Hi all,

I'm really starting to go round in circles a bit, as I start to get news, blocks and sections all messed up. I have a test site up and running (http://www.nzmac.com/xoops/) which is basically just this site (http://www.nzmac.com/) redesigned, but with only minor content to test at the moment...with FreeContent being used for a lot of the links that I have up the top. Once I get the design all sorted, I intend to use FreeContent as a quick way to take my existing content into Xoops...then mould it more as I have time.

Anyway...a few of questions.

Site news
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The site news block I really want to be a combination of two things.....comments (things like "I've fixed the forum problem") and direct links to articles or reviews or other content, that will originally sit within FreeContent.

I want something that isn't an HTML block to do this....do I use news? I *don't* want people to have to go into the news area though...I want them to be able to go straight to the articles from the main news module if possible (see the exiting site if you want to see what I mean)

Infrequent news
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While there is site news, there is also news on the magazine that sponsors my site...but this mag only comes out every 2 months. Unlike the site news, I want a lot of wording to be displayed. How can I have the news title and lots of text associated with it showing, when I only want news snippets for the other?

Sections
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I'm just totally lost as to what they are compared to modules, in terms of where they sit....I thought they were a bit like sub-directories a bit like modules are, but now I'm stumped.

RSS feeds
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And finally, I want to be able to offer the site news links as a RSS feed..is this going to be possible?

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Thanks in advance...I know I've probably totally confused everyone, but any advice is welcome.

Phil

Hello Phil,

A module is a discreet set of scripts that you install. They will have a specific function, or job in the working of your website. The way we see and interact with that module is through a block, or a set of blocks that display the modules content. Some modules may not even have a block and simply function in the background.

A block does not have to be connected with a module however; for example you can make your own custom block in system admin>blocks Blocks administration page. A custom block can simply be some text or images, or you could integrate html/php code if you wanted.

So, essentially blocks are display devices, containers for content of various types that we build the web pages with.

Have you seen the spotlight module? It displays a single news story complete with graphics. It also has links to other news stories beneath the main story text. Within the main news story you could insert links to another articles

Sections is a basic module for creating simple articles. It offers some structure by allowing you to create categories.

These are just some ideas, but I hope it helps some

Richard

Thanks, I hadn't thought of using Spotlight...which the developer hacked for me a while back so that it displays from a specific category, so that might be the way to go.

With regards modules vs sections, I get what you are saying, but what I find hard to do is then relate that to building a site structure. When you are developing your site, you get the opportunity to display blocks...and when you set these up, you get to say where you want these displayed...more often than not, where to display them can include *in* a module....for example, display this block in WfSections.

So although modules have functions, they are also often an "area" that you can go to on your site...the downloads area, news area (I'm trying to avoid the term section here)....so how is that different to a section?

Is a section basically the part of a module with no functionality? Why would you actually choose a section over a module?

And....then I guess, where does that bring in topic blocks?

I'm finding XOOPS really easy to develop with and customise, but I have to admit in terms of layoing out my site, I'm getting a tad confused.

Phil

"Sections" is a module designed for adding basic content into your website. The name sections, I think is miss-leading. It does not create sections for the site. It produces a link in the main menu to a page which list categories you have created in the sections module. Clicking a category it will list any articles you have added. The module takes the center of the page as its main display area. Because it's a module it appears in the drop down menu "show blocks visible in" (system admin>blocks blocks administration page.)
If you select 'sections' in this menu, or whatever you have renamed it to, a new page will load. Here you can select other modules (in blocks) to display in the sections page when you open it. Ie what shows in the panel left, right and centre of the page. Sections has a big brother wf-sections and there are other content modules available. If you are interested in producing several articles in categories and sub-sections, you would do well to use one of these others, as they offer more flexibilty and editing power.

Hope this helps

Richard

Oh, that helps heaps...in fact, it's given me some good ideas! Thanks again,

Phil

GOOD NEWS Phil!

Glad this helped. I've spent many hours trying to figure out these issues. The documents team is in process of writing what we hope will be clear and detailed guides for procedures like this. In a way you have had some early snippets!

Good luck with the rest of your site

Richard