SOLVED Oh RocketTheme & Joomla - you are so complicated!
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- Matt Halloran
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 32
- Thanks: 2
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Sorry - this is a bit of a frustrated rant. I used to love Joomla & RocketTheme templates - the combo was a reasonably intuitive framework to put a site together and understand what I was doing.
Admittedly, I havent touched a new theme or put a site together for a couple of years, but wow - this is now a huge struggle for someone who is not a full time developer or technically minded! Trying to figure out particles, atom, modules, components, articles, plugins and everything else works in amongst my gantry, templates, themes and everything else is a little frustrating.
It is now sooo complicated, and frankly, I am struggling. From a novice user point of view (I just want to put my own site together) point of view, the whole process now has so many features and flashy configuration options that it seems to have lost the intuitiveness of being able to seamlessly putting together a really nice, functional site with a minimum of fuss. Maybe I am missing something in terms of simple instructions / gantry / joomla / theme overviews? Nothing downloadable in terms of documentation?
Between trying to figure out how to configure this thing to my purpose (I am trying with "Fluent"), find whether the initial content I can see on the initially installed site is an "article", a "particle", a "module" or something completely different is a bit of nightmare! Documentation seems to be slanted towards developers and the technically minded, and the whole thing unfortunately seems to have lost it's simplicity. I am sure I will eventually figure it out with a lot more time than I anticipated, but I guess I am just expressing my frustration at how complicated this all seems to have become. It no longer seems to have the end user in mind...
Sorry for the rant - maybe I am the only one who finds these frustrations after not having put a rockettheme / joomla site together for a little while?
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- MrT
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 101084
- Thanks: 13481
- Web Designer/Developer
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Thank you for you comments. Sorry you're feeling frustrated.
Obviously, we're not the developers of Joomla so we really can't comments on Joomla itself.
Documentation on Fluent can be found here http://www.rockettheme.com/docs/joomla/templates/fluent/demo.md . Also, the documentation on Gantry 5 can be found (which Fluent uses) can be found here http://docs.gantry.org/ .
There's no getting away from the fact that (like anything new) there is a learning curve to go through to learn Gantry 5. You certainly won't be the first to comment on that, but once learnt many of our members become totally converted to Gantry 5 and would never want to go back to other frameworks (including Gantry 4).
If you are familiar with Joomla then you can think of particles as just another sort of "module" (they do a whole lot more than that and they're easier to use and develop) but that is, in essence, what they are. An "atom" is just another sort of particle that does not render anything on the frontend (think of them as helpers) - they're useful to add functionality easily to your site (like google analytics, or a "fixed header", etc).
As always we'd recommend that you start with our "rocketlauncher" package for your chosen template because that gives you an exact replica of the demo and you can see exactly how everything was done (in conjunction with the documentation).
If you have any specific issues that you are stuck on please raise new topics for each in the appropriate template forum and we'll be very glad to assist you.
Regards, Mark. - Please search forums before posting. Please make sure your post includes the version of the CMS you are using and a link to the problem. Annotations on screenshots can also be helpful to explain problems/goals. Please use the "secure" tab for confidential information.
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- Matt Halloran
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 32
- Thanks: 2
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Thanks Mark.
I am trying to muddle my way through, but it is very frustrating!
At the moment, my site is sitting at www.oceanescape.com.au - all I have pretty much managed to do at the moment is add a logo and change the copyright info at the bottom!
For instance, I am trying to play with the "news slider" particle, but have no idea where to find the content to be able to change everything. Documentation says talks about adjusting particle settings, but to be honest, I can't find it. I can go under template settings or gantry 5 settings, and find where it has "particle defaults", but under news slider there is nothing (image attached) - even though there is content showing on the front end of the site. I did manage to change the copyright info in this area under "branding", so thought I was on the right track..
So, I have no idea where I am supposed to be looking or if I am even looking in the right area for this...? I just seem to be going in circles and getting nowhere...
