Hi to one and all,

I have just installed XOOPS on a server. This was an option on the server cpanel. All seems to have gone well. Now before I get too heavily involved with using the package may I just ask a couple of points before I start?

I am going to use Dreamweaver 8, so should I download the XOOPS folder onto my local disk's appropriate site folder?

This leads to my second question.

Can I, or indeed should I, put/install/copy my existing site into xoops, as I would love to convert my existing site.

My primary interest here is learning something new, and creating a searchable site.

Hope you will help.

Kind regards,

Glyn.

Hi glync, welcome to Xoops.org.

The way your XOOPS site looks is determined by 'themes'. You can download a large number of professionally designed theme packages from the themes library here on Xoops.org. Each theme generally consists of a 'master' theme.html file, several smaller html files for left, right and centre columns, an images folder plus a CSS file.

You can edit the theme html file(s) in Dreamweaver and change the images and CSS. Be aware however that the HTML files will also contain 'Smarty' variables which are used to build the page dynamically when viewed with a web browser. For example, in theme.html you'll find stuff like:

Just be careful not to trash any of this code.

To use your edited theme, upload the theme folder and it's contents to the 'themes' directory. Log in to XOOPS and go to:

'Administration Menu/System Admin/Preferences/General Settings'

and select your theme in the 'Default theme' drop-down menu.

If you want to build XOOPS sites locally (on your PC) you will need to install a web server and the PHP and MySQL database applications first. You can download a free package called XAMPP which installs Apache web server, PHP and MySQL. The latest version of XOOPS can be downloaded from here and it has it's own installer, although your XAMPP needs to be up and running properly first.

Once you have built the site on your PC, you can export the local database data as a SQL file, FTP the folder structure to your live web space, import the SQL data into your online database and change a few settings in the config file.

There are anumber of modules that allow you to copy material from an existing 'static' website into Xoops. My personal favourite is 'Content 0.6'. It's in the module repository.

You'll find more info about installing and configuring XOOPS and modules in the documentation (see link on left) and the FAQ. The search facility should help you track stuff down. There's lots of info on setting up XAMPP on the web.

HTH

Hi peekey.

Many thanks that's brilliant. I'll get on and see what I can do.

Expect I will be back quite soon!

Glyn