: August 2007Posts: 2244Downloads:0Uploads:3 Thanks: 206 Thanked: 262 times in 1 posts]

#296527

Hi faktapress,

If you plan to and are serious to create any information rich site, something that you planned o do with your website, Teline II is the way to go. I have used both. I joined Joomlart in Aug 2007, only because of the original Teline — it is very clean design — not to “whistles and bells” that distract. It is intended for serious news or information online site.

However, it was not really the original Teline that I wanted then. What I wanted is a news-magazine format. Multiple INTRO pages for various sections and subsections (categories) within each section — much like what you see in commercial online newspapers and magazines. If we look at your website for example, and click

Politik
http://www.foraldrakraft.se/politik/

all you get are links to articles. In this day and age, where commercial aonline newspapers and magazines almost mirror then own print paper, visitors will not be enticed with just listings of links to the contents of your site.

So, the same day I joined, I posted

Teline Template and the iJoomla Portal News
http://www.joomlart.com/forums/topic/teline-template-and-the-ijoomla-portal-news/

advocating for a different template altogether, i.e, a news-magazine template. While I paid for a year, I left Joomlart and tried the news templates of other companies. I was hoping that they would make one. I came back only sometime in May 2008 when they finally created a true news-magazine template.

In contrast to your Politik categor above, if you ciick on a Section or Category of a Teline II Demo, what you see is more similar to what you see in an actual news-magazine online:

http://joomlart.bayanihan-saranay.org/jte15x099/artist.html

[Note: Disregard the content and layout changes, I am in the process of radically modifying the Teline II in the example, a Sanbox to try some layout ideas.]

So which would you prefer? No question, as far as I am concerned.

Are there problems? Oh Yes, many many problems, especially during the Summer of 2008 — that was why the total number of posts in the Teline II forum are twice more than the next. It was only in later September and early October 2008 before many of the most critical problems have been resolved, thanks to collaborative efforts by many members and some Joomlart staff.

Will you expect problems? You bet, especially if you do not have much hands on (or too afraid to learn) CSS and layouting. If you browse through many of the Teline II questions actually, most of them (70-90%) could be answered by the members themselves. All you need to know is how to use the “Page Source” feature of a browser — to find the divs that define almost everything you wanted to do with tthe page layout and text features — background, pacing, margin, alignments, height, widht, border-no border, etc., etc, as well text size, color, aligntment, upper or lower case, etc. etc.

Once you find the set of div, then go to the CSS files. Experiment, do trial and error. That is what I am doing with the

http://joomlart.bayanihan-saranay.org/jte15x099/

it is very tedious. I have been playing with it since I did my first upload. When I encounter a problem beyond my skills *which is almost zero when it comes to scripting, I come here to seek the help.

Is it slow? Very much so. That is a very big problem, but it is something that Teline II shares in common with many Joomla 1.5.x+templates. Not too many website creators realize but then they saddle their site with as many “whistles and bells” they ccould think of in the front page, thinking that might attract readers. This is one of the problems perhaps the biggest problem why a site is slow — the website creator.

Sometimes we forget that it is the quality of what we place there that matters, the content is what keeps visitors coming back, if the articles are of value to them.

Anyway, there has been a number of Optimization threads here. Someone has just started another one, and there were some more concrete discussions this time, on how to optimize — any online site be it Teline II, Joomla or something else.

Cornelio

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1. faktapress

[cgc0202 Friend cgc0202Join date: August 2007Posts: 2244Downloads:0Uploads:3 Thanks: 206 Thanked: 262 times in 1 posts]

#296530

Hi faktapress,

I forgot to caution. Instead of replacing your current site (by deleting it), you might just move it to a subdirectory. You might know it already but you need to modify the configuration.php if the address is changed.

Alternatively, since it takes time to start wtih a new template altogether, unless you have a lot of scripting and webdesign experience, it is a good idea to develop the Teline II site in a subdirectory. Once you are satisfied, then you can move the existing one to a subdirectory then place the stable Teline II in the root directory (again, change the confirguration.php to reflect the change in location).