Any ideas?
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- MrT
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 101084
- Thanks: 13481
- Web Designer/Developer
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Here's a little video for you to show you where that can be found
https://www.screencast.com/t/7KRPDD9rbBR
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Regards, Mark. - Please search forums before posting. Please make sure your post includes the version of the CMS you are using and a link to the problem. Annotations on screenshots can also be helpful to explain problems/goals. Please use the "secure" tab for confidential information.
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- Ryan M Pierson
- Sr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 243
- Thanks: 164
- Technical Writer
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Matt Halloran wrote:
Documentation seems to be slanted towards developers and the technically minded, and the whole thing unfortunately seems to have lost it's simplicity.
I'm very sorry for any inconvenience regarding the documentation as I write those. I can say that I'm actually the only non-developer on the core team, being not a developer at all beyond HTML and some CSS that I picked up while writing the docs.
We used to document every module/particle in the demo as a matter of practice, but over time, the feedback we received from members leaned towards requesting that we not do that but rather that we document the particles and what their fields do. I wanted to make sure that we were at least covering the main particles, so you might notice that the screenshots for these particle documentations, I'm using actual screenshots from the demo content so you can see what settings were used in each particle.
This isn't the same, and I'm terribly sorry for that. It was a compromise to keep the documentation brief enough that we could release it within a couple days of the theme's release.
However... you're right. We're going to examine how we can do better in documentation moving forward. Which template(s) are you using right now? - Ryan Matthew Pierson / Technical Writer / Buda, TX USA
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- Matt Halloran
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 32
- Thanks: 2
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Hi Ryan,
Thanks for your reply. I can appreciate the complexities that must go into putting all this together with each new release, and I know the documentation process must be huge! Personally, I did find it easier when documentation was included - I do always tend to struggle with the online wiki type documentation where I need to skip through various links to go back and forth to try and figure something out. Maybe that's just my learning style that struggles...
I think the last time I used a rockettheme template it was under gantry 4 which seemed to be a lot more straightforward. The concept of "particles" has really thrown me, and is taking a long time to get my head around how it all works when I am used to modules and the placement system of previous joomla & gantry versions. I am trying to muddle my way through the latest "fluent" template...
Kind regards
Matt
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- Matt Halloran
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 32
- Thanks: 2
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Hi Mark,
Thanks for the video link - that has helped a lot. I was obviously in the wrong area. Each little bit is helping slowly!
Is there anywhere that specifies the ideal image dimensions, as it seems the image set for each particle item also extends into the background as well?
Not sure where to find all the info related to those sort of questions specific to the template, as the documentation in most part seems to relate back to more generalised gantry settings. Also, I seem to remember in older templates you used to be able to call css tags such as "box1" etc to highlight different accents on modules etc. How does that side of things work now - and is there documentation that outlines the different options relating specifically to this (fluent) template?
Thanks so much for your kind assistance,
Kind regards,
Matt
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- MrT
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 101084
- Thanks: 13481
- Web Designer/Developer
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The images sizes we used are 1200px x 690px But they can be change if you want to deviate from the "look" we created. The image does not extend into the background? We just happened to have use the same image for the background of the page (as defined on the "base outline > styles > base styles > background).
Regarding the "box1" etc - these are know as "block variations" - they are added to the "block" tab of the settings of any particle on the layout of your outline. If you want to know what "block variations" can be used then look on the "features > block variations" page of the demo (or your own rocketlauncher). See http://docs.gantry.org/gantry5/tutorials/using-block-settings#variations in Gantry 5 documentation too.
Regards, Mark. - Please search forums before posting. Please make sure your post includes the version of the CMS you are using and a link to the problem. Annotations on screenshots can also be helpful to explain problems/goals. Please use the "secure" tab for confidential information.
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- Matt Halloran
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 32
- Thanks: 2
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Thanks Mark,
It's (slowly) starting to make sense - I really appreciate your help and patience
Kind regards,
Matt
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