UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums Resources and Customizing How Do I? Create Additional Pages

I could swear this was a topic but I could not find one so...

Is there a way to create additional pages "like" the FAQ where you can put your own content? What I would like to do is actually place my chat room within the forum. I have created a page for my chat room and placed my chat within an iframe but it is a separate page from the forum which is a little clunky to me. If I could say, clone the FAQ page and change the content to display my chat iframe it would have a completely integrated feel and look perfect.

I did this, not for chat though. Using the FAQ which takes 3 files one in the languages, one in templates and one in scripts. Grab the faq.php, faq.tpl, faq.inc.php. Rename them to something like chat.php, chat.tpl and chat.inc.php and put your new content in there.

Are you looking for something similar to this page? This uses iframe tag. Just click Submit without filling in the form to get an idea of how it works.

You need to create 2 files. As an example we'll call it chat.

--------------------------------------------------------------

In your scripts directory copy sample.inc.php, rename it chat.inc.php and edit the following lines:

33. Change page_sample_gpc to page_chat_gpc
59. Change page_sample_run to page_chat_run
79. Change PAGE TITLE to Chat (or whatever page title you want)
86. After <<<BREADCRUMB press enter to drop to a new line and type Chat (line 87)
93. Change sample to chat (this is what your template will be called in the next stage)

--------------------------------------------------------------

Next, go to your template directory, create a new template called chat.tpl and do something similar to this:
You'll obviously have to change the src="/chat.php" to your own details.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Once you have done that, you can edit the language file so that it will show who is using that page on Who's Online.

CP > Display Options > Languages > Language Editor > Choose Specific Language File: online.php > Go

Then add:
Key - chat
String - Viewing the Chat page

Forgot - you call the page like this:

http://www.forddoctorsdts.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=chat

Yes, that is exactly what I thought could be done, I was just not 100% sure how to do it but it looks like I was on the right track.

THANK YOU!!!

There is a file called "sample" in the script/template directories to get you started; I generally recommend people grab my pJIRC mod at UBBDev and tear it apart as I had already had to discover how everything works while making that

Technically, you could also tuck your PhotoPost page in an iframe too?

ScriprKeeper - EXCELLENT instructions!!! That is AWESOME!!!

Looks good. You just need to add the extra details to the language files to finish it off. If you go to your chat page then go directly to your online page it shows a blank in the location field.

Just add the lines below to the online.php language file and it will then display the location as chat rather than blank.

Remember to be sure to do this every time you upgrade your message board to a newer version.

The language file that is, not the whole thing.

I opted not to edit the Language file as I use a separate Who's On Line island which I prefer. Unless there is any other reason to edit the language file other than the "key" output in the Members On Line island then I am good to go. It seems to be fully functional and I love how this makes my chat room and my PhotoPost integrations look absolutely seamless. (Yes, I did this for my PhotoPost as well.)

To be honest, I'm kinda giddy about this!

Can i use some way the language file in the iframe included file?

Rob

Got it, just included the language file...

Way to go!

Is there a way to use the default or user choosen style in external pages like the file i wrote which is called in an iFrame?

When i use the unserialize command the output is just crap.
Maybe there's a way to pass the globals on to the opened page?

Thnx,
Rob

Okay, I am upgrading from 7.4.2 to the current 7.5.3. I have my test forum upgraded and I am making all of my custom changes to the menu to add the links to my custom pages AND I assume I need to update the extra pages that were created using the method discussed in this topic. In comparing the original scripts and template faq files I used as the base for my new files, I see there are some changes. So my question is, can I use the custom files I created in the new version or do I need to recreate them for version 7.5.3? I never did create the language files and everything worked properly so do I also need to include a custom language file? I only have and use English.

Hi there, I am getting really frustrated with this, have been trying to work it out for hours now and need some more help please.

I understand about making a copy of the sample.inc.php and then renaming it but I am not understanding how to or where to "edit the following lines:

33. Change page_sample_gpc to page_chat_gpc
59. Change page_sample_run to page_chat_run
79. Change PAGE TITLE to Chat (or whatever page title you want)
86. After <<<BREADCRUMB press enter to drop to a new line and type Chat (line 87)
93. Change sample to chat (this is what your template will be called in the next stage)"

How do I do this? Where do I find this text to edit?
I am using frontPage for editing websites which is php enabled but when I open the renamed sample file it doesnt have any of the above text in it!! I am so confused. I will only be using the new pages I eventually create for instructions etc nothing fancy.

The only way I get anywhere near to seeing what I actually want is by opening a page of my forums and then in the web browser I can clicking file and 'edit with MS Frontpage' then the whole page opens in Frontpage and I could in fact edit it all there and save the file with a new name but then I wouldnt know quite where to save it. I assume in those 3 directories of scripts, languages and templates???.... Does anyone know if this would work?

