Pages 0.2.1 Beta

[Naatan]

Naatan submitted a new resource:

Pages (version 0.1 Beta) - Accessible Page Management for XenForo (wysiwyg editor, multi-lingual, etc)

As this addon is still in Beta I will be brief in terms of description and screenshots. I do not recommend you use this in production environments, the reason I am sharing a beta is so that people can test for bugs and provide constructive criticism.

That said, this addon basically extends the default XenForo page management utility to be more CMS like by simplifying the creation of pages. It also adds multi-lingual functionality, meaning you can easily manage pages in different languages....

Read more about this resource...

 

[Digital Doctor]

Creating pages *outside* the AdminCP would even easier !

So what can this do now .... and what are your plans ?

 

[CyberAP]

So the output you get is a page with tags and inline styles?

 

[Naatan]

Creating pages *outside* the AdminCP would even easier !

So what can this do now .... and what are your plans ?

Creating pages outside the AdminCP is not within the scope of this addon.

Right now it replaces the "Create New Page" section with what you see in the screenshots and adds the multi-lingual functionality.

Feature-wise I don't have much else planned at the moment, it depends on the requirements they have at my work or the suggestions you guys give me. The beta and 0.1 version tag is mostly because it's largely untested.

So the output you get is a page with tags and inline styles?

The output is exactly the same as it is right now when you create a page, this addon just makes it easier for non tech-savvy people and adds multi-lingual functionality.

 

[CyberAP]

The output is exactly the same as it is right now when you create a page, this addon just makes it easier for non tech-savvy people and adds multi-lingual functionality.

When I create a page I need to write raw html and no css will be applied to the tags if you don't set it by yourself. So after all the final result is just a WYSIWYG mix of tags and inline styles or the addon does some processing and add css for all the pages?

 

[Naatan]

The addon doesn't do any processing, styles will be in-line. While I understand that having it in css classes is preferable, the fact is that there is absolutely not point in doing it this way if you are not going to maintain it manually.

 

[CyberAP]

Got it, anyway good job, multi-language option is a killing feature here.

 

[Naatan]

Naatan updated Pages with a new update entry:

Fix & Improvement

• Fixed packaging issue.
• Page content is now saved as a template instead of a phrase, so you can use template tags and variables.
• Will now fall back on master phrase if a translation is not available (doesn't work for templates yet)

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[Digital Doctor]

I am the first person to say a good Pages Addon for Xenforo could be a game changer.
Extending Xenforo's current Pages is probably not worth it.
But that is my bias.
At the end of the day, it depends what you want to accomplish.

vBulletin doesn't have a good Pages addon.
Well, Logician's Web Templates are pretty darn good.

I think a good Pages addon could be a game changer for a forum community.

But messing with the lame adminCP-directed Pages will not change much.

Xenforo's Pages implementation is a massive failure.
Heck, Xenforo.com can't even use them.

OUCH.

 

[Naatan]

I am the first person to say a good Pages Addon for Xenforo could be a game changer.
Extending Xenforo's current Pages is probably not worth it.
But that is my bias.
At the end of the day, it depends what you want to accomplish.

vBulletin doesn't have a good Pages addon.
Well, Logician's Web Templates are pretty darn good.

I think a good Pages addon could be a game changer for a forum community.

But messing with the lame adminCP-directed Pages will not change much.

Xenforo's Pages implementation is a massive failure.
Heck, Xenforo.com can't even use them.

OUCH.

I think you repeated yourself at least 3 times there

Feel free to give suggestions; that's what I'm posting this for. I personally don't see what makes this so unusable. Of course it lacks advanced functionality that other CMS'es offers, but at it's core it's the same as any other Page management module.

 

[LPH]

OK. The first suggestion for pages is to let me add discussion forums much easier.

For example, I'm working on this page (my first) and have placed the Apple forums below it.

http://www.insanepolitics.com/community/pages/apple/

This is what I used to create the page.

<xen:h1></xen:h1>
<div class="messageText ugc baseHtml">
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
Apple Inc.<br />
1 Infinite Loop<br />
Cupertino, CA 95014<br />
 408-996-1010 <br />
<br />

<h3>Latest Apple Discussions</h3>
</div>
<xen:require css="discussion_list.css" />
<div class="discussionList">
{xen:raw $xf_apple_forum}
</div>

Now, I'd prefer to be able to add multiple forums quickly and easily to different pages, sort the forum listing easily (sort order), and fix the showing of the lists of forums within the page node.

