TinyPortal

General => Chit chat => Topic started by: Bill.Ramby on March 15, 2008, 01:17:13 AM

Title: TP without the forum?
Post by: Bill.Ramby on March 15, 2008, 01:17:13 AM
I'm looking for a software that is like TP without the forum.

My situation is that I am developing a site for a friend. The friend isn't so hot with HTML and PHP. So I need something that has a menuing system and the ability to add pages easily (WYSIWYG would be best), has a simple FAQ system and a guest book. An easy to set up shopping cart would be nice too.

I tried his hosts website builder, but it was limited to eleven pages.

So I've been all over the web looking at CMS's, and while a CMS would be ok for me, they're generally to complicated or require knowing HTML. That plus they are generally too feature rich for his needs. So I'm looking for something that has blocks, a central theme, and the ability to quickly write and link pages in the menu.

I'm not finding it. While looking I kept saying to myself "I wish I could use TinyPortal without the forum".

So my question; is there anything out there like what I'm looking for?
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Dragooon on March 15, 2008, 01:49:17 AM
TP can't be used without a forum, but you can try using standalone CMS Like Mambo, Xoops, E107
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Lord Anubis on March 15, 2008, 02:51:07 AM
You can always "hide" SMF if TP will do what you want, but I gotta say having a forum feature only boosts your site....It is your choice, but if you really only want TP you can do that, but IMO you are losing a great addition to any site

REMEMBER: TP is a mod for SMF, but yes you can hide SMF but it is working in the background
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Bill.Ramby on March 15, 2008, 02:56:17 AM
I personally use TP with SMF on my site, but this is for a friends site for his small business and he doesn't want/need forums. I just need a simple page editor with menuing and templating. I've looked at drupal and Joomla, but they're just way much more than he needs <sigh>.

Who knows, maybe a new product for Bloc. :-\
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Zetan on March 15, 2008, 02:58:36 AM
TinyPortal as you know is integral of SMF.. It will not work alone as TP.
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Bill.Ramby on March 15, 2008, 03:03:45 AM
Quote from: Bill.Ramby on March 15, 2008, 01:17:13 AM
I'm looking for a software that is like TP without the forum.

Again, I understand that. Since this is the chit chat forum where it says talk about anything, I thought I would ask what I consider to be knowledgeable people about what package, not necessarily TP, that I could use to fulfill the requirements I have and was as easy to use as TP.
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Lord Anubis on March 15, 2008, 03:04:44 AM
I personally would make the site and hide the forum till his site grows (hide all menus relating to the forum) it is easy and if his site is to expand he can always add that (recode the index.template.php) :)

Sorry if this offends, but it can be done
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Dragooon on March 15, 2008, 03:05:12 AM
There are more systems than Drupal And joomla, tried them?
Some are : E107, Mambo, Xoops
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Lord Anubis on March 15, 2008, 03:06:41 AM
or even Dolphin

http://www.boonex.com
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Zetan on March 15, 2008, 03:10:41 AM
Then as lord Anubis said.. but adding.. Re: TP without the forum?

TinyPortal IS designed around Simple Machines Forums.. TinyPortal alone would be an entirely new package that would again.. probably be specific to another software.

In which case, you would be probably be better off finding alternative software that fits your needs..

Unless some hero magician wants to go ahead and do/code it..!
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: eeek on March 15, 2008, 10:30:35 AM
Try Php-Fusion (http://php-fusion.co.uk/news.php) its simple to use and has a wysiwyg editor
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Ricky. on March 15, 2008, 11:03:38 AM
Wordpress is the exact answer for what you need. you can install few plugins to give full feature editor and DONE !
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Dragooon on March 15, 2008, 11:13:04 AM
WordPress is not exactly what he needs, he is looking for a simple CMS solution not a full fleshed killer Blog.
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Ricky. on March 15, 2008, 01:46:27 PM
Well, I had similar requirement once, I gave him wordpress, made him editor there.. so what he can do is simply create category and pages and posts.. simple for him and me too..
He is quite happy...
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: bloc on March 15, 2008, 03:36:10 PM
No immediate plans to separate TP from SMF exists lol - if it ever will be :) - but as said, you can in fact hide the forum quite easily. Like i've done on my personal "blog" (no, its not nearly done lol :D, but at least you can see how it can work)

http://bloc.tinyportal.co.uk
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Ken. on March 15, 2008, 04:03:50 PM
Most impressive Bloc!   :up:

