Questions about tinyportal

[MinatO]

Hi

I'm new, planning to get myself an SMF forum with a portal.
I have experience with CMS systems, and i know some html/css. However i've never used any portals from forumsoftware before.

I do have some questions about tinyportal
1. Will I be able to create/edit the menus with dropdown menus?
2. Can I only use blocks that have been pre-made, or am I able to create/add my own blocks aswell? For example the portal would be a gaming community and would love to see things such as a view of my teamspeakserver, game servers, or add an RSS feed from my facebook page, a youtube video block, etc etc
3. Are there any "top" portals out here, that anyone can show me? Browsed some in the showcase section but most of them are "new" or still under development.

Thanks in advance!

[IchBin™]

1. Depends on what you mean by this. The main menu in SMF is not controlled by TP. TP only ads a menu item to it. If you mean your own custom menu in a block or something, then yes you can create whatever kind of menu you would like in any block.
2. #1 sort of answers this. But yes, you can create any type of block with PHP/HTML&javascript etc.
3. The Top 3 portals in my mind are TinyPortal, Simple Portal, and PortaMx. All 3 are great portals and do things differently. I'd suggest you install and check them out before you decide.

[MinatO]

1. Depends on what you mean by this. The main menu in SMF is not controlled by TP. TP only ads a menu item to it. If you mean your own custom menu in a block or something, then yes you can create whatever kind of menu you would like in any block.
2. #1 sort of answers this. But yes, you can create any type of block with PHP/HTML&javascript etc.
3. The Top 3 portals in my mind are TinyPortal, Simple Portal, and PortaMx. All 3 are great portals and do things differently. I'd suggest you install and check them out before you decide.

Thanks for your reply!

Just an example I took from the showcase forum:
http://www.newdawnguild.com/

The menu on top with home/calender/media all that, is it possible for example to add a navigation bar instead and/or change the menu titles with dropdown menus?

As for question 3, I actually meant if you had any "top" showcase sites that you know. Wanted to see what "the best" made out of their portal.

[IchBin™]

The menu you are talking about is the theme menu. It has nothing to do with any portal. Each theme can customize it's own menu layout. Portals generally do not modify this menu.

As for #3, I've never seen any "top" lists on any of the portal sites.

[ZarPrime]

Hello MinatO,

Welcome to the TinyPortal Support Site.

WRT your question #1 in your post above, adding menu items to the top navbar, as Ichbin said, this is controlled by SMF.  With SMF 2.0, this is fairly easy.  The following topic on SMF is a tutorial about how to do that --> http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=261880.0

As far as top sites that use TinyPortal, just as with anything else, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".  Your best bet is to look at various sites that use TinyPortal, and if you see something that you really like or that catches your eye, feel free to ask us how that might be accomplished with TinyPortal and we might be able to give you some guidance.  There are many block code snippets that will do different things available in our block code board and it's children boards --> http://www.tinyportal.net/index.php?board=46.0

ZarPrime 

[MinatO]

Thanks for the replies! That pretty much answers my questions.

I do have one last question:
When you install a theme for your forum, will it automaticly apply on the portal aswell? Or does every theme require you to edit the coding for portals?

Aside that, I will try out tinyportal tonight, so far it looks very promising and the support seems to be great!

[ZarPrime]

You should first make sure that TinyPortal works properly with the default SMF theme before trying it with a custom theme.  However, for the most part, if your custom theme is designed to work with the latest version of SMF, it should also work fine with the latest version of TinyPortal installed.

ZarPrime

[WillyP]

Here is an example of a TP/SMF site: Planet Descent

Now I will run down what I did. First, Tiny Portal provides the front page, the horizontal menu and above are mostly stock SMF, the only thing I did was a little re-arranging of the horizontal menu. (the one with Home, Forum, etc...)
Picture of the Day is just an item in a certain board that is pulled automatically whenever someone puts a new post. Same with Soupe Du Jour and the New section. All the code to do this is provided with TP, just configure it how you want it. Below the picture of the day is a block with custom php and java-script, displaying items from the Zazzle store. Script provided by Zazzle, with some minor tweaks, copy-pasted into a block. Below the Soupe, is the poll. This was custom code written by JPDeni, following my request in the forum here. It is now available in the block code section here.