As you have seen in the other post, I also try my ideas first in a Sanbox before implementing them in the site I want to create.

Cornelio

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1. faktapress

[faktapress Friend faktapressJoin date: January 2009Posts: 25Downloads:0Uploads:2 Thanks: 25]

#296678

Thanks a lot for your very good advice!

Currently I am using some extra components and modules with Teline, such as Joom comment, JReviews and Fireboard. If you have any info regarding how well or bad these components work with Teline II I would be grateful.

I have also been using AdAgency for banner publishing but hade to turn it off after performance problems. Perhaps it works better with Teline II…?

/Valter, Faktapress

[cgc0202 Friend cgc0202Join date: August 2007Posts: 2244Downloads:0Uploads:3 Thanks: 206 Thanked: 262 times in 1 posts]

#296775

<em>@faktapress 118635 wrote:</em><blockquote>Thanks a lot for your very good advice!

Currently I am using some extra components and modules with Teline, such as Joom comment, JReviews and Fireboard. If you have any info regarding how well or bad these components work with Teline II I would be grateful.

I have also been using AdAgency for banner publishing but hade to turn it off after performance problems. Perhaps it works better with Teline II…?

/Valter, Faktapress</blockquote>

Hi faktapress,

I have used Fireboard because it integrates quite nicely to Joomla, very easy to install. However, during the transition to Joomla 1.5.x, it too them forever to upgrade. You have a choice on whether to use the “legacy” mode (which has problems sometimes with other extensions), not use your Forum or stick with the old Joomla 1.0.x.

Those were the issues and choices — none too good. Imagine having to decide not to upgrade your Joomla because your Forum is so critical. Not upgrading to the latest version is not very wise because most of the upgrades of Joomla 1.5.x since 1.5.3 were security upgrades. If you opted for legacy mode in order to be able to use Joomla 1.5.x in 2008, the legacy mode can trigger conflict. Then the third choice, start all over again (no Fireboard) because you want to use Joomla 1.5.x It might also antagonize your readers to drop a forum and go to a new one.

The issue became moot when Fireboard finally created a Joomla1.5.x native software during the latter part of 2008, Note that the transition from Joomla 1.0.x to Joomla 1.5.x about how selection of extensions can affect your site. I also became more aware that the groups behind each of these estensions are not created equal. For example, the Comments extension IO used was quite nice but it folded because the main guy behind had to concentrate on his pershonal life. The Shoutbox that was the simplest and integrated nicely to the site, was free and quite good (some security issues) did not provide much support (it is free).

So free has a price; but I should say that some fo the ones I paid for, does not guarantee good support nor active groups. In fact, some of the free softwares I used, like the Coppermine Photogallery is free and very active.

I shared this with your because you must be careful in choosing the extensions you decide to integrate to Joomla.

The other thing I realized is that adding too many extensions to your site could slow down your page significantly. So, keep only the bare necessities/ And, if you must, you do not have to make them all appear in the Homepage. A mistake made by many website owners.

There is something wrong with a page if the whistles and bells is what attracts visitors to the site — and not the contents in the FrontPage and News Modules.

Note that commercial papers like New York Times for example does not place the integrated comments, forum snippets modules in the front page — because they slow down the page presentation. They place them more effectively in selected page or sections.

I am not too familiar with the Ads plug in.

Cornelio

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1. faktapress

[faktapress Friend faktapressJoin date: January 2009Posts: 25Downloads:0Uploads:2 Thanks: 25]

#298229

Here comes another question regarding an upgrade to Teline II.

Encloses is a jpg-file showing a sketch of how we would like our site http://www.foraldrakraft.se look like.

Question # 1: Can we use Teline II to create a design like shown in the sketch?
Question # 2: Or should we look for another template?

All advice is welcome!

---

Attachments:

1. 

