Using Serendipity as a CMS

[Madmusk]

Hi, First off I want to thank the developers of serendipity for their awesome work.

What I'm trying to do is use serendipity as a complete CMS for my website but I've ran into a few issues.

First, I need to sort each page of my site by category. Easy enough, so I might have for example:

-Main Page (News)
-About
-Contacts

My problem is that on the main page I might need a headliner that remains at the top with the rest of the news below. So I tried the static page plugin but I cannot seem to print content below that and have it show up, and it generally seems to complicated for what I need to do. Is there an easier way to do this using smarty markup?


Another problem that I have is that I would only need certain sidebar plugins on certain pages. For instance, I don't need archives for contacts. Contacts should not even show up in any searches, etc. Could I call plugins for only certain categories?


Finally, I'd like to remove all the unnecessary info at the bottom of each post. ie: timestamp, category, posted by, etc. but looking through the entries.tpl and tweaking things I can't seem to find what I need. Any hints?


Thanks a bunch for any help!

[Harald Weingaertner]

You can use the plugin "Extended features for articles" (soemthing like this in english) to have articles at the top of a page.

About the sidebars on specific pages i cannot help

You can remove stuff from the entries bottoms by editing the file entries.tpl (or any other template you want to edit), so i guess you are on the right way. Have you searched in the entries.tpl of your current template?

I hope you find something helpful inside

[yellowled]

My problem is that on the main page I might need a headliner that remains at the top with the rest of the news below. So I tried the static page plugin but I cannot seem to print content below that and have it show up, and it generally seems to complicated for what I need to do. Is there an easier way to do this using smarty markup?

No need for smarty, just use the plugin serendipity_event_entryproperties (should come with serendipity) which gives you the possibility to have 'sticky' articles. Make your headliner sticky, and there you go.

Finally, I'd like to remove all the unnecessary info at the bottom of each post. ie: timestamp, category, posted by, etc. but looking through the entries.tpl and tweaking things I can't seem to find what I need. Any hints?

This is the so-called entry footer. Have a look at entries.tpl and search for serendipity_entryFooter.

[Madmusk]

Thanks a lot guys.

One more thing that arose from that last suggestion. How do I remove the giant "Stick Posts" text from a sticky entry? Thanks.

[judebert]

Edit your entries.tpl and change the {$CONST.STICKY_POSTINGS} bit. Removing it altogether might cause problems, but it simply represents a language-specific bit of text; replace it with any text you like, or even a blank (as in  ).

You can also modify the tags around it: for instance, if it says "<h3 class="serendipity_date">{$CONST.STICKY_POSTINGS}</h3>", you could change the <h3> to an <h4>. This may cause problems with the styling, though.

Probably safest to stick to a space or some replacement text.

[d_cee]

Hi

Another problem that I have is that I would only need certain sidebar plugins on certain pages. For instance, I don't need archives for contacts. Contacts should not even show up in any searches, etc. Could I call plugins for only certain categories?

you could try the event plugin 'Toggle Sidebar state' that might do what you want.

cheers

Dave