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How does it work (setup)

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First Of All, How Do We Start...

miniCWB CMS software project is one of our programming ideas, and we are very happy, that you have chosen our product within hundreds of others.
If you are going to install it, first of all, you need to know some miniCWB requirements:

The most important aspect is that we should verify that we have an accessible web server. In order to run this software, verify the below:

  • The domain www.yourdomain.com is already purchased
  • Web hosting (ask for PHP support - 99% of the service providers provide this service)
  • FTP access to the server

Step 1: Download/Install Our Software

After verifying that you have access to the server according the above aspects, download our software from the Download section.

1) Copy the files in the web server folder (easy with an FTP client)
2) Start http://www.yourdomain.com/installer/ (change yourdomain.com to your details) and follow the instructions
3) Or do it manually, chmod 777 the list of folders from installer/folders.txt and files from installer/files.txt
4) Edit the config.inc.php, define("CONF_INDEX_URL", "http://www.yourdomain.com/");

Our software is FREE of charge, which means - when you download, install and run the default version, you don't need to pay anything to anyone. By General Public License conditions, only little copyright notice must be kept, identifying you as honest and reliable client of the Open Source World and to leave our copyright notice with link to us in the templates.

Step 2: Editing the Templates, Design and CSS

You have to edit only two HTML files so that your web site's layout should change. In case you do not have any HTML knowledge (the editing may be performed using programs such as Adobe Dreamweaver, Microsoft Frontpage) request a specialized company's services or contact us to provide you with design services. We recommend you to visit the Template Monsters web site, which provides quality web site layout design templates. In case you buy from Template Monsters, we will prepare the template to be ready for miniCWB, and charge you only $50.

Which are these two files? You will find the template_firstpage.html and template_index.htmlfiles in the programtemplates/skinX directory, where skinX is the template selected from admintool. The first is for the first page and the second for the internal pages. You have to pay attention to the below elements when integrating/creating the design.

TIPS: You will see that you already have 10 SKINS in the programtemplates/ directory , each one having different styles, so in many cases it is enough to edit the pictures and the CSS for colors.

  • Header:
    1. { CONF_SITE_NAME } from the TITLE tag has to remain intact, this element is taken from the configuration file of the web site. This will be shown in title bar of the navigator.
    2. { KEYWORDS } needs to remain intact, as well defined in the admin section. It is important as this element in the internal pages is made up of the keywords defined for each page in the admin section and of the keywords of the web site set on the configuration page.
    3. { CONF_META_DESCRIPTION }, as well defined in the admin section
    4. base href="{ CONF_INDEX_URL }" needs to be in the header of the page
    5. The links to the CSS files. These may be modified, but it is preferable to define your styles in the site's CSS file, in other.css or modify the existing ones in what color and style is concerned. But in these line(s) you may see which CSS file(s) are used.
  • Body:

    1. We have created some default templates so that these are compatible with the current XHTML standards, some of them, without tables (using DIV tags), but here you may do what you'd like. It is important to maintain the comments intact, such as: BEGIN DYNAMIC BLOCK: up and all residing in { SOMETEXTHERE }
    2. { MENU_UP }, in case you have a few pages, such as Home, About us, Services, Products, Contact Us, most probably this tag will suffice. In fact this tag will be automatically completed when you add another page, and only in case it is too long will exceed the design surface. In this case you will need to apply certain tricks to solve the problem. But in most of the cases this tag needs to be kept as defined by default, modifying only the design part and the HTML sources. { LANG_SITEMAP }, { LANG_SUBSCRIBE } and { LANG_CONTACT } will be link to specific pages like contact, sitemap and newsletter subscribe. They are optional.

      TIPS: Actually { MENU_UP } = programtemplates/skinX/menu.html + programtemplates/skinX/subpages1.html + programtemplates/skinX/subpages2.html and same for { MENU_DOWN } = programtemplates/skinX/menu_down.html + programtemplates/skinX/subpages1_down.html + programtemplates/skinX/subpages2_down.html

    3. { BODY }, the content will be inserted here from the dynamic source. It is important NOT TO BE REMOVED from the page.
    4. { LIST_NEWS_TITLE }, will show the top news.

