My Summary of [PROJECT: Dad's SITE] Story 1:Main site

BELOW ARE ALL THE NOTES I TOOK WHILE TRYING TO
DEVELOP MY DAD'S SITE.

They are in chronological order.

Abstract:

• I've tried to design this using only open source software.

• I've tried around 3 CMS's before arriving on Etomite to develop the site.

• I have agonized over DIV's, CSS's, and discrepency between IE and Firefox.

But now...
Everything is working correctly and the feeling is like
Getting high while having sex and walking around naked around the street.

WATCH OUT FOR STORY 2: SHOPPING MALL!!
coming soon..

ENJOY:
====================================================
onmorie.com

made initial logo and rough design.
fired up gimp to see how i could use it
while trying to change language setting
gimp got fried, and could not get that pango error away
after 10 reinstallations, found out:
I had to install gtk without windows components,
it worked,
reinstall gtk with windows components.
as my XP was in korean, the GIMP showed in Korean.
It seems that won't change.. OH it changed to English as I changed "ko"folder in Locale folder to "ko_tmp"(some other name so GIMP won't recognize korean)

ALL IN ALL I AM READY TO DELVE IN GIMP

I found out GIMPShop, a morphed version that makes GIMP as close as Photoshop, but it gave the same error.
However, fixing this meant reinstalling gimp and..
frankly I wasn't going to do that.

What added to my decision to give up GIMPShop was that I figured getting the pirate-warez taint off my brain should start at learning a new software and a new interface.

So, although it's gonna take more time, I decided to use and learn the default GIMP.

[5:04 pm] "Learning it by tutorial" has started.
tutorials I viewed:
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Lite_Quickies/
[8:37 pm] made a generic outline of how the main page will look like. now to learn how to use Drupal...
will look at the Drupal site to see how to make a Drupal-run site..

[9:23 pm] I notice Drupal, the one I downloaded doesn't have an installer. WTF? I don't care how good their CMS is. This is so snobbish.
But then I do remember one that does have an installer..I did install it some time ago.. I am searching my hdd for it.

[9:37 pm] Finally realized that it was done using an online installer by the host, under my request.. can't remember what free webhost it was under, though. MMMPH I hate it when I can't search for it..
So, I decided to rather go to DragonflyCMS.
Can anyone help me get the Drupal set up?

[12:11 pm] turns out the hostname was "database" not "localhost".. anyways, even so, Drupal gave this error:

Table 'onmorie.sessions' doesn't exist query: SELECT u.*, s.* FROM users u INNER JOIN sessions s ON u.uid = s.uid WHERE s.sid = 'c98e18443f5e2c5409fe7993330d36c6' AND u.status < 3 LIMIT 0, 1 in

the hell I care. Don't have time to troubleshoot this..
Since I've gotten Dragonfly to install and entered the admin page, I decided to just develop using Dragonfly.
Whatever "shopping" capability the site would require would be done by another small e-commerce CMS.

[12:31 pm] Looking at Dragonfly CMS Wiki tells me that I can do this. But for today, I am done. Night night.

[9:51 am] Dragonflycms site goes down, leaving me no choice but to halt learning process of dragonfly..

[10:00 am] Put a hold on Dragonfly CMS learning.
I noticed a lot of CMS's have a similarity, that the menus are segmented, probably to easily make the engine know where things are located.
Problem with this is that it makes the whole site look segmented, there is no focus, no main theme that the user could be used to. Design seems to be lesser in importance than organization, which could sell for tech-savvy viewers but not the ordinary people.
Sure, I could hack the menu so it would look exactly as I want it to be.
But the backend input support would still lack from what I want.
Should I just use Zeroboard Forum engine and hack its SQL database to pull things what I want? make it as the content holder and use it to populate content?

Oh well I decided to just go ahead with Dragonfly.
But for now, I must install Nvu, to use it for preliminary design assistance(CSS etc).

[8:45 pm] been designing the layout for the site, and still trying to get the layout in CSS show well in IE. Again I hate IE.

[10:16 pm] selected and adjusted a usable list menu. Of course, I'm gonna have to change this so DragonflyCMS can "touch" it(php).

[11:31 pm] implemented the "shop" page link image to go to the Lumberjack part of the site (e-commerce)
I am getting pissed at the 10 pixel difference between Firefox and IE. I just can't let it go...

[11:57 pm] I am almost done with the positioning of data.
Now I have to see how to actually build the theme in DragonflyCMS.

[1:06 am] Still trying to figure out DragonflyCMS theme design.. something about ThemeCP that might be helpful in making my own theme?

http://www.treasurecoastdesigns.com/index.php?name=Downloads&get=44&mirror=45
..a very good tutorial on theme design. VIDEO!

[1:40 am] too sleepy and tired to carry on. save for tommorrow..

[9:37 am] back on the computer again~! Now today's goal is to make the theme of my designed beautiful layout.

http://www.dfaddons.com/ <-good site.

but God... I have no fucking idea where to start. Thing is DragonflyCMS has a new version coming up very soon in the works.. so no one wants to write a tut for anything!
Gawd..

[10:43 am] looking at other possible CMSes at www.opensourcecms.com

Etomite looks okay.. role-based user, good design, good editing capability, image gallery
XOOPS? don't know much about it.. But I look at all these cool sites and I wonder.. maybe this is an easier one to implement..

Design of backend is crucial. It inspired the updaters. So
in that aspect, Etomite is the best one of all.

Ah hell.. I'll just install all of them.

[11:55 am]Etomite seems to be really easy to use and configure.
You make pages and then just click the parent page, and voila! the menu gets updated..

