XF 2.1 Custom Page Node Vanished

[PaulaG]

I just spent hours editing the template for a new custom Home page node. The Home page tab links to it fine as does the Logo. However, it just vanished from the ACP -> Forum -> Node list.

I was able to find the template for the page using ACP -> Appearance -> Search templates so I'm not completely stuck. But I need to change some of the page node settings and without the page appearing in the Node list I'm kinda stuck.

 

[Chris D]

Page nodes don't just vanish, and if they did, they'd take the template with them!

There's a number in the title of the page node template. That's the node ID. It might be worth trying to navigate to the node edit page directly. You would just go to the URL:

http://www.yourdomain.com/admin.php?nodes/123/edit

Where 123 is the actual node ID you found from the template title.

Hopefully that page will load, and if it does, hopefully shed some light as to where it disappeared to. You may want to adjust the parent node and display order to see if that makes it reappear.

 

[PaulaG]

Well it did just vanish, and now it has magically re-appeared after an hour while I was editing the template using the ACP template editor.

However, it re-appeared under the Node list with the original template before the last hour of editing.

Looks like I need to go back to the ACP template editor, copy the template code, then go back into the Node editor for the page and copy the latest templace code into it.

 

[l3ta]

Holy cow, that sounds like a lot of work. So you are putting html stuff into the page node? It is easier if you create a new style, do all the customizations there, and then create a page node and have it override the homepage style.

 

[PaulaG]

It sure seems like I'm going through a lot of extra work. I don't understand the difference between the Template HTML defined ACP -> Forums -> Nodes -> Edit page and in ACP -> Appearance -> Templates -> Edit template. They both have the same ID (in my case page_node.12). The one I found using Appearance ->Templates appears to have been created when I created the Node page template, but they don't seem to be in sync. Which one should I be editing to build my Home page?

 

[Paul B]

Well it did just vanish, and now it has magically re-appeared after an hour while I was editing the template using the ACP template editor.

Contact your host then as that's not something which would ever be caused by XF.

 

[l3ta]

It sure seems like I'm going through a lot of extra work. I don't understand the difference between the Template HTML defined ACP -> Forums -> Nodes -> Edit page and in ACP -> Appearance -> Templates -> Edit template. They both have the same ID (in my case page_node.12). The one I found using Appearance ->Templates appears to have been created when I created the Node page template, but they don't seem to be in sync. Which one should I be editing to build my Home page?

I'm by no means an expert on this. I had @Russ do my site, but if I'm following his logic correctly, he first added a new style named AB Home where he made all the Page_Container and Extra.less customizations for my homepage(see pic below):

Then, he created a page node tittled Home:

Notice that the Home page overrides the Home Page style:

Notice that there's no html changes on this page. The node links to the homepage style where all the changes are done. Russ is an expert at this, so if you are having too much trouble, I highly recommend that you let him deal with it. Goodness knows I didn't want that headache lol.

 

[Russ]

The method I use above is nice if your home page will look dramatically different than the normal forums just as a heads up!

 

[PaulaG]

Thank you Russ for some these tips. This is what I did.

I haven't received an explanation to

I don't understand the difference between the Template HTML defined ACP -> Forums -> Nodes -> Edit page and in ACP -> Appearance -> Templates -> Edit template. They both have the same ID (in my case page_node.12). The one I found using Appearance ->Templates appears to have been created when I created the Node page template, but they don't seem to be in sync. Which one should I be editing to build my Home page?

My "host" had nothing to do with it vanishing unless you are suggesting that somehow the host is corrupting SQLServer and then mystically fixing it. If so, why would it only corrupt this Node page entry while everthing else is working fine including our other sites on the same host? I'm not going to worry about it the vanishing act as long as if it does it again it will likely return on its own.

 

[Paul B]

My "host" had nothing to do with it vanishing unless you are suggesting that somehow the host is corrupting SQLServer and then mystically fixing it.

So you think XF is responsible?

Something which has never happened before in the history of XF.

 

[PaulaG]

So you think that the host SQL server where we have hosted our sites for 18 years has some how decided to do something that suddenly caused a newly created node page to not appear in the ACP Forum Node list, even after reloading the Node list page repeatedly, even from different browsers on different computers, then reappear when I returned to the Node list about an hour later, while every other feature on XF and our other sites have worked just fine?

So do I think XF is responsible? Based on my 45 years in software engineering, maybe. To me it's more plausible than blaming the server, especially since I haven't known it to ever happen with anything else in the 18 year history of our other sites. In software, the fact that "Something which has never happened before in the history of ..." is no guarantee that it won't happen today or tomorrow. "1201 Alarm" (Google it if you don't know this is) never happened in the history of the Apollo program until 1 minute from touchdown on the moon. I'm just say'n.

Really, all I would appreciate at this point is some clarification on this question

I don't understand the difference between the Template HTML defined ACP -> Forums -> Nodes -> Edit page and in ACP -> Appearance -> Templates -> Edit template. They both have the same ID (in my case page_node.12). The one I found using Appearance ->Templates appears to have been created when I created the Node page template, but they don't seem to be in sync. Which one should I be editing to build my Home page?

XF really is far superior for our purposes so far to any Forum software I've ever worked with. I've only been working with XF for the past 2 weeks to prepare for an import from our VB4 CMS site. This Forum has been generally quite helpful, sometimes the XF way of communicating "answers" is has not been particularly clear to someone not versed in "XF speak". The installation manual lacks comprehensive details or clear examples to create some custom features and so I have to ask questions.

 

[Russ]

Editing html in the node area will make it so all styles inherit those edits. If you edit the node in the style it will only show the changes on that style. Additionally, if you have a customized page node template it will no longer inherit changes from the node tree html area.

 

[PaulaG]

Thank you Russ. I was probably knocked off course when the node page I had created with a preliminary template vanished (must be my evil host) from the node list, and so I searched for that template and found it with the page content I'd just created. I began editing that just to be able to continue. I didn't realize the template I was editing with the template editor became a customized node page template the moment I changed it. Then when the node page became visibile in the list again the template was still my original one, not the one to which I had made all the changes and I was quite confused. I have a much better understanding of the inheritance behavior now. Again, thank you.