Theme editing How-To

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Appalbarry
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2022 5:02 pm

Theme editing How-To

Post by Appalbarry »

Hi folks, before I re-invent the wheel: is there a nice simple "How to Edit a Theme" How-to?

I'm finally escaping the WordPress madness, and really, really like the simplicity of Wonder. I'm sure that I can dig through the program files and figure it out, but a one page reference would be very welcome right now.

Thanks,
Barry

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wiz
Admin
Posts: 749
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2010 12:23 am

Re: Theme editing How-To

Post by wiz »

Hey Barry, have a warm welcome to the community!

Is this something you've meant? https://github.com/robiso/wondercms/wik ... easy-steps

There's only a few tags to edit into any theme to make WonderCMS compatible with any theme.
It also only takes editing 1 file (theme.php) and it's style.css file for styling.

Appalbarry
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2022 5:02 pm

Re: Theme editing How-To

Post by Appalbarry »

Yes, I'd seen that, and it's great, but as is always the case assumes a certain level of prior knowledge. Admittedly not as bad as MAN pages thirty years ago, but still.

In digging through the remarkably minimal number of files in Wonder it really does keep things very simple.

Now if I can just understand why it randomly changes text formatting when stuff is pasted in (plain text) and why I can't CTRL-A to select all and then apply a formatting change to a full page of text.....

OneManLaptop
Developer
Posts: 68
Joined: Tue Mar 16, 2021 3:29 pm

Re: Theme editing How-To

Post by OneManLaptop »

Hey Appalbarry, yeah, WCMS gets very much out of your way in terms of templating. Just out of curiosity, what drove you away from Wordpress? I've largely avoided the platform myself because there just seem to be too many moving parts for my liking but I'd be curious to read your first hand experience.

Appalbarry
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2022 5:02 pm

Re: Theme editing How-To

Post by Appalbarry »

Short answer, I've used WordPress off and on since it was the cool new thing. Since then it just seems to get bigger, more complex, and more laden down with features and doo-dads that I neither need nor want. I date back to writing pre-HTTPS pages in notepad, with detours as an ace in Dreamweaver, and via Joomla, Drupal, Substack and lately WIX (YUCK!).

These days our website needs are decidedly small. Pretty much static and infrequently updated. Plus my partner although very tech savvy, can't be bothered to learn something new and complex.

My PC runs Mint Linux, which stays unchanged year after year, and I like that. More and more I'm moving everything away from Google and such and into places where we control everything.

I like Wonder lot, and once I find a couple of clear days I'm sure I'll have the details under control.

NorfolkGreg
Posts: 87
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2021 7:50 am

Re: Theme editing How-To

Post by NorfolkGreg »

I know this is late in the day, but it may help others who come later...
Appalbarry wrote:
Tue Jul 05, 2022 7:02 am
Now if I can just understand why it randomly changes text formatting when stuff is pasted in (plain text) and why I can't CTRL-A to select all and then apply a formatting change to a full page of text.....
I'm guessing you're using the Summernote editor working in WYSIWYG mode.

The trouble with that is that you can't tell exactly where what you paste will be inserted. You can't see the HTML tags and know between which your text will go. This is particularly true where they are multiple sets of nested tags, such as tables. Things get worse if the page has been edited extensively. A page can be full of redundant tags where text has been deleted, but the tags surrounding it remains, but invisible when in WYSIWYG mode.

In the ideal word, you'd only paste text into a page when in code view so you can know exactly where it is going (but that also assumes you have some understanding of how the tags surrounding the point where you are pasting content will affect its styling when sent to a browser).

Similarly with CTRL-Aing an entire document, whether in code view or WYSIWYG mode. All you can edit are the HTML tags and their contents. The editor has no access to the styling information held in the style,css file and can't edit it. Also, bear in mind that even if you do manage to wrap the entire document in a legal tag, the styling applied to tags nested within another pair of tags will over-ride the styling of the outer tags. In short, you need to set aside all your word processing concepts when web editing.

Unlike a word processing document, you work with a plain text file that includes tags that define where heading, paragraphs, lists, list items, tables, table rows, tables cells, links, and much more, start and finish. There's a seperate file that tells the browser how those tags should be displayed on the current site. It's a separate file as it's referenced by all pages on the site to ensure a constant appearance across the whole site.

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