Building Websites with e107

Transcription

1 Building Websites with e107 A step by step tutorial to getting your e107 website up and running fast Tad Boomer Chapter 4 "Customizing the Look and Feel of Your Site"

2 In this package, you will find: A Biography of the authors of the book A preview chapter from the book, Chapter 4 "Customizing the Look and Feel of Your Site A synopsis of the book s content Information on where to buy this book About the Author Theodore S. Boomer Theodore S. Boomer was born in Catskill, NY. From an early age he showed a propensity for science and mechanics as well as for art and music. When the personal computers became available he knew then that he was going to be working with them in one form or another when he grew up. Currently he is running Connetek Business Technologies, his own small business-technology company specializing in consulting, small business-technology assessment, web presence, web design and web hosting with a focus on entrepreneurs, small office/home office, small business, non-profit, and small government contracts. His technical knowledge and ability to communicate effectively has garnered him clients from around the world. Tad started writing technical manuals and conducting instruction regarding the use of software while employed with the US military and US federal government and has been a technical reviewer for the books oscommerce Beginners Edition (ISBN-1886), oscommerce Professional Edition (ISBN-1145), Open VPN (ISBN-185X), and cpanel (ISBN-1923). A huge thanks to Trish Weir, Nanda Padmanabhan, Abhijeet Deobhakta, and Viraj Joshi at Packt Publishing for providing me an opportunity to write my first book and for their guidance, patience, and encouragement. I would also like to thank Eric and Cameron at e107.org for not only supporting the book idea but for taking part in the reviewing team. To all the plugin developers for the plugins used in this book, thank you so much and please continue your outstanding work. I am grateful to Dr. Padgett at Cuddle Care Animal Hospital for allowing me to use her business site as test site for this book and to Pets911 and Vetcentric for allowing the use of their banners. I would like to thank Roger, Nellie, Jerry, and Rusty for putting up with my working at all hours of the day and night on this project and to Boomer and Judy who sacrificed a summer of hiking and playing while this book was being written. My thanks to Gary who rescued me when I was faltering, taught me how to focus, and gave the will to get this project completed and also to my friends Jason, Jeff, Bob, Vladi, and Klara for their support and encouragement. Finally my special thanks to my mom who kept telling me over the years that I should write a book. Thank you for having faith in me when it seemed like I would never get focused on any one thing longer than a day and for your love and encouragement.

3 About the Reviewers Eric Vanderfeesten Eric Vanderfeesten was born in the Netherlands and currently is one of the main developers for e107. He has been using e107 for about 4 years and started off as an interested user in content management systems. He soon discovered the overwhelming possibilities for code enhancements to the system and also found a need to create his own plugins for a number of websites. After releasing several plugins he was asked to join the beta test team, for which he contributed ideas to the main developers and delivered fixes and enhancements to the core system. Soon after that period he joined the main developers team of which he has been a member for about two and a half years now. Although he has been coding for a long time, programming is not his educational skill. He is an architect and working in the architectural domain as his main profession. Since computer science has been a field of interest to him he has taken this interest into the domain of architectural design and graduated on a project involving generative architecture using a parametric script to produce architectural environments based on favela structures that can be found in Brazil. Besides his work as a main developer for e107 he is also the chairperson of an architectural foundation 'Eindhovenseschool.net' and has several freelance activities besides his daytime job.

4 Building Websites with e107 As of February 2007, there are 13,241 PHP scripts listed at hotscripts.com. Of these, 641 are content management system (CMS) scripts, all with the ability to manage your online content and make your site dynamic. Out of these 641, e107 has been voted second in popularity in a recent survey. It's growing legion of fans like it for its ease of installation, powerful diverse features, well written code, and built-in security features. E107 doesn't have a flashy name and you can't install it through a control panel such as Fantastico DeLuxe, which is probably why it is not the number one CMS. Nevertheless, downloading and installing e107 is a very easy straightforward process. One of the things that make e107 unique is its modularization. Many CMS take the one-size-fits-all approach and for smaller businesses in particular, they are a waste of resources. As opposed to this, e107 has a core program with many additional features available by activating a plugin (an additional set of scripts). This gives you the control to determine what features you need for your particular site. While this book was written with entrepreneurs, small office/home office, and small businesses in mind, it will prove to be a great resource for anyone wishing to use e107. I would also like to stress that while targeted towards small business users, e107 is perfectly suited for personal sites as well as large corporations. This book is a primer to get you started and familiar with using e107. It is not a complete reference. However, it does contain references to resources for learning those features not covered in the text. Don't panic if you have never created a database or installed a script, or have no knowledge about file permissions. In this book we will work together, step by step, to create a website for a small business. The book is a quick-paced tutorial and contains lots of screenshots so you need not try to second-guess what you should be seeing in your browser. This book will get your e107 up and running quickly and save your hundreds if not thousands of dollars in web-design and maintenance fees. What This Book Covers Chapter 1 introduces us to e107 and provides a brief history of content management systems, how content management systems work, a brief history of e107, and an introduction to the development team. Chapter 2 covers the requirements for running e107, uploading to the server, setting file permissions, creating the database, running the installation script, securing your installation, updating e107, and what to do and where to go when things don't go as planned. Chapter 3 takes us to our new website and covers the various components of the screen layout, creating and activating usernames, and registrations. After covering the front end of our new website, we will get to the heart of our website the back end where we will learn the various preference settings options, learn about emoticons, creating static and dynamic front pages, and different front-page views for difnferent user groups.

5 Chapter 4 deals with the themes the site theme, admin themes, how to select a different theme, core themes, additional themes, and custom themes. We will learn where to find additional themes and how to make them available for installation. We will cover customizing our theme through the selection of menu items, and learn how to use the WYSIWYG editor and file upload manager, create and delete custom menu items, and make the navigation of our site multi-lingual. Chapter 5 takes us into the world of e-commerce with our website through the use of plugins. We will learn the difference between core and non-core plugins, where to obtain plugins, and how to install and uninstall plugins. We will learn how to create banner advertising campaigns and display banner ads on our site using the Banner plugin. We will create the Paws R Us store using the Shopping Cart plugin and finally we will learn about the FAQ plugin. Chapter 6 transforms our e107 website into an e-business powerhouse. In this chapter we will learn how to create user groups and how to use them to control access to the various functions of our system. We will cover the installation, setup, and maintenance of forums and polls. Chapter 7 will no doubt be the most referred to chapter in this book as we learn how to use the Content Management plugin, which is a very powerful and versatile content organizer. We will also learn how to set up the PDF plugin so our users can download documents in their original formatting. Last but not the least, we will cover how to use the Coppermine photo gallery plugin. Chapter 8 covers information dissemination. We will learn how to install, configure, and write a newsletter, communicate with our users with the calendar plugin, update users about our business by means of RSS, and learn some basic things we need to do to get our site listed in the search engines. Chapter 9 shows us how to keep our database running in top condition, and use e107s selfdiagnostic features to allow it to help us find problems so that we can make corrections. We will also learn security procedures. Appendix A provides a list of e107 resources from around the world as well as resources for Apache, PHP, MySQL, XAMPP, Easy PHP, and WAMPServer.

6 Where to buy this book You can buy Building Websites with e107 from the Packt Publishing website: Free shipping to the US, UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and India. Alternatively, you can buy the book from Amazon, BN.com, Computer Manuals and most internet book retailers.