New to serendipity - Static pages question

JokerHill · Post by **JokerHill** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 2:44 am

I've now noticed that when I make multiple entries within the news box I get a stretching effect, sidebars are edged off of the background page.

I originally used the default serendipity template, I installed the previous/after plugin and it worked, with my current template it simply doesn't show up. Is it common for certain plugins to prove ineffective with certain templates?

http://www.toheal.org/

Post by **garvinhicking** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 9:33 am

Hi!

Ah! You were editing the file for fallback output of menu links. Since serendipity 1.1 comes with template options, you can enter the navigation links of the template within the serendipity admin suite, if you click on "Manage Styles". There you should be able to enter the links, without the need to edit a file.

Some template authors might have removed certain "hooks" where plugins show themselves. Often, this can be easily changed once we are informed of this. I will look into this previous/after plugin problem next week and offer a patch for you (if no one comes before me

)

Regards,
Garvin

JokerHill · Post by **JokerHill** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:56 am

Hi Garvin,

Thanks for the feedback. So... I've installed the static page list - I have a static page called 'help' (because I need it). Clicking the link provides me with the absolute url of the static page. Making progress here. Now I attempt to enter the static page url in one of the 'theme/styles' navbar fields only to save the page and find the fields are blank again. I've attempted every conceivable url naming convention including those you suggested and still the field for the full url resets.

The url for the static page called 'help' is -

I would like to have a navbar button for this static page. I'm sure I'm doing something incorrectly though I'm not quite sure what?

Post by **garvinhicking** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:14 am

Hi!

Do I understand you right that you try to:

1. Login to your s9y backend

2. Click on "Manage Styles"

3. You see several input fields, also a field called "URL for Navbar link #0".

4. Into that field you enter the value "http://www.harvestdream.com/index.php?/pages/help.html"

5. You click on the button "SAVE" below the input fields

6. You get the feedback "Settings have been saved at XX:XX"

7. You see the same page again, and the field where you just entered the permalink into now again holds the empty value "#"?

This last step 7 does not happen for me...if I enter the URL, it does get saved there.

When you installed Serendipity, did you start with version 1.3.1 or did you upgrade from an older version?

Regards,
Garvin

JokerHill · Post by **JokerHill** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 3:02 pm

Hey Garvin,

What you've described is Exactly what is occurring. In fact the manage theme/styles is what I tried from the beginning with static pages linked from the navbar but it didn't work so I was attempting to alter the index file itself.

This is my first install of s9y, I downloaded the newest version from your site so its not an upgrade. The banner at the bottom of the admin page says:

Powered by Serendipity 1.3.1 and PHP 5.2.6

I know that certain plugins require other plugins to become accessible or functional (a knowledge tree for plugins would be great! re:future of s9y). Is there a plugin I might have missed, or a setting for permalinks that needs to be changed or something?

Thanks,

Post by **garvinhicking** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 3:24 pm

Hi!

No, then it should work out of the box. Have you tried a different browser, just to test if it might be related to the browser?

Are you familiar with phpMyAdmin? If so, can you check your serendipity_options Database table? This is the one where the navlinks you enter should be saved in...

Regards,
Garvin

JokerHill · Post by **JokerHill** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 3:57 pm

I'm in my phpmyadmin, what would the option name be? I don't see anything related to the navbar that I'm aware of. Something that might be important though: The database names begin with 'prefix' and not 'serendipity', could this be an issue? For whatever reason, I can't remember now, during the serendipity install I chose 'prefix_' as the database name.

Post by **garvinhicking** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 9:31 am

Hi!

Can you show/send a dump of your prefix_options DB table? Can you check the table with phpmyadmin ("CHECK TABLE prefix_options" as SQL query for example) to see if this table might be corrupted?

Regards,
Garvin

JokerHill · Post by **JokerHill** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:40 pm

I ran the query you suggested CHECK TABLE prefix_options and received this message.

