0
Welcome Guest! Login
0 items Join Now

ROCKETTHEME IS CLOSING ON JUNE 30, 2025. As a thank-you to our community, enjoy 50% off all themes with the promo code THANKYOU before we shut down. Read our Farewell Blog Post for more details.

Landing pages for Web Campain | RESORT

Last Post
Search Topic

  • Re: Landing pages for Web Campain | RESORT

    Posted 13 years 7 months ago
    #733043
    • Henning's Avatar
    • Henning
    • Preeminent Rocketeer
    • Posts: 29363
    • Thanks: 957
    • Volunteer

    Re: Landing pages for Web Campain | RESORT

    Posted 13 years 7 months ago
    • I always suggest to take a look at the basic gantry template to learn about the bones and guts of Gantry. Its the fastest gantry template. An overall it's quite refreshing to build something from scratch instead modfying something – I built my own site on that ...
    #733044

  • Re: Landing pages for Web Campain | RESORT

    Posted 13 years 7 months ago
    • I always suggest to take a look at the basic gantry template to learn about the bones and guts of Gantry. Its the fastest gantry template. An overall it's quite refreshing to build something from scratch instead modfying something – I built my own site on that ...

      I agree 100% with Henning, sometimes you need more positions, other times a cleaner style. If you start from scratch for one project you will suffer all the problem at the same time but you will learn fast :D

      The rocketlaucher is a powerful tool to. You have content + typography + same design + modules in the right positions and component right at the start. The problem here is that it always comes with too much, you need to know what to disable, what to delete and what can improve your work time. That's why we use it. But I think basically you can have the same features with gantry in a RT template or as the CORE template. The mainly difference is what you start with. (does this make sense?)
      YES, then I will bookmark this post , and buy you a coffee ;-)
      Ok then I will bookmark it to and detail some of the features and decisions we made, some tricks we won't reveal, some of them are obscure stuff.
      This is my proposal. Each 2 days I will specify on matter. Why 2 days, one is for us to think and explain, and another one is to discuss. I will start from top to bottom. and explain the reasons beyond the decisions and of course how we made it. So if you agree with this we will start today with the configuration of the template, (what we use, what we don't and why.)
    • We are a web design and web development company, we use Joomla as our Heart, Gantry as the Brain and Custom Design as our eyes. Wanna know more about us, check: Design Algarve
    #733054
    • Henning's Avatar
    • Henning
    • Preeminent Rocketeer
    • Posts: 29363
    • Thanks: 957
    • Volunteer

    Re: Landing pages for Web Campain | RESORT

    Posted 13 years 7 months ago
    • heh nice idea ...
      Should be interesting.
    #733060

  • Re: Landing pages for Web Campain | RESORT

    Posted 13 years 7 months ago
    #733064

  • Re: Landing pages for Web Campain | RESORT

    Posted 13 years 7 months ago
    • Should be interesting.
      I think so to. I will insert the first post in 2 hours. ABOVE ALL, sorry for my English, I really murder the English language. I will trust Firefox translator.
      Hope everyone enjoys the ride and the objective is to keep this post life until the end of the year.

      For that I will need everyone intervention, everyone opinion. All decisions are based in 7 years of experience. I am a graduated designer, who used to love Flash and use Custom fonts in images for titles. so give me a break :D this will be a long 2 months. I hope we can catch a lot of attention in this topic, so greater (like Henning :D ) minds can help us, and also show examples and give us feedback.

      With this we will grate a lot of tutorials, find solutions, get conclusions and burn our brains before the end of the world 2012!

      ARE YOU GUYS READY TO RUMBLE!
    • We are a web design and web development company, we use Joomla as our Heart, Gantry as the Brain and Custom Design as our eyes. Wanna know more about us, check: Design Algarve
    #733069

  • Re: Landing pages for Web Campain | RESORT

    Posted 13 years 7 months ago
    • So, as always in everything... it comes down to the basic and principle

      Agree with that. Good luck!
    • We are a web design and web development company, we use Joomla as our Heart, Gantry as the Brain and Custom Design as our eyes. Wanna know more about us, check: Design Algarve
    #733073

  • Re: Landing pages for Web Campain | RESORT

    Posted 13 years 7 months ago
    • Title: Customize template parameters

      Created: 7/11/2011

      ABOVE ALL SORRY FOR MY ENGLISH

      Well the first step that we do is to customize the template parameters, why we do this because this is the heart of the project, everything will depend on what we define on the template parameters, like the CSS files and the DEFAULT STYLE.