That's my first suggestion

 

[LPH]

A second suggestion, can you get a way so that we can have a button "Post New Thread" on a page?

 

[Digital Doctor]

A second suggestion, can you get a way so that we can have a button "Post New Thread" on a page?

Not from the adminCP !

 

[Naatan]

OK. The first suggestion for pages is to let me add discussion forums much easier.

For example, I'm working on this page (my first) and have placed the Apple forums below it.

http://www.insanepolitics.com/community/pages/apple/

This is what I used to create the page.

<xen:h1></xen:h1>
<div class="messageText ugc baseHtml">
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
Apple Inc.<br />
1 Infinite Loop<br />
Cupertino, CA 95014<br />
408-996-1010 <br />
<br />
 
<h3>Latest Apple Discussions</h3>
</div>
<xen:require css="discussion_list.css" />
<div class="discussionList">
{xen:raw $xf_apple_forum}
</div>

Now, I'd prefer to be able to add multiple forums quickly and easily to different pages, sort the forum listing easily (sort order), and fix the showing of the lists of forums within the page node.

That's my first suggestion

That's a pretty specific request. I think this would best be done by creating a large database of template helpers that facilitate actions such as these. But that should be done as a separate addon that this one can make use of.

A second suggestion, can you get a way so that we can have a button "Post New Thread" on a page?

You can already do this, it's just a link with a css class basically.

Your ideas have given me inspiration though; I think what may be useful is for the addon to have a "Snippet Manager" which will allow you to easily add elements to a page (eg. a "Post New Thread" button or a shortcut to add a template helper). This would be useful for those end-users who don't want to touch any code or mess with html.

 

[ddmmh]

This has huge potential, thanks for making it Naatan.

Just played with it for 5 mins. Of the top of my head some suggestions are;

Preview - A preview before posting would be great.
Bullets - They dont seem to work for me could be part of the beta stages
Video Button - Maybe you dont have this because it requires BB code not allowed in pages or something?

Once this add-on is polished off I can see it helping a lot of HTML n00bs like me, thanks

 

[LPH]

That's a pretty specific request. I think this would best be done by creating a large database of template helpers that facilitate actions such as these. But that should be done as a separate addon that this one can make use of.

Fair enough

You can already do this, it's just a link with a css class basically.

I did not know that this was possible.

Your ideas have given me inspiration though; I think what may be useful is for the addon to have a "Snippet Manager" which will allow you to easily add elements to a page (eg. a "Post New Thread" button or a shortcut to add a template helper). This would be useful for those end-users who don't want to touch any code or mess with html.

Cool. I have so much to learn about pages.

 

[Digital Doctor]

What does this mean ?

styles will be in-line

Will this use the default post editor ... just like I am using now ?

 

[Naatan]

This has huge potential, thanks for making it Naatan.

Just played with it for 5 mins. Of the top of my head some suggestions are;

Preview - A preview before posting would be great.
Bullets - They dont seem to work for me could be part of the beta stages
Video Button - Maybe you dont have this because it requires BB code not allowed in pages or something?

Once this add-on is polished off I can see it helping a lot of HTML n00bs like me, thanks

Yeah Preview is planned

The bullets not showing is a limitation of the pagenode_container I believe. XenForo resets html styling in their css and does not properly reinitialize it in their template for pages. I will address this in an update.

I will allow you to alter the buttons the editor shows in an update, so you can add the video button if you so desire.

Cool. I have so much to learn about pages.

Pages in XenForo are just an "easy" way to insert html into the default page container. It doesn't really do anything fancy. So if you know how to work with XenForo templates; you know how to work with pages.

What does this mean ?


Will this use the default post editor ... just like I am using now ?

No it does not, the default editor converts your html to bbcode, which is fine for general postings but with pages you often want to do something more fancy. So this does also use TinyMCE but it will allow you to use HTML to it's full extend.

 

[Naatan]

Naatan updated Pages with a new update entry:

Improvement (fall-back on default language)

Now falls back on default language if no content is provided for non-default language.

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[MagnusB]

The bullets not showing is a limitation of the pagenode_container I believe. XenForo resets html styling in their css and does not properly reinitialize it in their template for pages. I will address this in an update.

If I remember correctly, all you need to do to apply bullets to list is to wrap it in a div class baseHtml, then you use the same CSS as the lists in posts.

EDIT: Quoted wrong part