      TIPS: To modify the look, just edit programtemplates/skinX/newsonfirstpage.html

    5. In the free version you have to keep the { COPYRIGHT } intact in the footer of the pages. In fact the licence purchased will require this aspect. In case you'd like to drop this part, please visit - How to remove copyright - Commercial License .
    6. Please try to keep the Javascripts included in the template files. If you wish to remove, it is possible that some part of the site will give JavaScript errors and will not be working.

Step 3: Administrator Area Settings and Other Useful Things to Know

To log into the ADMIN area, you need to access http://www.yourdomain.com/admintool/ The default login/password are demo/demo, we suggest to change it after your first login. Once authenticated on the admin area, you will be displayed the list of pages existing on the site. Visit the configuration page. Here you will be given the opportunity to access the name of the site, the keywords for the meta keywords section, the description for the meta description section and other settings. Each setting is carefully explained. In the admin area you will find the ADD PAGE and List/Modify Pages Section as well. These pages as well are very explicit and have a mini help section displayed. On the add/modify content page you may upload images as well using the HTML editor section. On the pages list you may define which page content to be the first page of your site, we suggest to not remove first page from list pages, just edit, the rest of the pages, can be edited/removed as you like.

Step 4: Settings / Configuration

You will notice that in the admintool you have a few settings options. The most important may be the SEO links option. If this is set to YES, the URL links on your site will be SEO friendly, of great when Google, Yahoo etc. spiders will be indexing the pages. At settings options you may change the web site skins as well. When changing the skin, the content of the web site remains intact, and only the design layout changes. Select the design layout that most fits your web site requirements, and search in programtemplates/skinX the CSS file in order to change the colors of the page elements. In programtemplates/skinX/images you may edit certain images in the template and most important in publ_images/pages/skinX you may personalize the images of your pages. With these simple steps you may obtain an elegant web site in a very short timeframe. You will find other useful settings on the configuration page, each having its own explication.

Generate Google Sitemap - When the web site is ready to be launched, we suggest you to create this sitemap. Based on the tests of certain experts, a web site submitted to Google may be visited in 2-3 days and will generate traffic in already one week.

Newsletter - In case you include the newsletter subscription link on your site, you may send out newsletter to all your subscribers through the admintool. This marketing tool is very useful for generating traffic. The subscribers will have the unsubscribe link in the newsletter, so that they can unsubscribe automatically, the newsletter being opt-in/opt-out.

First page - There are some sites that have a different homepage, that is not a description page, but a personalized page. In order to transform a page to be your web site's homepage, all you have to do is select the radio button besides the name of the page you intend to use as homepage.

Step 5: Repository - how to restore.

You will notice a repository folder, which in fact is the so called database of your web site in text format. It is not a queryable database and in case you open it using an editor, you will see that it is encoded due to the fact that it has to support special characters as well and has to maintain a very strict format.

All you have to know about this repository is that you have the possibility to repair certain errors that may occur when administering your web site. The config.php file is the one maintaining the site configuration. The db.php file is for the content of the description pages, contactdetails.php for the contact details , news.php for the news and so on. When updating a page or when changing the configuration, the system backs up the data and thus in case an error occurs, the old page may be restored. The backup files may be easily restored as these have the date in their name - ex: b_20080118125518_config.php.

Step 6: Advanced Usage

Most of you probably have advanced HTML knowledge, we only recommend a few advanced ideas.

  • TIPS AND TRICKS 1 - DYNAMIC IMAGES
    The most important thing we consider to be the dynamic changing of the pictures in different pages. For example, when we have a contact page, we may want a certain image in the header and a different one for services, for products and so on. Thus we have introduced in each template the possibility to add different zones of dynamic images. In the skin folder - programtemplates/skinX/ you will find a file named pictures.php which is in fact a text file.