      Step by step details:
      1. Params.ini
      2. Gantry version
      3. Diagnostic
      4. Default
      5. Preset
      6. Settings
      7. Features
      8. Menu
      9. Layouts
      10. Mobile settings
      11. Advanced

      1 – Params.ini
      Here we just need to make sure that it is writable, make sure it is or the parameters will not be saved in the INI file.

      2 – Also make sure that you have the latest version, bugs are fixed from version to features and the features are improved from version to version two. To guarantee that everything works, keep up with the updates and make sure that you have the final version. (Remember also that security fixes also are included here)

      3 – Diagnostic
      Make sure that it is SHINY GREEN! :D

      4 – Sometimes a few templates come with custom layouts in a few menus items so here make sure that you set up all the menu items as you which. Sometimes we forget why that specific menu has the sidebar larger than the others usually it is a custom layout defined here.

      5 – In the preset style I take in consideration a few factors, one is the main content color / background color, I usually select one that approximates more of what is suppose to be me final product, usually RT releases 2 style dark content and light content so this one is easy. 100% of the times we do white content this because the clients don’t know how to cut images or us .png images without backgrounds, with a darker background it would be hard to the client to use white background images. So basically what I am saying is that we always use light backgrounds on our project and that is on purpose.
      As much as I would like to use darker backgrounds it have gave me so much trouble to use black backgrounds or with images that we gave up on that idea.

      The other decision here is about the link color, usually rocket changes the main color from preset to preset, something like: red, blue, orange, light green, light blue and light red. This means that the MODULES tittles and MODULES background color from preset to preset where chosen considering does colors. So we usually select the preset style that approximates from the color of our final design, so we don’t need to change or create all the style in the CSS and the IMAGES for the design to work. The more approximate the less work you have :D

      Resume: Choose the preset based on the content and background colors that approximate you final design.

      6 – The settings change from template to template so you need to learn what can change from template to template after 5 projects of working with different template you will know that.

      This is what we usually do:
      1. Here is simple make the color choices and background choices that feats your needs. But we like to have the 3 layer background so even if we don’t use those, if the client changes his mind we have them there to use it.
      2. Read-more is all about style!
      3. Load transition I have never use it before only in this project because it tires the user and with the user browsing the web faster and faster I don’t want the to lose time waiting for pages to load, this project was an exception.
      4. Web-Fonts again, number 1 rule of design if you don’t need it then don’t use it. If you can have a website without a custom font why make the user wait that extra time for the website load the fonts from Google? And also remember for slower broad-bands the fonts POP-UP at the end so it is not a cool transition.
      5. Font settings: Helvetica as default then you change with your needs.

      7 – Features
      Here is where opinions will crush me. :D (Sorry but I need to say this, good luck for me)

      I will discuss this in a topic kind of few:
      1. Logo: I have gave up on using the logo here. I know that the Mobile template use it but there is 2 things that I can’t do with this logo. Number1: Facebook only detects images<img> that are inside paragraphs<p> tags, so if you use this logo you wont be able to share the logo image in Faceboo, itk wont detect it so, for this logo to work with Facebook you need to change the Gantry code. The other thing that bothers me is that you cant set permission or assign it to pages, in the past I belived that the logo was transversal to the entire website but that is just not true. If you have a Registered area in your website then the logo link should change for another link, for the registered area default page. Let use Facebook as example, The Facebook logo without log it it goes for www.facebook.com . The Facebook logo with login it goes for the Newsfeed page. (Does this make sense?)
      2. Date: we usually use this with hotels and book engines, so the clients knows what is the “website” date, for example if you want to make a reservation in a hotel from another country you know what their time schedule is. We don’t use it without a purpose, that’s just us.
      3. Font-size: we only have use this once, because they website was an older ppl audience. And when you change the font you really CHANGE IT, you don’t want to increment one point, if the user is having trouble reading and goes for font size I guarantee you is not to increment one point. :D
      4. Login panel: same as the font, we cant assign to menus or ser permissions so we don’t use it and it adds another level of .JS to pages that don’t need to load Rokbox.
      5. Pop-up module same as above
      6. RT Brand: Sorry RT but your brand will be on the code :D
      7. Copyright: Again cant assign to menu items so…
      8. More articles: We don’t use it because we use a CCK and it is not compatible.
      9. System messages: We use and usually in the main-top position the Drawer is not my favorite position, but for huge Headers maybe the drawer position is the right one. There are very small screens out there and you want to make sure that the user sees this message.
      10. Reset: Never one!
      11. Google Analytics, only if it is a Regular one domain website, if not you need to change the code. It works for most cases.