Appreciate anyone's help.
Thanks

Hi
You'll have to open the file sample.inc.php with a text editor.

It could be the besic editor 'notepad' that comes with windows.
(n.b. not 'wordpad' as it inserts all sorts of nasties.)

Then look for the lines mentioned above and replace the word sample with your own page name

Thanks for that, I can now change it.

I am still not sure though how to create my own extra pages. I don't write html or php, I don't need to as frontpage does it all for me but again when I open this file in frontpage it only shows script and it wont preview it.

As I said before the only way I can see what the page looks like is by opening it up in frontpage from my browser.

If I personalised it from there does anyone know if this would work and which directory should I save it to?

Thanks

Don't use frontpage (or any non-TEXT ONLY editor) to edit PHP files; you'll break them when it adds its "special" formatting...

Open the sample file in notepad and just scroll through the lines, you'll see what you need to change, you said yourself what needed to be changed in your query...

Again, don't use a non-TEXT ONLY editor to edit php files, you'll break them...

I remember frontpage spelled disaster with classic.
But I think the newer version is a little more script friendly.
You could still use frontpage to preview your changes. I think you would be safe also in saving in frontpage if you can figure out how to view the actual script text. But I would never never publish threads with frontpage. That is where all the magic happens that Frontpage will change file permissions and add junk to the script.

And I speak from experience. Because I used frontpage back in 1999-2000 and broke the board many a time till I figured out it was frontpage that was the culprit.
I don't use frontpage anymore

I've never used FP so I don't know how it works.

But if you copy the sample page - call it Soozi (or whatever) and call it with ?ubb=soozi you'll be ok - however, you won't be able to preview it unless it is on a live server.

I think FP must be some sort of wysiwyg editor??? that allows previews of HTML pages.

Well, PHP isn't HTML, it's a server side script meaning that you won't be able to see what it does without the input of a webserver.

You can install XAMPP on you local PC but I think that you may need to become a little more familiar with the concepts involved first.

Wow Ruben, you're back!
I thought you were sick mate - you haven't been online for at least two hours

Its a contest between me and Rick. He was on line 24x7 for a while.
Smile

Well thanks for all that, I don't think I can do any of this, I don't know how to write using scripts, html, php or whatever its all called and I hate notepad because it never changes lines unless you hit the return, it goes on and on........plus you cant see what it looks like as you go along!
I can only do simple stuff and this is all just so complicated.
I love frontpage because I can type just as I am typing this and then add hyperlinks and anything I want and it creates all the code on its own, a bit like these reply boxes where I can change it to bold I don't need to learn how to do the code for it.

I didn't think it would be so hard to have some links on the portal page that click through to other pages outside of the forums that will match the same design as the forum and all be in sync with each other!

Oh well I will have to re-think all this. I am not sure I like all this php stuff!!

Thanks anyway.....gong away to

Well don't go away and cry.
I have frontpage 2000 somewhere.
What version are you using?
If I can find it I will re-install it and see how it works with php. It might be better. I just stopped using it years ago. it was like frontpage 98 or something at the time.

Hi Ruben, yes its FP 2000 that I have too.

The universe must have been listening or we are connected as I was just thinking to myself that I wish someone had FP and could see what I see when I open web pages from the browser in front page and here you are saying you will try it out

I had to change mine to accept php so you may have to do the same. I found out how on the net and here is what I did:

In FrontPage 2000, choose "Tools..." from the "Options" menu. Click the "Configure Editors" tab.
Double-click on "htm".
In the "Command" field, select the entire line (this is the path to FrontPage on your computer), then hit Ctrl-C on your keyboard to copy the line.
Click the "Cancel" button to close the window.
Click the "Add..." button. You'll get the Add Editor Association window.
For File type, enter "php" (without the quotes, of course). In the Editor name field, enter "FrontPage". Then click in the Command field and hit Ctrl-V on your keyboard; this will paste the location of the FrontPage application into this field.
Click "OK"—you're done!

Hope that helps and I really appreciate you doing this to help me, what a star you are, thank you

What I would like to know is if you go to your own forum portal then click on file, you should see open with FP. Thats where I open websites if I want to use things from them. could you try the same please and then you will see what I see and maybe we can take it from there. Oh you have made my night
Thanks

Okay give me a day or to to dig in my closet and find the disk. I then want to test it on my test board to see if it hoses up files. But I am not on a frontpage enabled website anymore so I won't be able to test everything. I just can't remember what the library scripts are called that frontpage uses. But it usually is used for special functions like forms and tables.

