Ok, it's installed... what now?

[usernamenumber]

I've heard a lot of great stuff about TP and am looking forward to playing with it. So far I've gotten it installed but, well, I'm a bit lost for what to do next (I'm also new to SMF, but am experienced with php and Linux, so don't hold back on the technical answers).

When I reload my site I now see a main page that lists all of the posts in the Announcements forum, which is nice. But there's no link to get to the rest of the fora anymore. Yipes.

I found the TinyPortal sidebar on the Admin page, but now I'm really confused: According to the "blocks" page there should be blocks in the left and right sidebar and yet all I see if the announcements. Adding and removing blocks, including a center block, doesn't seem to do anything.

I'm more than willing to assume that I'm just not getting something here, but since I've been unable to find documentation other than stuff describing how to write blocks and whatnot I'm not sure where to go to get myself straightened out. Hence this post.

If anyone can offer some guidance just to get me going, that would be great. Here's a summary of what I would like to end up with:

• Main page displays contents of the "announcements" page (so far so good, but where would I go to configure this if I wanted to use another?)
• Links bar at top (the one that normally lists "Home", "Admin", etc) has custom links for the forum, our About page and the like (I'd like these to show up in the center block-- will that be relatively easy?
• Not sure how I'll use them, but the "Articles" feature sounds cool, but the Articles CP lists no articles and has no link for adding them that I see
• More than one Downloads category. The Dowloads CP lists a category that I can change the name/icon for, but I can't seem to add more than one and I don't see how to add files to the Downloads section

So, is there a User's Guide that I'm missing? If not, any help people can offer would be immensely appreciated. I'm kind of wondering whether maybe something went wrong during my install. :\

Thanks!

[G6Cad]

Missing links and blocks not showing up ? Start to believe that your TP install didn't go all that well or something.
You should see the links as before in the top, Also, you should have testblocks showing up, and a news bar in the center blocks.
Also, latest post block and some other things.

Did you get any errors during your install? And what setup do you have ? SMF 1.0.7 or SMF 1.1rc2 ?

[usernamenumber]

Ah. I found the problem. TP aparently doesn't play well with the theme I'd selected (SAF-Multicolor). I switched back to the main theme and all the blocks seem to show up now.

Drat. I really liked that theme. I assume I should limit myself to themes from your "TP Themes" section (http://www.tinyportal.net/smf/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=cat5)? Looking there, I only see themes for 1.0.[56] and 1.1RC2, not for my version (1.0.7). Suggestions?

Thanks for the quick reply.

[G6Cad]

There is not much to do about the saf theme, not many themes here are for that version right now. Most are made or converted for SMF 1.1rc2.

Would be much more fun if you "upgraded" your 1.0.7 to 1.1rc2

The themes here for 1.0.5 will wotk with your 1.0.7 as far as I know, they should work good with 1.0.7 even if they say 1.0.5.
If you upgrade to 1.1rc2 you can have the SAF theme again with TP

[gerrymo]

You must use TP enabled themes, normal SMF themes dont work.

[G6Cad]

Thats correct, this is the themes you can use with your version of SMF and TP
http://www.tinyportal.net/smf/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=cat7

[usernamenumber]

Would be much more fun if you "upgraded" your 1.0.7 to 1.1rc2

Yeah... about those quotes...

Seriously, though, how "beta" are the RCs? Our project is going to depend on the forum remaining functional (and secure) as we try to buid a userbase. Thus I'm a bit wary. But if the RCs are pretty much ready for prime time and simply awaiting some polishing I could do that.

Opinions?

[G6Cad]

Well, SMF 1.1rc2 is beta, but most of us in here have been using SMF 1.1rc version for quite some time, I think the only issue i have had to fix were the handling of a .js file that didn't like the Firefox Browser, but thats the only thing i ever had to fix on my install.
It's safe, no errors from the smf part of my setup. so pretty much I call it stable.

I dont think you have to worried about a crash or something. If you brows to SMF site, they run the same version with about 1000 users on line, a bit slow loading though some times, but thats a hosting thing more than SMF.

So i think most agree on that 1.1rc2 is stable enough to run with comfort

[gerrymo]

So i think most agree on that 1.1rc2 is stable enough to run with comfort

100% agreement from me on that. I only use 1.1RC2, and have no problems with it.

[usernamenumber]

Okaaay, well this is interesting. I've upgraded to RC2 and everything looked nice but TP didn't appear to be installed anymore so I went to the packages CP and installed it. It is now listed as installed, but the frontpage hasn't changed and there's no TP panel on the admin page.

Any idea what's up? Should I just try re-installing rc2 from scratch? I have the advantage of not having any actual content on the board yet.