SOLVED Not understanding something fundamental about particles
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- Mark Irwin
- Newbie
- Posts: 2
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I have spent many hours going through the Gantry 5 documentation and the forums but I still seem to be missing something fundemental. The template I purchased came with a number of paticles out of the box. Many of theparticles I understand how to use but some of them don't seem to have any particle defaults that I can set. Examples include Event List and Simple Content. There are others that allow me to set CSS info and similar items. In both cases I have no idea and have not been able to find it in the documentation how to actually assign content to these particles. They don't appear as module positions I can assign modules to. They don't appear as modules or menues or components or anything I can do anything with but put them in a layout (that then has no content.) What am I missing.
Server Details (Linux/Windows, Hosting service, etc) Shared Linux Hosting (A2Hosting) PHP version 5.3.9 Platform (name and version) Joomla 3.6.5 - Gantry 5.4.3 Template/Extension (name and version) Protean Link to the Issue N/A
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- MrT
- Preeminent Rocketeer
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- Web Designer/Developer
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Not all particles show all the fields on the "particle defaults" page because sometimes it just make no sense to set a default for a particular field i.e. you would only set the value in the context of how you are using it in the instance of the particle that you create.
In joomla particles can be used in two different ways:
1. You can just drag and drop the particle on to the layout of your outline. This means you are probably making the outline more "page specific" and therefore will have more outlines.
OR
2. You can drag and drop a "module position" particle on to the layout of your outline and give it a "key" of whatever you like. Then in Joomla Module manager you can create a "Gantry 5 particle" module and in that choose the particle that you want. Then you can assign that module to any position on the layout of your outline (including the position you just created). So, this method means that your pages are more "page generic" since you are just assigning modules to positions on the layout (just like you always have in Joomla). Of course this method also means you can use Joomla ACL to decide which users get to see the module content too.
In reality you will likely use both of the above techniques at the same time... e.g. particles directly on the layout for things like logo, menu , footer, copyright, "page content" etc and "module position" particle on the layout for areas where you want to change the content for different pages.
The class field on particles is for you to use how you want to add your own classes that you can refer to in custom CSS to style your particles. the "block variation" field (which are really our inbuild classes) are offered in a dropdown for you to choose from for common styling requirements such as "center" "align right" "box1" etc.
Some templates also use template specific classes for particles too and these are described in the templates documentation.
I hope that helps.
Regards, Mark. -
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- Mark Irwin
- Newbie
- Posts: 2
- Thanks: 0
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Thanks. Your answer helps alot.
How do I mark the topic Solved?
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- MrT
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 101084
- Thanks: 13484
- Web Designer/Developer
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I've done it for you but for future reference...
If your issue is now solved, please EDIT your FIRST POST in this thread by adding [SOLVED] at the start of the title and then select the TICK icon. This lets the moderators know that it can be moved to the solved section.
If you can't edit the first post this will be because it is more than 7 days old, so please reply stating that the topic can be closed and a moderator will do this for you.
Regards, Mark. - Please search forums before posting. Please make sure your post includes the version of the CMS you are using and a link to the problem. Annotations on screenshots can also be helpful to explain problems/goals. Please use the "secure" tab for confidential information.
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