Support Spidean |
Do you like our FREE downloads? How about the FREE support for the FREE downloads? Please help us out and donate any amount! It's fast and easy through PayPal.
|
Board Index > Support (.87) > custom block does not display, omitted from render
compsci8
Newbie   Posts: 4 Registered: 11/6/2005 Status: Offline
|
 posted on 11/6/2005 at 10:12 PM |
PN 0.760, AT 0.851
Linux Redhat Fedora, MySQL/php
ISP: godaddy.com
Site: www.atlalabs.com (warning: it's ugly right now, stuck halfway between
AT stock and my content)
I'm new to PN/AT, but not to web programming. I've spent four hours with
the FAQ/UG and searching this forum specifically on this problem. I
apologize if I'm posting a redundant problem (just show me the tutorial
link and I'll leave in peace <grin> .
Fundamentally, I think I have a few knowledge gaps:
1.) I do not understand how AT blocks override/supplement/replace standard
blocks. Is this interaction causing problems (my stock blocks modules is
still activated)?
2.) I do not understand how modules, content, and blocks interact at the
code level. Are blocks just includes? and merely serve as wrappers for the
modules?
3.) I do not understand the difference between modules and pages.
Essentially, PN/AT terminology seems either to be inconsistent or just
cryptic, or I'm just ASU (another stupid user <grin>.
Enough disclaimer, on to the scenario:
I'm trying to display a custom block with static content at the top of my
page. My homepage begins with the News module according to the settings
admin module.
My procedure:
AT->Themes->AT_Atlalabs->Block Areas:
Left, Right, Center, top_content_bar
AT->Themes->AT_Atlalabs->Theme Defaults:
Page template = theme.html
top_content_bar Blocks = top_nav_banner.html // Show? Yes.
AT->Themes->AT_Atlalabs->Custom Pages->*Homepage:
Page template = theme.html
top_content_bar Blocks = top_nav_banner.html // Show? Yes.
I've pasted the relevant parts of the theme files below for your reference.
I've referenced the block everyway I could think of (in case you're
wondering why there are a bunch of block references to the same block
there).
None of these approaches appear to work. The block contents (the test
message and horizontal rule) do not show. Even more interesting is that the
block references (despite debugging being turned on) do not show up in the
page source as seen by the browser. It's as if pnRender understands them,
but doesn't know what to do with them so it just strips them from the
output(???).
ANY HELP WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED! Thank you very much.
Warm regards,
-Jonathan
[partial contents of file: theme.html]
<html>
<head>
<!-- Note to Self: HEAD CONTENT IS STRIPPED OUT BY AUTOTHEME AND
REPLACED WITH THE DEFAULT HEAD CONTENT -->
</head>
<body text="#000000" vLink="#333333" aLink="#999999" link="#666666"
bgColor="#ffffff" leftMargin="0" topMargin="0" rightMargin="0"
marginheight="0" marginwidth="0">
<!-- [public-messages] -->
<!-- [user-login] -->
<!-- [top_content_bar-blocks] -->
<!-- [top_content_bar] -->
<!-- [autoblock1-blocks] -->
[contents of file: top_nav_banner.html]
<!-- THIS IS THE TOP NAVIGATION BANNER, IN STATIC HTML -->
<hr>
inside the top_nav_banner
|
| |
| |
llandler
Newbie Posts: 4 Registered: 5/28/2003 Status: Offline
|
posted on 11/13/2005 at 04:31 AM |
Jonathan,
How are you doing with this?
Most of your confusion actually seems to be about the way postnuke
works...
*AT controls standard blocks, doesn't override/supplement/replace
*Content is the stuff you type.
*Modules are scripts within postnuke that do something (AT is a module) - a
FAQ or a forum or a static content manager - are all modules.
*Blocks are specific snippets of output (from modules or other sources)
which can be shown irregardless of the module you are looking at. AT's
block controls are for fine control over which blocks are shown where and
when.
Pages are formatted output from a module. each module will have one or more
pages of output.
If you need help with the specifics still, reply here and I will take a
look at it...
Laurie
|
| |
compsci8
Newbie Posts: 4 Registered: 11/6/2005 Status: Offline
|
 posted on 11/13/2005 at 02:01 PM |
Thank you Laurie for your kind reply. Yeah, you are right. I kind of
figured that was my problem so I began digging inside the PostNuke codebase
and getting a better feel for things.
The core problem with my work was that while I created the block template
code, I did not create an actual block that uses the template. As I now
understand it PN works with the following wrapper structure:
Page template (locates the blocks)
Block template (formats the block)
Block contents (contents of the block, could also format the block
if custom HTML/PHP)
To get my static code to appear, I had to create an HTML block, with
nothing in it, that used my block template (that had the static HTML). Then
everything checked out A-OK.
Thanks again!
Warm regards,
-Jonathan
|
| |
llandler
Newbie Posts: 4 Registered: 5/28/2003 Status: Offline
|
posted on 11/14/2005 at 04:55 PM |
Jonathan,
Just as an idea:
you mentioned making a blank html block to show your html code as formatted
in your block template... I do it the oposite way... I make a "blank" box (
an html file with only one line:
<!-- [block-content] -->
I then make an html block and put all of the html code in there.
Works better for some uses, makes changes easier to apply and can be used
for other blocks besides html when you don't want the title to show.
Best of luck,
Laurie
|
| |
|
|
|
|