    You have here a small example :

    H ; 250 x 150 ; jpg
    ML ; 100 x 600 ; jpg
    F ; 300 x 150 ; jpg
    MR ; 350 x 150 ; jpg

    What does this example mean? It means that we have 4 dynamic zones, each having a name of its own. H always means HEADER. Moreover ML stands for middle left, F for footer, MR for middle right. For example H ; 250 x 150 ; jpg means that the images in the header will be of 250x150 pixels and will have .JPG extension. F ; 300 x 150 ; jpg is the footer image and it is JPG with 300x150 pixels. You may define your own zones if you wish to. If you use dynamic images in template, you MUST have in /publ_images/pages/skinX a file skinX.jpg (where skinX = skin8.jpg for example)

    How do we manage these pictures? In admintool, when adding/editing a page, this file will be read and the image file upload field will appear automatically, mentioning the dimensions and the location of the images as well. These images have to be created by ADMIN using a program such as Photoshop, Fireworks etc, and have to be rendered to the required dimensions. When modifying, in case the image hasn't loaded, the system will display a spacer image to avoid errors.

    How do we enter the dynamic images in the templates? Open the programtemplates/template_index.html file and enter the image source code < img src="{ PAGES_PATH }{ TITLE_TAG_IMG }.jpg" > where you want your image to be displayed. { PAGES_PATH }- is defined as publ_images/pages/ and { TITLE_TAG_IMG } will have the dynamic name i.e. skin7-Services or skin7-About-us. Another example may be
  • TIPS AND TRICKS 2 - LINKS BETWEEN PAGES
    It may occur that you may want to enter links in pages to certain other pages. I.e. on a product page you may want to enter a link towards a "more information" page. The HTML editor in admintool allows you to do so, supposing you know how to apply a hyperlink. In case you have a page named "Glass Vase", your link to it will look like the following http://www.domeniu.com/description.php/Glass-Vase/ and the spaces are replaced with dashes (-).
  • TIPS AND TRICKS 3 - SUBPAGES
    In case you want certain pages to be main pages and other related to them as secondary pages, you may do so. Usually you have a product description page and a few products have to described in subpages. When adding the pages, you have to be careful to select the parent page. Certain template designs allow you to have drop-down menus, Parent Page > Subpage 1 > Subpage 2. Such an example may be found in skin 7.
  • TIPS AND TRICKS 4 - SHARED OR NOT SHARED HTML FILES
    Certain HTML files are the same for each skin and these may be found in the programtemplates/ folder. Other files differ as they contain different design elements. These may be found in the skin folder, i.e. programtemplates/skinX. In case you modify a template which is shared, we suggest you move it in the programtemplates/skinX/ folder so that when updating the software these shouldn't be overwritten.
  • TIPS AND TRICKS 5 - NEWS ON FIRST PAGE
    If you take a look at the skins, you will notice that for example the skin 1 template displays the news items with images, short description and title on the homepage, but without the date. There are thus 4 elements that may be defined in the design of this page, in the programtemplates/skinX/newsonfirstpage.html file: the date, title, image and short description.
  • TIPS AND TRICKS 6 - MENU
    The Skin 7 template is an appropriate example for the menu. In case you clink on Products, you will see its submenu as a drop-down menu. Everything may be found in the CSS file, and the files are programtemplates/skinX/menu.html; programtemplates/subpages1.html and programtemplates/subpages2.html

Step 7: How to upgrade

All you have to keep in mind when you make an upgrade from one version to another First of all you have to know the version you have installed on your system. This may be verified in the config.inc.php file, up to version 1.6.x and in defines.inc.php file from version 2.0.x.

Be careful not to upload the files from the repository folder, unless it is expressly specified in the upgrade instruction. The program you will be running at each upgrade (installer/update.php) will notify you and will do the modifications in the repository folder automatically. It is important you follow the upgrade process for each version. For ex. In case you have version 1.5.0, first you have to upgrade to 1.6.0 etc. and then up to 2.0.x, version by version.

At the same time, before upgrading, you have to be careful with the skin folder in programtemplates. Save the skin you were using in case you have modified something in the HTML files so that you shouldn't overwrite the changes. The same with images in publ_images/pages/skin/.

It is best you copy - paste the new verison in a separate folder (i.e. new/) and configure config.inc.php with the new URL http://www.domain.com/new/. Then copy - paste the repository folder from the old site in the new one and execute http://www.domain.com/new/installer/update.php by following the steps above.

When you see that the site is functioning in the new version, apply the skins in the new version by copying the publ_images/ and programtemplates/skins folder entirely in the new version. Be careful, as the programtemplates/skins folder may contain changes from one version to another, so analise thoroughly. When everything proves to be working fine, move the new folder to the old folder's location and modify the URL accordingly in the config.inc.php file.







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