Re.. Custom Home Page / XF Wrapper ?

[ExpertPixels.com]

Hey all,

About to purchase a license in the next few days.. I sold my license a while back so i have a little exp with XF..

What i want to do is create a custom front page, within the XF wrapper (Header) my custom stuff (Footer) so that the Home tab displays my custom content.. would also like to have the sidebar active but that is not a big deal if it can't be displayed..

Now i use to use the XenPorta addon for the custom front page / home tab.. this produced a nice clean home page url: mtsite.com/ whereas if i recall using the static page as a home page this created a ugly'ish home page url: mysite.com/pages/index/ <-- or something like that..

Without using static pages and or the XenPorta addon.. How can i create a custom front page without using addons ? or would it be hard to create a addon like XenPorta but without all the blocks etc..

Thanks in Advance for any assistance on this matter.. Really want to use XF as my base platform / forums but I need a custom home page and within the XF wrapper so the site is unified.

Regards, Darren

 

[Morgain]

Simple Portal is on the way very soon and might help.
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/simple-portal.45406/

 

[ExpertPixels.com]

I don't even need that kind of addon.. basically i guess from what i know is i will require a addon.. all i need this addon to do is what the XenPorta one does.. I want to create a custom home page (no XF threads / comments etc etc.. maybe displaying the sidebar that's all)

I simply need a .php file say "front-page.php" to be rendered within the XF wrapper.. that will be for the "Home" tab.. I don't know if there are any guides on creating your own addon's or guides to displaying a custom front page withing the XF wrapper (without using static pages).. I need a clean url: mysite.com/ for the home page.

Thanks again for any assistance / advice on this matter.. I need to achieve this in order to use XF as my base platform for my site otherwise i am going to have to revert back to WordPress & BBpress (Which i really do not want to do !!).. Anyways Cheers again for your help.

Regards, Darren

 

[Morgain]

Since you want the XF wrapper, what's the problem with using an XF Page?
That is what do you want to put in your homepage as content?

 

[ExpertPixels.com]

Since you want the XF wrapper, what's the problem with using an XF Page?

It's the ugly URL that goes with it lol:

- mysite.com/pages/home/ <--- very ugly for home page !!
- mysite.com/ <--- That is what i want.. a simple / clean home page URL.

The XenPorta addon seems to be able to manage a clean "Home" URL mysite.com/ <-- Clean

Surely this can be done right ? I do not need all the extra XenPotra Addons / Blocks etc etc.. but i know it can b done.. even if i have to create a Addon but i never looked at how to create a addon when i did have a xf license.. Really really annoying as i know it can be done but no one seems to know how....

Thanks to everyone who has replied and A even BIGGER THANKS to anyone else who can shed further light on this matter.

Regards, Darren

 

[Chris D]

Why don't you just use XenPorta?

It's completely modular, so although it has available many different types of blocks for many different types of content, you don't have to use them.

Here's a quick example it took me 5 minutes to knock up:

but no one seems to know how...

Not very fair.
It would require an add-on for it to have a "clean URL" but you will find people are reluctant to spend time creating things that already exist, e.g. XenPorta.