Soozi, that is very interesting. I my self do not have much lock understanding software such as FP and usually give up way to soon. I use the standard notepad that comes with windows or the standard text editor with Linux for editing and writing all of my code.

I would like to learn some time how to use all these different programming tools and software and see how they do things. I have noticed and can not understand it but FP adds folders and makes copies of the files when uploaded to the web server. These files I found are not used or needed in the duplicate for nay reason. But they still take up space on the web server.

If there is a way to prevent that I would be happy to know as some of my customers that use it would love to know too.

Yep JAISP. Frontpage would add a duplicate clone of all files in something like a vin directory as I recall. But the big issue was it changed directory and file permissions to what it wanted. And once you publish with it you were pretty much stuck unless you started over.
It became a big problem with frontpage for classic. As long as you did not use the publish(ftp) tool for the classic files you were ok.
The fist time you forgot. Pow,ZAP. Start over.
For html stuff I use Dreamweaver now. But it does not have a preview viewer for PHP or cgi per say but you can set it up to use your live server for a preview.

Oh Ruben thats great thank you. I do appreciate it.

I just dont understand how anyone can build a webpage in notepad when you cant even see what it looks like as you go along and you need to understand all that code

Anyway, will wait to see what you come up with. Thanks again

For the longest time, before spell checker, people use to complain about my postings for me not proof reading them. My standard response was, "If it is not a tag, script, or element it does not matter how I spelled it as it will not crash my server or program."

Just thought I would toss that one out there, LOL.

Yes you need to remember all the tags, scripts, and elements for everything to work but after a while your able to view it in your head before actually seeing what it looks like on the screen. When you get good at it your actually faster at doing it in raw code then some folks using a program to design a page or web site. And you don't have tons of un-necessary tags and code in there to take up bandwidth as well.

Well the hardcore people here live by things such as notepad.
I use it myself on occasion but I still like the fluffy WYSIWYG web publishers. Since I am not a programmer or whatever.
Then I can quickly see my errors and fix them on the fly.

Hi JAISP, I understand what you are saying but the thing is I don't want to be good at doing all that stuff, that is not what I do, I am a business trainer!!! However, I do build my own websites via FP because I like to be in control of these things rather than rely on a web designer, and besides they charge too much for doing very little at times and then I have to wait for them to make changes in their own time as well, that's why I learned to do them myself but with FP and then I bought an FTP and learned to use that too.

I now have a forum and simply want to learn the basics and to create some additional pages that sync with the rest of the forum design, these pages will be for instructions, subscription payment methods, a getting started in business page, rules etc. Until this is done I cannot open it up for the team I am training!

I just didn't expect it to be so complicated

Anyway, I am sure I will figure it out at some point, I am learning different things from the forum control panel all the time and the help from people on here is fantastic. I feel at home already

Adding additional pages that match the rest of the forum design definitely is a bit involved at this point. I'd like to make that much easier and have just a control panel page for that to create/enable/disable custom pages. That doesn't help now at all of course, but just thought I'd throw that in that it will be a coming feature.

I made a wrapper.php script for a client some time ago that just reads wrapper.php?page=pagename from a ubb/pages/pagename.php page on the server for a client a while back; never really did anything with it lol

Gizmo, Perhaps you and Rich and get together and maybe incorporate it into version 8 at some point. I think that would be a great additive to the message board it self.

One thing that Rick is working on in rewriting the CP as so he can include Blogs at some point and what your describing is very close in a basic stand point of what Rick is trying to achieve.

Hi Rick,

Thats a great idea. So if you crack on with that I guess it will all be available from tomorrow then?!?!?!?!

Oh I wish!

It looks like I have really started something with all my limited experience! Love these forums, people have been so helpful.

Well here is the bad news. FP2000 does not support php pages. At all. There is not a plugin or a way to cheat like in dreamweaver to use your server to emulate a server to preview.

Fp2003 has some limited support for php but I suspect with the includes that ubb uses it will probably be useless.

So you are stuck with what you have for a editor without wysiwyg. Unless you find a WYSIWYG editor for just php.

But there are additional steps you need to do to ensure that you don't edit a file using frontpage so it does not insert additional formatting in the scripts and hose up your site. Just in case you edit a file and upload it to your site

First is, if you are going to continue to use frontpage as a php editor:
Here is a site where you need to go to your windows control panel and associate your php files with a html document. Second when you open a php file in Frontpage, You will need to make sure you are opening it in html . Once you open the file a few times Frontpage will remember that it is a html file.
Then to see the file in a user friendly format when you want to edit it, you can select the html tab at the bottom of the screen.


I don't use a php specific web editor. But I do use notetab as a replacement for notepad. Which I have associated with php files.

Sorry, Now you can cry!!!