      8 - Menu:
      The menu is where I have bug problems, so many big problems. Let’s see:
      1. You can only use one fusion menu per website so choose wisly;
      2. You cant assign it to menu items it is transversal to the entire project and it is linked to the Mobile template, so make sure you use it
      3. Joom-fish does not translate the fusion features :/ so we only use the drop down :D
      4. RT usually don’t show you all the features in the template so we need to change the template.xml features like item id and level limits , I always need to have the level limits I want to make sure that the clients don’t have 25 levels :D so we manually change this.
      5. But we use it, and we use the fusion theme 60% of the times, depends of the custom design.
      6. Watch out in changing the menu design because it will affect the mobile templates, doesn’t use fixed height.
      7. RT says that you have to use this menu is the heart of the Gantry template so we don’t have a choice live with it :D

      9 – Layout
      We only have one BIG problem here so you need to watch this. Let say that 99% of your website is a 3 column template: LEFT SIDEBAR – MAIN CONTENT – RIGTH SIDEBAR, but in the main page the default one you have only MAIN CONTENT – RIGTH SIDEBAR. So you go to the Layout system and you will notice that the Gantry does not detect the main-content with 3 columns but with 2 because it uses the default page. Then you set you design to 2 columns and 3 columns. Let’s say you have chosen a 3 columns side bar so it would be:
      • 9 – 3 for the 2 columns
      • 3 – 6 – 3 for the 3 columns layout
      Then the client changes his mind and wants a 4 column sidebar so what do you do, you go back to the template settings and ONLY change the default one because you never remember that in fact you need also to change it in the 3 column layout. After a month the client changes his mind and same old story. If you don’t make this changes with attention there is a big probably that you break the template, now this will happen to all positions imagine that you have up to 5 or46 custom configuration in the design for any giving position if you work with a team or you don’t right what you did is hard to keep up with all custom Layouts.
      So my suggestion after you make a simple change of going from 4 to 3 columns test your website from top to bottom and make sure it does not break.

      10 – Mobile
      I like the template but until recently I hated it, 1 because we use a CCK and it is not very compatible and the other because we couldn’t debug because we use windows. Not that we can debug the template is easer to use. But to get both views correctly I a hard job. I hope RT would allow us to LOCK the template to only vertical, all my templates break in a horizontal view. So I think I am the problem here :D
      (I don’t have an Android to test it so I don’t use it.)

      11 – Advanced
      Here just be carful, don’t touch if you don’t know what you are doing.
      1. Gantry cache: We leave it disable in development time and guess what in live also. (I don’t trust cache but that’s me. I don’t have much experience with it. )
      2. Gzipper never on just don’t trust it is really a personal thing. After creating 2000 lines of custom design I don’t want them to have 400 sorry I am a very proud man. 2000 Is my number and I steak to it.
      3. Input styling: Leave it default.
      4. Custom ordering: I have read that this can break the template; I don’t touch it to much, only if we break then we use this to fix it, but usually we don’t change it.
      5. Fixed positions only with Transversal modules, like the footer or header.
      6. Inline JS file (don’t know what this actually does so OFF) – Can anyone explain it to me?
      7. Display component: depends on the design
      8. Display main: dependeds on the design and in our case in the system messages if we disable this then we have to change the system messages to utility position
      9. RTL support: off by default
      10. Title spans: depends on the design, but off by default.
      11. Module overlays: YES and we love it, off after launch.
      12. Page suffixes: YES the biggest gift ever :D
      13. Additional typography: Depends on the design
      14. RT Extension styling: I like it but components change often knows so you need to be careful with this.
      15. Menu less page – We create a Menu only for this with the basic modules assigns to us it if no page is assign.
      16. ie6 redirect, we don’t use it, because the page will be so horrible and I hate so much ppl that uses it that they don’t deserve it and I meant it. Also I don’t want that extra validation in our sites.

      This are just a few concepts and Ideas, please bounce them back and don’t hate me. I just hate Internet Explorer.
    • We are a web design and web development company, we use Joomla as our Heart, Gantry as the Brain and Custom Design as our eyes. Wanna know more about us, check: Design Algarve
    #733227

  • Re: Landing pages for Web Campain | RESORT

    Posted 13 years 7 months ago
    #733247
    • Henning's Avatar
    • Henning
    • Preeminent Rocketeer
    • Posts: 29363
    • Thanks: 957
    • Volunteer

    Re: Landing pages for Web Campain | RESORT

    Posted 13 years 7 months ago
    • hmmm wonder why it should not be possible to use different menus based on "per-menu-item-settings"? I have already done that. You can use a different menu for menu-items that are just visible when you are logged in (just as an example for a practical use). There are really just a few settings that you can't set individually set for menu-items. For the logo-feature its really no big problem to change the link when you are logged in. See the login.php in the features folder how to do that. Heh I'm off to breakfast now :-)
    #733331

Time to create page: 0.101 seconds