[cgc0202 Friend cgc0202Join date: August 2007Posts: 2244Downloads:0Uploads:3 Thanks: 206 Thanked: 262 times in 1 posts]

#298238

<em>@faktapress 120527 wrote:</em><blockquote>Here comes another question regarding an upgrade to Teline II.

Encloses is a jpg-file showing a sketch of how we would like our site http://www.foraldrakraft.se look like.

Question # 1: Can we use Teline II to create a design like shown in the sketch?
Question # 2: Or should we look for another template?

All advice is welcome!</blockquote>

faktapress,

Your first question can be done. for the first one you stated. You can use the JA News Frontpage. In fact this is quite powerful. The default is “chronological”, what I meant by that is the latest addition.

But more important, with the JA News FrontPage, you have the option of ordering it also. The reason for this is that the latest entry is not always the most important.

This is the heart of “headline: news grouping and ordering – place the most significant news in the most promient site, at the top — but I am sure you are aware of that already.

What I am more baffled about is that the grouping of news into sections is the heart of any news-magazine format.
Otherwise, even a blog application can do a simple chronological format. Chronological is boring.:) When you have hundreds of articles to share — you need to group them. I have not encountered any commercial paper that does not group their news. It guides your readers and allow different gruops of people focus on the articles that interest them.

I am not sure that you can shift from left to right or have full span jmages within the same module. But, you can achieve that by using different modules.

The second one, you create a menu of the Categories. I have a feeling here that what you meant by category might actually be the “Section” and “Categories”. Unlike the original Teline, with Teline II, the news articles appear in both Section and Categroy level . Again. this is the essence of news, grouping and subgrouping. But, if you do not want further gouping, just have a singlie category in a Section.

I think the best is to create what I call a Sandbox, and really play with the sections, categories and articles. That is how I learned to explore what I want the page to look, well beyond the Demo. If only I have graphic skills, my site would not even look anything at all like the original Teline II demo,

You get familiar with the Magazine menu, there are ways to shift from multi-column presentation of the article to single column.

I rearranged the layout myself by hacking the index.php

Cornelio

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1. faktapress

[cgc0202 Friend cgc0202Join date: August 2007Posts: 2244Downloads:0Uploads:3 Thanks: 206 Thanked: 262 times in 1 posts]

#298247

By the way., Teline II is not perfect but if you are willing to invest some money (and it does not have to be a lot), creative layouting and asking a programmer to convert your ideas into script will get what you may want. There is another software that supposedly could extend the capabitlities of news-magazine template. But, it still requires a template.

What you should be as concerned about are speed and security. We are addressing the issue of speed in other threads. And, I am collaborating with others here, and we will experiment how this could be applied to Teline II.

Secuiity, I have not had a chance to address more fully yet. But, it is one of the weaknesses of Joomla. You have to read more on the various extensions (in the Extensions of the Joomla site) to address security and permissions. This area is very much neglected by many people. It is not even discussed here at all.

Cornelio

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#298250

Is Teline II a bad choice if speed is important (and of course it is!)?
Are other Joomla templates better at speed?
/Valter

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#298252

<em>@faktapress 120553 wrote:</em><blockquote>Is Teline II a bad choice if speed is important (and of course it is!)?
Are other Joomla templates better at speed?
/Valter</blockquote>

/Valter

The issue is inherent in any modular based template, not Teline II.. Expect more complex templates to be slower — all other things being equal. But, rersearch done by Yahoo and Google have shown that there are many things you can do, to speed up a site. That is what we want to find out, through actual experimentation.

But, the greater problem is what people do with their page.:) I think some website creators mistake “more with better”, and actually a certain group of the populace agree with that.

Content quality eventually is what matters — although sometimes that may not sell news online these days.

Cornelio

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#298264

Which is the smartest way, in your opinion, to get help with template redesign? Can I find the right programmer here in this forum?

