This thread is a little old by now (JAN 2008) and the links mentioned in here are no longer relevent.

I will therefore add this link: DuGris - XOOPS Website.

It will take you to the sitemap of that site. Select Downloads and look for Hacks And Class.

I hope this will be of help to somebody.

Thank you for the quick answers.

I will try out WAMP first and see if I can make that work.

Once again, thank you for your help.

Some years ago there was a package called - as far as I remember - "XOOPS in a Box".

It was a package containing everything you needed to run XOOPS on a server. That is XOOPS, MySQL, Apache, PHP and probably something more.

Does this package still exist and of so, where can it be found?

Thank you in advance.

@ Quest:

Thank you again - I will keep your advice in mind when I - perhaps this week-end - will try it out.

@ Quest

Thank you for the information and the link.

Interesting reading and yes, it seems to address my concerns.

I will have to read it once or twice more before I am sure I completely understand it and before I dare make changes. But certainly worthwhile reading.

Thanks again.

Just a few loose thoughts with reference to the original post...


When I several years ago installed XOOPS for the first time it came with a lot of modules included. So I started out with those and made a site which worked and did what it should - today I would tweak the site far more to fit my needs.

Without any prior knowledge I managed to get the site up and running within 2 weeks - this meant a lot of trial and error and reading of documents found in the most obscure places - not to mention frustration and long nights. Luckily since I had foolishly promised my boss that I could do it in 14 day (that will never happen again).

I never felt XOOPS was userUNfriendly - only that I wasn't up to the task those two weeks.

Today XOOPS comes with only the core system - the System Module - and no extra modules.

And I must say I prefer that. Perhaps it is because I have come to know XOOPS better, perhaps because I now realize that I like probably most users quickly decide upon which modules work for me and which modules do not and so will choose different modules from what would come pre-packaged.

Perhaps the solution would be a "cut-to-bone" solution of XOOPS as of today and then a page with the officiel "standard" modules that are maintained and kept compatable with the latest XOOPS. Then beginners could go there and find modules for their first site; modules that should give them no problems. There might even be a link on the XOOPS Admin page to this page, a kin to the "XOOPS News Link" found there at the top.



As for automated updates of modules I am not sure I like the idea of that. I will hasten to say, that my understanding of the internal workings of XOOPS are - to say the least - very superficial and thus I might only be displaying my ignorance here - but anyways:

My impression is that when a module is updated, so the templates and the themes of that module are also updated. That means that the work I have done with exactly the templates and the theme-files are erased - resetting and destroying the hard work I have done to make my site look just like I want it. You know - a heading in red, a line right-adjusted in stead of left, and thousands of other smaller and bigger issues.
I am worried that an automated module-update system would trash all my work and make my site's layout take a roler coaster ride as I slowly rebuilt the layout until the next automated update comes along.

But I could understand that some of the really heavy XOOPS-guys are looking into the feasibility of such a functionality (I believe phppp was among them?) so I expect such concerns and problems are being taken into consideration.


With all that said and done, I must say that XOOPS is actually quite straight forward and easy to use - also as a beginner (my opinion), but as with all new endeavours it is a good idea to have a few lifelines when starting for the first time: Documentation; fora; a good friend, who has been there before.

Deleting the template in question solved the problem.

I can now get the changes made in the template to show.

Thank you both of you for your help; it is much appreciated.

Thank you for your quick reply.

And yes - I have done both. It didn't solve the problem

I have a problem modifying one of the templates in the News 1.3 module.

I have just updated my site to 2.0.13 and everything seems to work well. I completely disabled, uninstalled and deleted my old News 1.1 module. Then I uploaded and installed the News 1.3 module. So the module install is clean, so to speak.

I have my template set cloned and is using my custom template set; not the default one.

I want to change the layout of the "Recent News" block, also known as news_block_top.html. I go to admin/blocks and select Edit for the block in question. Then I click on Edit Template and is taken to the Block Administration --> Edit a Block (I hope I get the English names right; I am using a Danish speaking version). Here I delete everything and copy in the text from a template from another site. Click Submit.

And no changes are visible. The one template that originate from the module package remains.

I then uninstall the module, delete it and upload it again, re-install it again. Same procedure as before. Same result: no change.

Thinking that the template I am trying to copy in is somehow to blame, I decide to delete all the text in the template and just write a single word, just for testing purposes. Clicking on submit and expecting some weird results. But no - it displays fine in the manner of the original template supplied by the package.

Changing the template information directly in the database changes nothing.

Uninstalling the module again and then copying the templates I want into the packages before uploading and installing it (again-again) makes no difference - the result is based on the original template.

But if I ask to see a preview of the template it shows up as I want it to; it just doesn't show in the page.


Now, either something spooky is going on or I am making some silly mistake somewhere. I am most inclined to believe the last.

Anyway, can anybody help me out here? I am getting pretty frustrated.

Thank you in advance.


[Later addition]

I have tried to clear the templates cache (templates_c) but to no avail.

I have just started using Spotlight 2.2.

In the beginning I couldn't make the WF-sections show. After ypgrading WF-sections to the newest available, no problems.