Now you'll have everyone wanting you to detail the steps involved for making one so that they can have their own!
Including me of course. :coolsmiley:
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Dragooon on March 15, 2008, 04:18:16 PM
Thats awesome!
And here is my guess what he did(Love figuring things out) :P
- Removed Blocks
- Replaced the buttons with Article categories
- Added a re-direct for forum to go back to the mainpage or some other page
- Edited the article's template to make it look like Blog entries
- Made the homepage compact and like a Blog homepage
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: bloc on March 15, 2008, 08:27:58 PM
Dragoon, right on. :) all done in th template too, except for turning off blocks of course.
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Smoky on March 15, 2008, 08:58:55 PM
Bloc thats one heck of an idea..

tell me do you have the forum button for a certain user group that could be hidden??
might work that way too.. i like this and its a great way to show off tp power..  :D
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Jpg on March 15, 2008, 09:02:06 PM
My idea for this would be to just remove the "forum" button/link from the template menu along with the help, and few other things.
And then strip down the index.php so that you can't view topics and the main boardindex.
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Smoky on March 15, 2008, 09:05:06 PM
perhaps.. or have the forum set to a certain user group.. either way, its a good idea  :coolsmiley:
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Bill.Ramby on March 15, 2008, 09:08:50 PM
Neat job, though I still say TP without the forum would make a very easy and handy web authoring system. CSS, templates, html pages, menu's, it's got it all.
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Lesmond on March 15, 2008, 09:10:30 PM
Oh boy Bloc, now look what you started :o but I must admit looks very nice :)
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: bloc on March 15, 2008, 10:08:04 PM
:) Yeah, guess i have to shed some light on how its done now lol.

Bill.Ramby, I can see you point, but SMF do take out the grunt of development in already providing the login/session system and the theme system. That would all had to be added in from scratch since TP relies so heavily on it.

For the "blocblog" theme...basically I stripped everything from index.template after <body> tag and used my own html. Added the links to article categories up top and this code underneath to avoid people using the boards, I put it in template_init() function:

// no forum..
if(isset($_GET['board']) || isset($_GET['topic']) || (isset($_GET['action']) && $_GET['action']=='forum'))
redirectexit('cat=art');


The "cat=art" needs explaining, its of course the same as index.php?cat=2 or cat=art (in TP1.0 you can have names for category queries as well)

I also added in a few links on the bottom under the copyright, so you can eaisly login/profile etc. there. And thats basically it. No forum visble, but all the admin/TP stuff to be used.
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Dragooon on March 16, 2008, 04:00:26 AM
Thats one heck of a idea :D.
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: Bill.Ramby on March 16, 2008, 01:32:25 PM
Well I finally found something to use. It's not perfect, but it will do for him. CMSimple. It's decent. I wont be venturing again out of the forum/portal world any time soon again though. ;D
Title: Re: TP without the forum?
Post by: superQ on March 16, 2008, 04:21:49 PM
Have you tried snippetmaster. It is free,works great and any idiot can use it.You put tags in the code and everything in between is editable

www.snippetmaster.com

The attached image is of a homepage [it could be any page] the wysiwyg editor opens up after the page/file is selected. It may not be what you want but worth a look because there is no such thing as a template---it is whatever you got---just editable.

I am sure the owner would not mind paying the small fee to get the pro version which is even more exellent. I do not think there is any restriction on use for the free version
The only prob is that the files have to be writable to save the edits----the developer  makes a convincing argument as to why this is ok...

whoops!!! attachment has  private info===gone