Hello all. I have downloaded a very nice looking theme that I would like to use for my new site which I am constructing. I am looking to find a sort of step-by-step on how to use a different theme and other thing.

I have tried the documentation area and I have looked at many sites including XoOPS for dummies. Most of the information is really more about troubleshooting rather than how to customize or modify.

Does anyone know a good FAQ site or knowledgebase? Any help or direction would be appreciated. Thank you!

I haven't seen much information about theme design, what you most surely have to take care of is keeping all the XOOPS code inside the theme, but you can move the code around the theme.html as you wish, giving you different display options, what you do have to know is how to manage css and xhtml and eventually get to know how to use the smarty tags before getting into more advanced design.

i see thank you. XOOPS looks very interesting but i the more that i am getting into it the more I am thinking that it is just too difficult to do things. I cannot figure out how to install the modules options now which according to the information I have read should have been default options. One article said to be sure that all of the modules are uploaed into the module folder and in checking what I downloaded from this XOOPS site, everything was uploaded.

I really wish there was more detailed information on some of these things.

When I met XOOPS I started learning by experimenting with it, clicking everywhere possible and seeing what happened with each click. There is a lot of information in the faq and documentation sections, I get surprised sometimes when I go there and I see the quantity of information there ...I do think it needs more organization and filtering of content with a nice index to it (am referring to the FAQ) ... there can be tons of valuable information there but without an order to it, it loses value because the information is there but no one can find it.

For things like theme design, you can't design themes if you don't know css and xhtml ...and those things are learned apart from xoops.

Look more closely into your system menu and in the module admin page you'll be able to install the modules you uploaded.

Xoops is too intuitive you don't have to read everything step by step sometimes.

I think anyone is prepared for a learning curve when they begin to use a new program for example Photoshop was probably the longest learning curve I had ever needed to learn a program. But what is frustrating on top of that is exactly what you said about the documentation. When I look there I see many topics listed that say not available. And then the people in the forums are kind of impatient by saying "look in the documentaiton".

I have looked for any way I can to find the modules. In the modules folder from my downloaded file all it says is system and index. I am wondering if the modules even downloaded with the original XOOPS files.

ok, let me see if I can the hang of it. I'll give you little step by step intro help.

1. Download and install XOOPS in your server (that's a whole story apart), once passed this phase you can enjoy using xoops.

2.To install modules:
2.1 Go to the module repository find the module you want, try to get the most updated version (sometimes you have to go to dev.xoops.org)
2.2 Upload the module (which is usually a folder which opened you will see many other folders and xoops_version.php in it, upload that folder to the modules folder of your XOOPS install.
2.3 Login as admin and click administration menu
2.4 Click the system icon on the left and chose the Modules link in the center page
2.5. You will see an upper and lower section, you can distinguish them from the icons they have in the actions column, the upper half are the installed modules, the lower half the uninstalled ones or the ones recently uploaded to the modules folder. Find the module in the lower half and click the install icon (the grey thing one).
2.6 You will see now in the left column (of the administration site) the module installed with an icon representing it, click the icon to view it's options and add content to it.

** Automatically a main menu is generated in the front page with a link for each installed module

(I guess that's a quick overview on how to install modules)

3. To install themes:
3.1 Chose a theme from the themes library or from the themes news section.
3.2 Upload it to the themes folder of your XOOPS install.
3.3 Login as admin and click administration menu
3.4 Click the system icon on the left and chose the Preferences link in the center page, then click Edit on the General Settings link
3.5 Select your default theme from the dropdown box
3.6 Save your changes

This should get you started. I'm sorry if I can't help you anymore, things like this should be in the faq and documentation area.

Depends on the version of XOOPS you downloaded. If you downloaded 2.0.14 then no, it has no modules except the System module. You will need to choose the modules you want to install from the module repository (link at left), download them, unzip them and then upload the folders emclosed within the zip by FTP to your XOOPS installation into the /modules folder. Then they are installed via the administration menu link (System Admin > Modules and click on the Install icon to the right of the module "badge" icon)

Please note that SOME modules have extra folders enclosed in the zip, make sure you read any README files enclosed before uploading.

Best way to learn how to create your own theme is to find a simple one and modify it bit by bit until you understand how the themes work. That's what I did. I'm no genius, but I can now create a pretty reasonable theme from scratch ;)

*edit* LOL snow you're too quick for me :) *

what you said is cool also .. it gives another point of view of how you see things and I comprehend tjmichner's sensation when entering the FAQ.
The faq should be organized though, it's a place to get easily lost and the terms need to be clearly defined, it needs a little bit more direction from my point of view.