Table - Op - Msg_type - Msg_text
prefix_options - check - status -OK

I did notice however that the blog description and admin email that I entered via the s9y install window were the default s9y settings in the prefix_options table. I manually changed those settings though the default settings never did seem to affect my blog description in the header.

I've also noticed that when I submit a comment it shows up not as a comment but as a trackback....

Would it be wise to uninstall s9y and delete the database and start fresh?

Thanks,

Post by **garvinhicking** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 4:35 pm

Hi!

There really seems to be a problem with either your installation or the database.

I'd suggest to try a fresh installation (maybe first in a test directory, using a different database prefix) to see if that changes things for you.

REgards,
Garvin

JokerHill · Post by **JokerHill** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 1:00 am

Hi Garvin,

So I re-installed s9y with a new database. I've employed everything you've suggested up to this point and the navbar is now accepting my links and the database options table is now recognizing my serendipity admin settings. I think I've cleared the biggest hurdles and wish to thank you for your patience.

I might have a few more questions about what exactly some plugins are all about though

I've been following the future of s9y thread and would recommend a plugin knowledge tree to provide information for any prerequisite plugins and to show plugin associations. To the newbie the overwhelming choice of SPARATCUS can be, well overwhelming without some sort of guidance. I understand you want a lean core with each user able to modify as per their unique demands. Very cool. Though for this distinguishing factor of s9y to be truly recognized a more user friendly description and association system needs to be in place. Choice is great, but informed choice is even better. Plugins with a one liner description simply are not friendly, the more info the better, it saves us all time and effort.

Perhaps Garvin, knowing the s9y software and its users the best, you could peruse the forums and select those threads that deal with and resolve those issues most frequently encountered, or are apt to cause the most trouble for new users and create a page of links per each issue as an attachemnt to the FAQ section of the s9y homepage?

Thanks again for all the help!

Post by **garvinhicking** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:33 am

Hi!

Phew. That was a tough one. I would still really like to know why the old installation failed. Would you like to give me FTP+s9y access to that installation to let me have a look? Or do you want to leave it at that and be happy with the fresh install?

I've been following the future of s9y thread and would recommend a plugin knowledge tree to provide information for any prerequisite plugins and to show plugin associations.

I can give s9y wiki accounts to anyone who would like to contribute. In the past we've found out that a public wiki only drew spammers to us, and since we do not have enough developers to check the wiki for spam entries regularly, we decided to make it registration only. Same applies to the forum here, BTW.

And yes, I'd really like more documentation. But this is a thing that the community would need to provide.

Of course, also the official plugin descriptions can be changed. If anyone wants to flesh out proper longer descriptions that are shown on spartacus, those can easily be changed.

Perhaps Garvin, knowing the s9y software and its users the best, you could peruse the forums and select those threads that deal with and resolve those issues most frequently encountered, or are apt to cause the most trouble for new users and create a page of links per each issue as an attachemnt to the FAQ section of the s9y homepage?

I actually regularly try to do so. But most questions here on the forums are really quite unique. Whenever I find something that is asked often, I do add it to the FAQ.

So, my bottom line is: I happily include anything that the community can provide me with. I myself already gave my best with current plugin descriptions, and I simply do not have the time to rework them all with verbosity, because in my own understanding the plugin descriptions are short but do capture the essence of a plugin.

Many thanks,
Garvin

JokerHill · Post by **JokerHill** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 5:23 am

Hi Garvin,

I think I'll leave it be, though I do appreciate the offer - I was actually going to suggest you accessing my files had the situation not been resolved. I think it was most likely something trivial with regards to my databases which was remedied when I erased them and started fresh.

As per my suggestions - I don't know what the vision is for s9y, though I do know that for a more broad based audience the plugin system would do well with an openly accessible knowledge tree with descriptions that would suit the newbie blogger.

And I don't think my post would be complete without a question!

