OK, I downloaded the latest stable Xoops, installed it, everything went clean first time and through to the end, even got the Admin login bit, did that, set up SMTP e-mail and whatnot, added a test user of so, then logged out.

All I see is as a home page is a (fairly) blank page with the XOOPS header and flash banner at the top, the XOOPS footer line, the login, admin, home and theme selector links block on the left, and that's it. No content, no other blocks.

Now, is this he way the site should be right after an install, or do I have to enable some blocks or other functionality to see some pre-arranged content? It says in admin that the default theme is active

Yes, I have Suse 9.2, PHP 4.3.8 with RegisterGlobals=on, Apache 2.0.50, MySQL 4.0.21 and all that, plus I have testing versions of Mambo, WordPress, Geeklog and some other things working fine on this test, stand-alone server. The path (http://localhost) is fine, or else I wouldn't have got the page I did, let alone install Xoops. Apache error logs are clean, ditto site-specific ones. I can execute ab_path.php and ab_info.php just fine.

In other words, I can administrate XOOPS to my heart's content, but not see, add, or edit content (which doesn't exist).

What am I doing wrong. TIA.

you have XOOPS installed and running, thats fine.

now you have to install a modul, for example the news modul (that cames with the xoops-package)

go to the administration than klick on the icon on the left side, now you will see a menu klick on modules.

now you see all installed and not installed modules, now install the news modul.

after that you will see a second icon on the left side, yes thats the news modul klick on it.

now you can make some nice things with this modul, and you can set various blocks.

take a look around in the administration and in the administration of the modules. you will see thats really easy to add content to you side.

Ahhhhh. Thanks for the quick response.

OK, I did that and set up Topics and sub-topics, and wrote two articles, and activated the Polls, Sections, Contact Us modules, and removed my localhost/IP from the banned IP list, etc. etc.

Now I see the two articles (if I'm logged in as a registered user or greater), and a couple of menu items. Big deal, if you will pardon the expression.

Sorry, but I must be missing something here. This looks nothing like a website, more like a menu-ized wiki.

well XOOPS is modulised.. we can't tell you what to install..

you have to decide exactly what you want your site to be like? the theme can be designed to look like anything really if you put your mind to it.. but you have to decide what you want from your site..

once you decide, then you need to find a module that does that task..

we don't know what you want on your site, you have to tell us that.

for more info i suggest reading the FAQ section and the documentation (links can be found in the left column of this site) to enable modules and content for anonymous viewwers goto admin and system then groups and click edit on anonymous group and give relevant permissions..

Ouch... you snagged me with this comment...

Quote:

The advantage to using Xoops, IMHO, is the large selection of modules that you can install to do pretty much anything you want. All being administered by a central member database.

Listen to m0nty, look at the various modules that are available to install, figure out what you want to do with your website and have fun with it.

And you will find most of the modules will start up empty, you're going to have to populate them with interesting content yourself.

For my purpose I have setup a family website, and use the following modules:

News
Links
Polls
WiwiMod - A very nice wiki
xcGal - Photo Album

There are all sorts of other modules you can install into your XOOPS site to do all sorts of things... guestbooks, calendars, content management, ... ... and if you don't see what you are looking for usually a quick message to the forums will get a response pointing you in the right direction. Please search the site before you post a message though!

Good luck!