In the forum there are blocks in the right coulumn showing recent posts, and if you were a member you would also see a shoutbox. These are also provided with TP, and just require some setup choices to be made.

The Media section is provided by Aeva Media and has no connection to TP, but TP blocks are able to show in the Media section. Right now I only have the shoutbox on but adding recent posts or whatever is just a matter of selecting options.

The Files section is provided by TP. I hard coded the link in the menu myself, but other than that it is just the TP downloads module as provided.

I have also added Articles to the menu, but sorry that section isn't open to the public yet.

Now about themes. Any theme that works with the current version of SMF should work with the current version of TP. If your using SMF 1.x, you'll need a 1.x theme, and if 2.x you need a 2.x theme. Every theme that I had tried worked reasonably well with TP, however most of them required some minor tweaks. The theme on my site now is a custom theme I made from a copy of the default theme. I made 2 version, the light on dark as default, and a dark on light as some members complained about the readability of the dark theme.

I strongly suggest that you set up a test site and experiment for a while if you already have an active site. Most hosts will allow you to set up a sub-domain, like 'test.mysite.net'. I did this before rolling out custom themes and to run through upgrading. It really helped to get member input about changes I was contemplating. And to familiarize myself with the process, in order to minimize downtime.

[ZarPrime]

WillyP, nice description of how your site works.

ZarPrime

[MinatO]

Sorry for the late response!

I have read your replies and thank you for the information!

Got myself a host & domain few hours ago, http://cybersport.co.uk
Firstly installed the SMF forum, then the portal. Everything worked perfectly without any problems. Even the theme was just a matter of seconds and it complied with the portal. (something that doesn't often happen when I used phpbb3 forums)

I've been browsing through the admin panels, checking some stuff out and I must say i'm impressed. This is simply a CMS on its own, but way better. For those responsible behind this project, good job!

I have a few questions though to some of the above here:

Hello MinatO,

Welcome to the TinyPortal Support Site.

WRT your question #1 in your post above, adding menu items to the top navbar, as Ichbin said, this is controlled by SMF.  With SMF 2.0, this is fairly easy.  The following topic on SMF is a tutorial about how to do that --> http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=261880.0

Does still work? Cause I see that topic dates from 2008?

The issue i'm having is the fact that i'd like a navigation bar and it would have for example the following titles with some of them having dropdown menus:
"Home, About, Clan History, Forum, League History, Downloads, Rules"
I'll try your suggestion with the tabs and if that doesn't work out, I guess i'll have to create a different navigation bar in a panel block.

Here is an example of a TP/SMF site: Planet Descent

Now I will run down what I did. First, Tiny Portal provides the front page, the horizontal menu and above are mostly stock SMF, the only thing I did was a little re-arranging of the horizontal menu. (the one with Home, Forum, etc...)
Picture of the Day is just an item in a certain board that is pulled automatically whenever someone puts a new post. Same with Soupe Du Jour and the New section. All the code to do this is provided with TP, just configure it how you want it. Below the picture of the day is a block with custom php and java-script, displaying items from the Zazzle store. Script provided by Zazzle, with some minor tweaks, copy-pasted into a block. Below the Soupe, is the poll. This was custom code written by JPDeni, following my request in the forum here. It is now available in the block code section here.

In the forum there are blocks in the right coulumn showing recent posts, and if you were a member you would also see a shoutbox. These are also provided with TP, and just require some setup choices to be made.

The Media section is provided by Aeva Media and has no connection to TP, but TP blocks are able to show in the Media section. Right now I only have the shoutbox on but adding recent posts or whatever is just a matter of selecting options.

The Files section is provided by TP. I hard coded the link in the menu myself, but other than that it is just the TP downloads module as provided.

I have also added Articles to the menu, but sorry that section isn't open to the public yet.

The re-arranging, did you do this with the tabs method from this topic? http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=261880.0

A random newbie question i've got aswell: Articles? Are these the same as a "page" or this just a newsitem? I have been confused with that, because I have my own html/css pages I've created a few days which are suppose to go in the navigation bar, but I think i'll have to add them as articles and link to them like that, yes?

Thanks for all the help and information!