[geeklog-users] Little stupid question and "Nice Suggestions with fast solutions at bottom for the administrators of Geeklog"

[Fernando Bernardini]

LITTLE QUESTION: 
  Per example when im trying to change the logo, i searched and read in the geeklog website that you can change {site_logo} in the header.thtml by (site_url)/images/yourifile.jpg

  That is working fine.

  But if i do that, i will have to change all "header.thtml" in each different layout. So all of them show the same jpg.

  How can i just change the variable to point it where i want just once?


  Then, i see variables all the time and i don't know where they are, or where can i edit them.

  Per example in header.thtml the {menu_elements) variable.  I read that you can change it and do it manually.  I did it and it worked.  But what happend if i want to get rid of the calendar in every theme?  If i only do it manually in my default theme, then when people switch from theme to theme they are going to see menu items that i don't want them to see. etc. etc.   Am i wrong?

  Well, here i am waiting for answers!!!

  Thanks for reading!!

  cya 

  FB

NICE SUGGESTION:  

    There should be more FAQ, so people don't ask this kind of questions.   Searching in the geeklog.com for problems is not too friendly. Not everything is organized by topics. 

  A forum will be the solution, but I have an idea to simulate a Forum in 5 minutes with the already Geeklog system.

  There should be a couple more Menus with a little bunch of sections on it to keep messages way more organized.

  Per example the actual "help sections" has 1738 disorganized messages (the advance search is the only way to look at something on that section without a headache).

  There should be a "Help Block" with 5 sections:   * help installation* , * help plug-ins* ,* help theme* , * help hack* , *help miscellanea* .

  I'm not in Plug-ins yet, but i think it should be braked down too. 

  "Please let regular users to use the Introducion field" ever time they send a message.   "The introduction should usually have no more than 5 lines".   It's not nice to drag the scroll bar for 10 miles or to turn 10 thousands times your mouse wheel to get the bottom options  of the page ( "Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next " )  to see more messajes subjects.   Some messages are huge, and only the interested people should see all the text. ( after a specified # of lines should appear the button "read more"). 

  I think Making these changes will help people surf better and avoid people asking more than twice the same, (i notice that this last is happend a lot when i was reading the help section). 

  Then, there should be a "Contribute FAQ".  I know that writing the FAQ is not fun for anybody, but they are really necesity and helpful for newbies and for people that is not that much newbie. Also, they can act as a reminder for more experienced users.  So they are good for everybody.
  So, Why don't we let the FAQ create by themselves???

  This is the idea.  You quickly create another block called FAQ.  Inside that Block you add theese sections.   *FAQ Installation*, *FAQ Plug-ins *,*FAQ theme*,*FAQ hack*.    

  You put the FAQ at the beginning so when people want to submit a Faq, they will easily find the FAQ in the "drop down Topic menu".

  As administrators you will only supervise that the actual users upload messages  to the FAQ section with a "Question in the subject", "The messages won't have an introduction at all". So the only way to see about them is by clicking the "read more" button.  (putting text bellow every question will bother). 
  You can design a new .thml file for the FAQ, so you don't waste to much space in between questions,  as sticky the questions as better.  And set the sections to show at least 30 questions per page.

  You can create a "Contribute HOW TO" doing the same thing as in the help and in the FAQ.

  I think lot of people will contribute to the all of them (how to, faq).  Suppose i found out something that i want to share to the community.  I can start my new discoverment with a question:  "How to do ...... " "HOw to create ..." etc. etc.  Then I write the answer that how to and i put it in the right topic (plug-ins, theme, hack,etc.).   Everybody will help this way, and everybody will be happy.  

  Administrators won't loose more time replying  "somebody ask that before", "that question was answered two month ago"  etc. etc. etc.

  The How to and the FAQ will be like a documentatioin, tutorial and a global help.  and automatically created and updated.

  The help block will be only for specific subjects. Newbies will solve the stupid questions reading the FAQ and How to, and they won't bother anymore.  I don't thing they like to bother, lot of them start their comments saying sorry, i don't want to bother, etc. etc..   I bet all those guys wouln't be asking those questions if the site have this kind of organization.

  Geeklog Rocks the way it is, and with all these non time consuming changes "will Rock way more", and "it will grow way faster".    Newbies are learning very slow right now, because there are no documentations and the site is not well organized for them to have a fast learning process. As better the documentation as fast people learn and will contribute in an early future.    If you let newbies learn slowly, they won't contribute anything in an early future at all.

  I want to give special thanks too Dirk because of being one of the fastest feedback guy from Geeklog.


  I think you can implement all of this very fast, i mean hours.  create the menu blocks  and sections can be done in minutes. And the rest adjustments to increase the surfing flow will just take you a couple of hours.

  I'm not asking you to analize all those Help messages and move each to the corresponding new organized sections . That will be more than beautiful, but what is done is done!!!. Leave them there untill nobody use them anymore, when they became old and obsolete delete them.   I think people won't even tend to read that unorganized 1738  messages section. They will directly go to the new organized Menu blocks.

  Very important to give to the users the intro field, or you can just set the messages to stop rendering after the 5th line and add the "read more" button. I bet you know how to do that very quickly.   both options work fine with me, whater you implement is ok (but plese implement one of them).


  I hope this help, the idea while i was writing all of this was only helping and improve Geeklog. I wish i know programming good enough to contribute with more than just ideas.  But at this moment the only thing i can give you are ideas, because my programming skill suck. I can barely understand php to change it on my own.

    Do you know a great site for begginer programming or a book where they teach the logical basis of programing before jumping to the code? I think learing the logical process of programming is way more important than start playing with code without knowing the basis.  I remember 7 years ago i was learning programming in a course, and before every pascal code we were drawing our little schematic programs in a paper (we draw discriminators by houses, the loops by squares, etc. etc.), and you could see if the program was going to work or not before touching a computer.   Do you know a site that teach all of those basis??  I didn't need them to do html, but now i was looking at the php code at some geeklog files and i think a review to all that basis will help a lot to adapt the code to my need. 

  Thanks!!! 

  Thanks for reading. 

  bye

  Fernando Bernardini
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