[cgc0202 Friend cgc0202Join date: August 2007Posts: 2244Downloads:0Uploads:3 Thanks: 206 Thanked: 262 times in 1 posts]

#298371

<em>@faktapress 120570 wrote:</em><blockquote>Which is the smartest way, in your opinion, to get help with template redesign? Can I find the right programmer here in this forum?</blockquote>

Hi Valter,

I am in the same situation when I had to find someone fast to renovate my. Condo when it got flooded, last year. There was major damage and also the potential of mold problem, so they had to remove the entire walls, replace it, as well as the damaged equipment, and doors. So, it was a major job. The entire “community” was flooded, so it was a feast for contractors.

The mold inspector alone wanted several thousand dollars. There were several quotes $10K-25K, but the lowest quote did not include supposedly a custom-built kitchen cabinets, because that is the only way to go (he hinted will hire someone else, and it might be between between $2.5-4K for the custom-built cabinets, alone). Then I have to pay them as the work progress in stages. Note that many of the contractors were recommended by the Condo Community manager or the President of the Association. Some of the others were recommended by friends.

I was rather astonished by the wide variation in the quotes; but more important, I was more concerned about the final job — who will do the best work. What saved me was that the contractor who did the renovation of my other property a few years back returned my call after several weeks. He did not do renovations anymore, but since he was the wife of a friend plus we got along well during the previous renovation. He did the job as a favor for me and at a much lower cost.

I brought up my personal experience regarding the attempt to find a contractor last year because that is the situation also that you encounter with the question you posed here.

How will you know that you will get the best job from a programmer you really do not know, even if you can see his work. There is no public record of his track record beyond what (s)he reveals.

Furthermore, I am not sure that there are actually many programmers who have had extensive experience in optimizing “CMS based templates”, like Joomla. The added complication, as you may be aware of already, is that Joomla needs regular upgrade, usually for security reasons. And, if you upgrade, the new files will have to be optimized, again. In other words, there are recurring costs.

Note that this is not unique with Joomla, any CMS software will encounter the same issues. There is a false impression that customized templates (designed from the ground up by individual programmers) does not need upgrade. However, this is a false sense of security. In fact, how would you know that a customized template is not vulnerable to hacking, until it is too late?

All website creators and owners actually are confronted with the same issues discussed above, including other common concerns — getting the best webhosting service, templates, extensions, etc. I have been grappling with these issues for years now. And, during the height of the “tension” here in the Joomlart forum last year, I proposed that webcreators and those involved in webdesign and scripting must band together and find a collective way of resolving the above issues collectively.

In such a Collaborative Support Group, if they include some sort of relations with Programmers and Webdesigners, there is then a mechanism to answer the question you ask. The Collaborative Support Group (CSG) can serve as the arbitrator. For example, job requests, bids and payment may be done through CSG. And, a better possibility, since everyone may want an optimized and secure Joomla template, it is possible even for CSG to contract the creation of such a Joomla template, and the cost shared eventually through payment of a fair price by those in the group who want to use it?

And, this need not be applied to templates alone, the same could be done with other extensions that we want, but may need some tweaking to make them better. Take for example some Joomlart templates and extensions — some are good but it may not have a good manual to go along with it, or there is a need for tutorial to help the average website creator. Sure, some people here help, but less than 15% of the threads here in Teline II, for example, are ever answered. And, not all answers may be satisfactory.

We started the ball rolling to conceptualize the core group for CSG but I got sidetracked by the stock market crash last year. If I do not deal with it, I will lose a lot. I still lost a lot, but it would have been more had I not paid attention to it. I learned my lesson in the last market crash in 1999-2002.

Anyway, I have been rethinking about the idea again. In regard the optimization, I am trying to interest others here who might be interested in applying the known principles of site optimization to Joomla-Joomlart template.

I have been studying the modular concept of Joomla-Joomlart templates, and in a number of posts here we were discussing factors that slowdown a page presentation. Since I am interested with Teline II right now, that will be the focus of the more systematic experimentation.

Cornelio

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