The blocks administration module allows you to view all active and/or inactive blocks, create a new block, create a new block position, change the global block settings, set a block to active or inactive, edit an individual block's settings, change the order that blocks are displayed, and delete a block.
View: When you first click on the icon for the blocks administration module or click on "View" a list of blocks is displayed above a list of block positions. Clicking on the links "Show active blocks/Show all blocks" will toggle between showing only active blocks or all (active and inactive) blocks.
Setting A Block's State: In the "State" column of the blocks list, you can toggle a block's state (active or inactive) by clicking on the state icon.
Editing A Block: Clicking on the edit icon in the "Options" column will display the settings for that individual block. Some block settings are universal between all blocks, with the block specific setting show below the universal settings.
-
Title: This is a name that you will use to identify this block. The title is shown in the blocks list in the "Title" column.
-
Language: If your block should only be displayed for a certain language, specify it here. Setting the language to "All" will display it for all languages.
-
Position(s): This determines in what positions the block will be displayed. To display the block in more than one block position, hold down the Ctrl key as you click each location.
-
Advanced Placement: At the bottom of the Block placement filtering section you will see a link titled "Click to show/hide advanced block placement options". After clicking this link you will see a list of modules with check boxes beside them. If you would like your block to only be displayed for specific modules, select them here. Leaving all modules unchecked will cause the block to be displayed for all modules.
-
Collapsibility: You can set whether or not a block is collapsible and which state will be the default. If the display of collapsible menu icons is disabled in Layout>Blocks>Settings, this option will not be visible.
Deleting A Block: Clicking on the delete icon in the "Options" column of the blocks list will delete an individual block. You will be asked for confirmation before the block is actually deleted.
Create Block: Clicking on the "Create Block" link near the top of the page will allow you to create a new block for your site.
-
Title: This is a name that you will use to identify this block. The title is shown in the blocks list in the "Title" column.
-
Block: This is the actual block type and determines what content is to be displayed. The types of blocks available to you will be dependant on the add-on modules that you have installed. The core block types are:
-
Admin/Show admin categories and modules
-
Admin_Messages/Show Admin Messages
-
Blocks/Menu block
-
Blocks/Languages
-
Blocks/Simple File Include
-
Blocks/HTML
-
Blocks/XSLT
-
Blocks/Plain Text
-
Blocks/Extended Menu block
-
pnRender/custom pnRender block
-
Search/Search Box
-
Theme/ThemeSwitcher
-
Users/User's Custom Box
-
Users/Login block
-
Users/Online block
-
Language: If your block should only be displayed for a certain language, specify it here. Setting the language to "All" will display it for all languages.
-
Position(s): This determines in what positions the block will be displayed. To display the block in more than one block position, hold down the Ctrl key as you click each location.
- Collapsibility: You can set whether or not a block is collapsible and which state will be the default.
After confirming your changes on the initial block creation page, you are taken to the block specific settings page. Refer to the "Editing A Block" section above for details.
View Block Positions: When you first click on the icon for the blocks
administration module or click on "View" a list of block positions is displayed below a list of blocks.
Changing Block Display Order: See the instructions below for "Editing A Block Position"
Create Block Position: Clicking on the "Create Block Position" link near the top of the page will allow you to create a new block position for your site.
- Name: This a unique name that will identify this new block position. You should not use a name that is already in use. This will be shown in the "Name" column of the block positions list. The name should not contain any spaces or special characters, as it will be used as the Theme tag for this position.
- Description: Type in a brief description of the new block position. This description will be shown in the "Description" column of the block positions list.
Editing A Block Position: Clicking on the edit icon in the "Options" column will display the settings for that individual block position. This will also allow you to change the order that blocks are displayed in. Below the block position settings (Name and Description) you will find a list of blocks that are currently assigned to this position as well as a list of blocks that are not assigned to this position. By left clicking on the movement icon and holding the mouse button, you can drag any block to the desired location, setting the order as you would like them to be displayed.
