The theme you are using likely does not have the bottom blocks installed in it. Alot of themes do not have these blocks in them but you can add them relatively easy.

Your blocks are displayed with code like this...

<{foreach item=block from=$xoops_lblocks}>
<{$block.title}>
<{$block.content}>
<{/foreach}>

This would print out all the blocks for the left block.

You need to add the appropriate CSS coding to format this block but it is not hard. If you look at the theme you are using you will see similar coding with HTML and CSS coding to format your blocks.

To print out different blocks you can add similar code as above... All you need to do is insert the right variable and similar CSS and HTML and you have it... Would be easier to duplicate the code you already have in your theme and just change the variable you see above to show the correct block.

The available variables and their places: (Replace $xoops_lblocks with these.)

$xoops_lblocks = left block
$xoops_rblocks = right block
$xoops_ccblocks = top center
$xoops_clblocks = top left
$xoops_crblocks = top right
$xoBlocks.page_bottomcenter = bottom center
$xoBlocks.page_bottomleft = bottom left
$xoBlocks.page_bottomright = bottom right

I will be writing a Theme tutorial soon and putting it in the wiki but this should get you going for now.

The bottom blocks look different as they were added in more recent versions of xoops and the framer of these add ons wanted to make them easier to remember so they have different format to the names. The original coding was left as was so as not to confuse anyone and to keep older themes working. These are Smarty variables and you can't apply CSS to them directly. MOST people today will surround it in a DIV with a class associated with it that reflects on which CSS class to use from the external STYLE.CSS file.

If you have a theme that is using tables to surround everything or only use the first 5 variables or maybe not even all of those you may have an older theme that can be added to by adding additional code as above.

Rodney

Thanks Rod,

That looks like it might be the problem. Now to fix it....

I have added some code from the default theme.css to my new theme.css. It looks like this:




I think I need to add something to reference this but I am not sure what. I can't find anything in theme.html that looks close.

Thanks again for your help,
Tim

Just insert it before the last table for the footer.
It seems there is a closing table tag too less in your /themes/montisblue/theme.html

Hi guys and thanx,

I have tried to fix themes.html in my theme and it doesn't want to play - it now loos like this:




I agree with ghia that there is a missing somewhere but when I tried to fix it I broke the page horribly. If anyone can see what is wrong I would hugely appreciate it.

Thanks
Tim

Quote:

You meant theme.html not theme.css right?

This looks like it should have the center bottom column and then below it show the left and right column.

Looks like it is designed for a 2 column layout.

Also, you will need to have code in your style.css file that refers to the ID's bottomCcolumn, bottomLcolumn and bottomRcolumn. They will inherit the css of the body otherwise. If you have specific CSS code in your CSS file for the other blocks you will also need it for these blocks as well.

Hi all,

I added the code for the bottom blocks to theme.html See




and added code to the style.css to reference those bits (see from td#bottomCcolumn )





I also do not know what the "td" bits are at the start of the lines but it seems to work for all other instances.

Frustratingly, it works fine with the default template - I have left the theme selector available so you can see this here.

I really hope you can see what is wrong,
Tim

Did you read your PM?

With a table you will see certain tags used...

You need to think of a table as being like an excel spread sheet.

Each tag will have a closing tag that denotes the end of the definition for that tag. The portion is the closing tag.

This is the thing that defines the table. Everything between these tags consist of the table. When using tables for layouts you will see tables within tables sometimes.

This defines a Table ROW.. Imagine a horizontal row of cells in a spread sheet.

This little used tag builds the header row. Would be like the titles that go across the top of a spreadsheet. This would be used like a cell (Next one) but more specialized.

This tag is the actual cell its self. This would be like a cell in a spread sheet. You CAN use this to make the header instead of the last tag.


But read your PM. I left you information there how to send me what you have and I will go through it for you and fix your issues.

Rodney

Many thanks Rod - best service anywhere

I have sent the files you requested. Thanks for being so helpful and making the community so much stronger as a result.


Cheers,
Tim

Well that didn't work.

The problem is not with the module but with the theme - the bottom blocks are not installed and despite good help I cannot make installing them work so that the block appears at the bottom of the centre column. I have given up and will put up with no Recent News block. Thanks to those that helped.


Tim

OK, finally fixed it.

I used the instructions that were available here. The reason I couldn't get the blocks to appear in the right place was because I couldn't find the right place to insert the code in theme.html

Ultimately it went here:



so it then looks like this:




And now it works.