Hi I am looking to structure my packages around Couch CMS so instead of offering a website with x amount of pages I am offering a website with x amount of 'templates' for the client to have unlimited amount of pages.

Templates being different page variations.

Say we wanted to make several services pages that required different layouts, we would use template 1 template 2 and template 3.

We then want all these to full under the menu tab 'services'.

Also would it be possible to add a type of menu manager?

Ideally we want it so that when the client wants to add a page they click add page, they select a template and then they select what tab it will fall under on the menu (if any, they may just want it as a landing page).

Any thoughts?

hi,
is this what your looking for ? http://docs.couchcms.com/tags-reference/menu.html

At the moment I have my navigation in a snippet file using the k_page_link tag to direct it to certain pages.

So is this supposing that I put this as menu.php instead?

I understand they would select what tab it will fall under by choosing the parent but how would clients choose what template they want to use?

It would be good to see the backend and functionality of a couch website that you can actually add pages to (when I mean add pages I mean add pages that are not just stuck to the same layout).

At the moment I am making websites that my clients can just edit the information on and that really isn't cutting it for them

How do you guys overcome this?

[trendoman]

Hey, really appreciate you are trying to beat something out of this old horse. I'm in. Can you explain it again like to a child? Is this front end 'selection' or backend? Maybe examples?
I'd love to see that going. Something fresh on this forum.

If I try to understand you.

but how would clients choose what template they want to use?

You would like to have to have different page layouts for the same couch template.

I think you could use folders for that. When the client creates a page and chooses a folder for that page the layout and style could change. Like folder style-1 and style-2

Code: Select all

<cms:if k_page_foldername='style-1'>

show layout and style for folder one
</cms:if>

<cms:if k_page_foldername='style-2'>

show layout and style for folder two
</cms:if>

I feel like this is entirely what the nested pages concept was made for.

With a nested page (Providing your nested template is the index.php of the site) You can add differen't cloned templates to your site and add them to the nested templates menu/list by masquerading to them.

There's also a menu output for nested templates so this would handle the menu for the client. This would mean you'd have one *default* template layout (the nested pages layout) and then you could have multiple other template layouts of cloned templates, where your client can add new pages to the site.

Please read up on this in the documentation and see if it would fit your needs:
http://docs.couchcms.com/concepts/nested-pages-aka-menu-maker.html

I feel like this is entirely what the nested pages concept was made for

I understand where your coming from. But with nested pages am I wrong in thinking when they create a new page it has to be based on that template? (Forgive me if I may have totally misunderstood the concept of nested pages)

For example if we have an index.php which looks like this - http://writepath.co.uk/

I will then want to add a new page called About Me but I want a totally different layout - http://writepath.co.uk/about-me/

How can this be achieved?

At the moment I do all the page in html and then change add the couch cms tags accordingly, but this will prove too much for my clients that want to just simply add pages themselves.

For those that have used wordpress you can select what template you want to use when you add the page (seen in the right hand column of the printscreen attachment).

Is there a way we can get this in couch.

To cut a long story short what I'm aiming the client journey to be is
1) Click add page button > 2) Choose template (by template I mean page structure/ layout/wireframe, whatever you like to call them) > 3) Add content (the editable options are based on the template provided)

I'm afraid to the best of my knowledge this is not possible with couch as it goes somewhat against the point of couch. By that I mean, couch is designed for designers to create html templates and then fit couch around that. It's not made to fit templates around couch, meaning the templates need to be created themselves. In wordpress, themes generally have a bunch of different page template layouts which is then what they can drop down from. The only way I could think of doing this with couch is to use a nested template and masquerading to other template pages created by you (the designer). So the templates would still need to be created and probably as cloned pages (So the user can choose which template he wants to create a page under). However, the user would have to select the correct cloned template from the admin sidebar to add a page to, rather than just clicking "add page" and selecting a template from within that.

Sorry it's difficult to explain but I understand what you want, I hope I've explained it well enough for you to understand.

[trendoman]

Easy. Bartonsweb, here is my point (no offense):

Suppose, we have predefined templates. 1, 2, 3.
The guy can create his 3 designs of html. Then create all editables for the alltogether 1,2,3.

Then we offer a dropdown/radio selection editable and make user choose first. Upon chosen and saved, we show only those editables, that belong to this chosen variant. I've done this. I'm sure you know about hiding editables with css.

If he wants it badly, we can sell some hope here.

Listing the page is easy. If chosen_template = '1', then -> embed '1.html'. etc.

Easy. Bartonsweb, here is my point (no offense):

Suppose, we have predefined templates. 1, 2, 3.
The guy can create his 3 designs of html. Then create all editables for the alltogether 1,2,3.

Then we offer a dropdown/radio selection editable and make user choose first. Upon chosen and saved, we show only those editables, that belong to this chosen variant. I've done this. I'm sure you know about hiding editables with css.

If he wants it badly, we can sell some hope here.

Listing the page is easy. If chosen_template = '1', then -> embed '1.html'. etc.

Yeah I can see this working in this type of way.

Thanks for the input!! I think I will hold off for v2 of couch to get this really going.