Deleting A Block Position: Clicking on the delete icon in the "Options" column of the block positions list will delete an individual block position. You will be asked for confirmation before the block position is actually deleted.
pnRender is the Zikula implementation of the Smarty∞ templating engine. pnRender differs from pure Smarty in a number of ways
- Uses different template delimiters; <!--[ and ]-->.
- Provides additional functionality specific to Zikula including theme based template overrides.
- Provides additional plugin directories including theme and module specific plugins.
- Provides many additional plugins allowing access to the Zikula API and PostNuke modules system.
- Provides graphical configuration of Smarty options via the modules administration panel
In all other respects pnRender and Smarty are identical. The Smarty Documentation is useful reading for Zikula administrators and developers.
The pnRender administration block can be used to control the compilation and cache settings for your web site.
Smarty Version: This displays the currently installed version of Smarty and is not a setting that you can change.
Compiled templates directory: This displays the location of the compiled tempates directory and is not a setting that you can change.
Compile check: Checking this option will check to see if a new version of the template needs to be created. This setting is useful when making changes to your web site templates.
Force compilation: Checking this option will force the templated to be recompiled. This setting is useful when making changes to your web site templates.
Cached templates directory: This displays the location of the cached templates directory and is not a setting that you can change.
Enable caching: Checking this option will create cached versions of rendered pages and may speed up your web site.
Debug settings: A Zikula page will use many templates to build different parts of the page so a common question is how to identify which template is used to render each part of a page. pnRender offers the ability to output the name of the template used as a comment in the HTML source. This option is enabled via the pnRender admin panel via the 'Expose template information in comments' setting.
The themes administration module allows you to view all active themes, create a new theme, regenerate the list of themes, change the global theme settings, edit an individual theme's settings, set the default theme, and delete a theme.
View: When you first click on the icon for the themes administration module or click on "Themes List" a list of themes is displayed.
Setting the Default Theme: The current default theme will be displayed with an asterisk (*) beside the name of the theme in the "Name" column of the available themes list. Themes that are capable of being set as the site default will have a green check mark icon in the "Options" column. Clicking on the green check mark icon will set that theme as the site default. You will be asked to confirm the change before it is made.
Editing A Theme: Clicking on the edit icon in the "Options" column will display the settings for that individual theme. See the "Creating A New Theme" section for more information.
Deleting A Theme: Clicking on the delete icon in the "Options" column of the available themes list will delete an individual theme. You will be asked for confirmation before the theme is actually deleted.
Create Theme: Clicking on the "Create Theme" link near the top of the page will allow you to create a new theme for your site from some pre-defined templates. See the "Creating A New Theme" section for more information.
Regenerate themes list: Clicking on this link will force Postnuke to poll your themes directory for newly uploaded themes and add them to the Available themes list.
Settings:
- Items per page: This setting determines how many themes will be shown before a new page is generated. If you have 35 themes installed and your items per page is set to 10, then you will have 4 pages of themes.
- Allow users to change themes: This will allow all registered users to choose which theme is to be used when they visit. Unchecking this option will force the default theme to be used.
- Check for updated version of templates: Checking this option will check to see if a new version of the template needs to be created. This setting is useful when making changes to your web site templates.
- Force templates recompilation: Checking this option will force the templated to be recompiled. This setting is useful when making changes to your web site templates.
- Delete compiled templates: Clicking this link will delete all compiled templates and force templates to be recompiled as required.
- Enable caching: Checking this option will create cached versions of rendered pages and may speed up your web site.
- Delete cached templates: Clicking this link will delete all cached templates.
- Use trimwhitespace output filter: Checking this option will remove any "white space" before the page is sent to the web site visitor. Depending on the amount of white space in your templates, this can make a differece in the render time on their end.
- Make urls clickable: Checking this option will cause correctly formatted links to be clickable.