There is some documentation about the control panel on the wiki
HereSparse at the moment. I would do a search through the forums using the search box, try words like "Help Block", which will give you a working idea of how the system works. Remember to click "Show All" for the complete list if using the search box at the top right of the XOOPS default page.
Quick General overview:
Site preferences are accessed from the Administration Menu. Select the "System Admin" icon, and go to "Preferences" then choose "General Settings". Here you set up your site name, default theme etc. You can download other themes later but I would play with the default at the moment till you get used to it.
Then go to System Admin and "Modules", in there you will see existing modules which need to be installed like "News" for example. Then in the "Action" column click the "install" icon. Repeat this for each module you want.
After you have installed your modules, you may want the "News" module to be your default startup module. To do this go back to your General Settings again, and go to the field where it says "Module for your start page--select "News" as your startup module. Remember to click "Go" at the bottom of the page to update your changes.
You then go back to System Admin and "Blocks", from there you choose which blocks related to your installed modules you wish to appear. This is quite intuitive, but if you need help post again, or do a search using the search facility.
A bit about blocks
HereYou need also to set up group permissions. Go to System Admin and "Groups", then go to the Anonymous Users group, and put check marks in the relevant "Module Access rights" which allows guests to access the module. Then put relevant checkmarks in the "Block Access Rights", this allows guests to "see" the block.
Also try going through all the Admin facilities and getting a feel for things, it is intuitive once you find your way around.
For specific problems first try a search through the forums using key words, if you can't find the answer just ask
Templates and Themes (from some documentation I am working on)
To replace the XOOPS logo with your own, right click on the logo and go to "Properties". This will show you the path to the logo and the name of the file i.e.
yoursite.com/themes/yourthemename/logo.gif
Replacing this file on your server with another pic of the same name will do the job, be careful of sizes though to keep proportions. The size or name of the pic can be changed in the theme.html file in your theme folder.
The look of your theme is controlled by the style.css files in your theme folder. In "System Admin" and "Templates" you can also make changes which affect your theme. The default "template" is chosen from general settings. On installation this defaults to the existing "default" template.
You can't edit the default template, but you can "clone" the default template, edit it, and make your "clone" the default template in general settings. At the moment it might confuse you to get involved in this, but handy to know for later advanced theme editing or creation.
The difference between Themes and Templates can be a bit confusing for a new user, so:
A bit about templates and themes
HereIf you wish to learn about templates, you will find an "extras" folder in your XOOPS download. In there is a theme called "x2t". This comes with a template set, which is in an included "Tar" file.
(Templates must be a tar.gz/.tar file with a valid XOOPS template set structure)
This can be uploaded directly--go to "System Admin" and then "Templates". Using the "upload" facility browse to the x2t tar file in the extras folder. You then need to FTP the "x2t" theme in the extras folder to your themes folder. After this go to "general settings" and make x2t your default theme and also default template. Use the "generate files" facility for individual modules you install. The files that need generated are coloured "red". Handy to practice with.
I found some advantages in using this x2t template. For example in "News" I can put in topics images of any size I wish. But if I use the XOOPS default template, the large image overlaps the space, and looks awful unless I put in hard returns to match the size of the image.
Most third party themes are just designed to make use of the XOOPS default template. To install another theme you have downloaded, first upload the theme to your "Themes" folder on your server by FTP, the system automatically sees the uploaded theme there--then go to general settings again and choose your new theme as default if you desire.
If you wish to create html pages, I would have a look at modules like
wfsections, their is other content modules which make it easy to create or include HTML pages within xoops.