I'm now working on embedding video. I've read through the forum and found this code you wrote a couple of years ago for windows media player files:

<div class="serendipity_entry_body">
{$entry.body}
</div>

{if $entry.is_extended}
<div class="serendipity_entry_extended"><a id="extended"></a>{$entry.extended}</div>
{/if}
{if $entry.properties.ep_VideoFile}
Video:

<OBJECT ID="MediaPlayer" WIDTH="320" HEIGHT="285" CLASSID="CLSID:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95"
STANDBY="Loading Windows Media Player components..." TYPE="application/x-oleobject">
<PARAM NAME="FileName" VALUE="{$entry.properties.ep_VideoFile}">
<PARAM name="ShowControls" VALUE="true">
<param name="ShowStatusBar" value="false">
<PARAM name="ShowDisplay" VALUE="false">
<PARAM name="autostart" VALUE="false">
<EMBED TYPE="application/x-mplayer2" SRC="{$entry.properties.ep_VideoFile}" NAME="MediaPlayer"
WIDTH="320" HEIGHT="285" ShowControls="1" ShowStatusBar="0" ShowDisplay="0" autostart="0"> </EMBED>
</OBJECT>
{/if}

Would the code above work for multiple formats such as flv / avi / wmv etc simply by adding a few more lines? Can s9y embed any media player so that it can be utilized by visitors to my blog?

I recently attempted to upload video files via the 'add media' button but it always freezes? Is this not the proper way to upload video files?If I upload using filezilla to my root folder what file do I upload to for it to show up in my media library?

In my search for how to embed videos I found various ways of going about it, what is the most efficient way of going about this for files both from the media library and from external sources such as a youtube account?

Thanks so very much...

And where's the link on the s9y front page for the 'support the development of s9y by donating' page?

~~

JokerHill · Post by **JokerHill** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 10:28 pm

Hi Garvin,

It seems my luck is poor with s9y. I installed the smartquote plugin by accident. I went to remove it by clicking the check box and clicking remove ticked item. It 'saves' but the plugin remains there! I try again three times and the same thing occurs. I finally decide to move it over into the inactive column because it was messing up my entries with numbers. I deleted the plugin from my site file manager and now I have an error box where the plugin was that also doesn't want to leave.

I'm baffled. Is there a cache somewhere that I need to refresh?

Thanks,

Post by **garvinhicking** » Sun Aug 10, 2008 1:21 pm

Hi!

Would the code above work for multiple formats such as flv / avi / wmv etc simply by adding a few more lines? Can s9y embed any media player so that it can be utilized by visitors to my blog?

That would work if you choose a player that can playback all these formats. This depends on the used flash video player you embed. Sine this is only html code, s9y can embed any media player you like.

An alternate approach is to create multiple ep_Video1, ep_Video2 etc. fields, so that you can use different players per input field.

I recently attempted to upload video files via the 'add media' button but it always freezes? Is this not the proper way to upload video files?If I upload using filezilla to my root folder what file do I upload to for it to show up in my media library?

Uploading large files puts large ressource requirements to your server in terms of filesize and RAM. On most providers you have a limit of 12MB RAM, which only allows you to upload a file with maybe 3-4MB size because it needs to be processed and unpacked.

If you upload it using FTP, you must put it into the "uploads" directory, and then you need to click the "Rebuild Thumbnails". However this might also have higher memory requirements than your provider allows. In this case, you can only manually embed a video file by entering the URL into the field, not by picking it from the media management interface.

And where's the link on the s9y front page for the 'support the development of s9y by donating' page?

We have no project-specific donation page, only developer-specific ones, like I have my paypal or amazon wishlists, people like judebert or Don do as well.

About your plugin removal: What happens here by not being able to save your config seems to me like it could be related to what problem you previously had with the template options. Can it be your database is hosed, or you are changing something manually in your installation that makes s9y break? It does sound like I need FTP access to your installation to check for you what is causing the breakage. It is definitely not standard, and I have not heard this happen to other people before.

Regards,
Garvin