I'm gonna try XOOPS tho. If all fails, I can still revert to Etomite and make myself an easy CMS to use and maintain.
Thus have I found the goal for today... XOOPS learning.
http://xoopsdocs.net/modules/docs/en/xn-103/online/ch02.html

[1:39 pm] took a break.. almost back to learning.

[5:20 pm] cleaned the house for 2 hours, cuz heard someone will come over tomorrow. Back to learning.

[6:29 pm] http://www.macambridge.com/dummies/
good site to learn XOOPS.

[8:58 pm] finally know how to get things to show. Decided to show the menus, hardcoded, as that won't change for a while.

[10:03 pm] almost done with module selection.. Found out XOOPS can use Wordpress as a module!! amazing..
Just need to find a good article writing thingy..

[10:17 am] fuck.. I can't take more of this XOOPS bullshit.
Almost done with tuning it but CSS layer is giving me royal pain.. fuckin 100px!Q!

[11:02 am] FIXED IT! AHHAHAHA now to add more section shtuff..modules..

[12:22 pm] all the modules required to build this (save RSS) have been made.
Shopping capability will be made via whole separate CMS, and be shown in this site via RSS (thus the module)

Besides the RSS, all modules are in place and working.

Need to do: Integrated design of overall site, and template redesign of all

[skipped a day]
[6:06 am] back to work again: design integration, template redesigning, setting color scheme

for some reason smartsection started to create error when installed with wordpress. had to remove smartsection in search of better one..

[9:48 am] noticed all blog modules have a conflict with the articles module. Now, they have a conflict and bounce the login status right out, saying I have no access to the Blocks admin

So, I gave up and chose to just put Blog capability be in another Blog app, namely Tattertools - a really good blog app made in Korea (since this is a Korean site I didn't use Wordpress)
..Fuck that it won't install. APM errors. So I got myself a
koreanized Wordpress
....installed beautifully.

I have to edit a block so it would randomly show a story, with prev/next.. maybe for next edition of the site.

[12:15 pm] Okay. Made all links and organizations done. What needs to be done are now the overal design and some translation for modules(forum and what not)

color scheme I chose: http://beta.dailycolorscheme.com/archive/2006/09/04

[9:09 pm] been a couple days of despair. I found out it's only my fucked up server that is making xoops logout whenever you select blocks. I don't think I wanna contact my host tho - they charge $1 for each support tickets. MuthaFuckas.

...Which is why I decided to just cut the lost time and more frustration with xoops and my host to a minimal and just switch to Etomite. It seems like it's gonna be suitable for me.
I mean, I moved the blog to be handled by Wordpress already..
If I could make Etomite take care of image gallery, articles, and bbs, I'll be okay..
but FUCK.

[12:26 am]Well.. Etomite's layout is much better. Simpler tho.
The CMS puts database in id# to the database.
Modules are the 'Snippets': mostly used to access db using php. I guess the simplest is the best way to solve CMS.

This gives a lot of power for me, as I could install like a Zeroboard BB manager to manage each "sections of the website." That would be independent of the content management.. GAWD

But if I am able to make the articles thingy using PHP?

need:
sectional static content management
forum
articles capability
frontpage blocks a plus

[5:25 pm] on course with newly edited schedule.
development with ETOMITE is a BREEZE!!!!
Their layout and methodology is so crisp and clear.
Each "page" can have limitless positions of snippets, ie modules, and unlike the cumbersome XOOPS, snippets are actually "snippets" of php code.
Therefore, creating small teaser portions of the snippets for mainpage is also possible if the snippet supports it.

I love it! Albeit the template I am temporarily using screams of being a generic template.. I love how simple and elegant the backend portion of the CMS is.

[7:01 pm] gave up modifying EtoGal snippet to make a custom error page when image is too big. Wait.. I could do it if I check at that portion of the snippet.. hm.. wait a sec..

[8:22 pm]
FUCKIT. Too hard. My host is so stingy I guess. I'd have to actually go into php folder and manually change the limit upload size value.

Instead, I'll just go ahead and put this
(javasript to check size dimension of image when uploading - only possible in IE)
into my todo-list for later versions of the site.
current todo-list:
implement better articles method
image dimension js checking
prettier template that reeks more of originality
[9:53 pm]
Okay.. Articles section will be implemented by:
ListDocuments snippet, along with the Main article page, which lists, using ListDocuments, of all the sections in the article(Bio story)

BBS will be done using 제로보드 i guess.. now to get some dinner

[1:13 am]
Something wrong with DIV is messing the display of snippet.
It's pissing me off.
I mean isn't CSS supposed to help the design?
But then a slight error in layout makes drastically bizarre presentations and it just FUCKIN PISSES me off
CUZ I CAN'T FIND OUT WHY!!!
WHY DOES IT DISPLAY WELL WITH three columns and weirdly on one column! FUCK!

[7:22 pm] found out why. Problem was my edited version of a perfect css was wrong in that I ordered the DIVs wrong..
Looks nice. My website is finally FINISHED in terms of layout and what not.
Still gotta do refining touches on the overall look of it(color selection and stuff) but it's coming real nicely. It should be, I mean I am giving it almost a week's input now..

[2:00pm ] A GLORIOUS DAY
I have finally succeeded in finishing the layout part of the project.
Now I have everything working as I want!
HAHAHAHAHA
oh SHIT there was one more thing.. another DIV Portion error?!
me saaaad hahhaa

[9:40 pm] OK NOW ALL THE LAYOUT IS FINALLY DONE. I've decided the design is, well, okay. It doesn't hurt the eye.
Site ver 0.1 BETA is almost done!!!!
NOW FOR CONTENT UPLOAD AND USER ACTIVATION!
...
AND THAT's DONE TOO!