Hi,

Before I complain, I want to start off with a nice note. Since joining IPB my users have loved the website, commented on how nice it works compared to VB & I have loved your support. When ever I have a bug or problem you guys usually reply pretty fast, sometimes during the night!

But here is where I am confused, angry & very, seriously sad.

I love IPB. I think it is one of the most solid products in the market, I think it is also the most professional both company wise (how you guys release things when it's ready & not before) and also product wise, it's very professional.

For over a year now, I have STRUGGLED to get to grips with pages. I look at the documentation & it's longer than the bible & not very user friendly at all!

For over a year now I have messaged support asking how to do things in pages & they say I have to come to the forums as it requires custom code! For simple things like adding the article image in the listing page!

For over a year now I have Tried pages, given up... Tried again, given up. There is so much potential in pages - I have seen it on professional website (websites with coders & budget!) but people like me CANT use it.

 

Why.... WHY can't IPB make pages easier. Why can't there be a wizard or Pre made templates!

Front page templates... Do you wanna display articles like a blog (photo to the side with description beside), or like a polariod (image with description below), or like a grid. 1 main article & then smaller articles below etc. Joomla asks you things like... Display title, date, time, author. Main article: 0-10, Secondary Articles 0-10. Its so easy!

Listing pages... Do you want to display the first image in the article, do you want to display article rating, do you want to display article sorting bar.

Article pages... Have a page builder, similar to what you do with blocks. Where you can create fields on a preview page & move them around/edit them. Currently if I want an image uploaded in an article and displayed to the right of the content, I have to custom format it, look up HTML guides on Google etc.

 

I just wish IPB could make pages & frontpage more like Joomla. Joomla frontpage is so easy. Then also keep the difficult custom options for people who are more pro & who know what they are doing.

I am so annoyed by the fact I can't easilly create a beautiful looking frontpage & article area, that I am considering going back to another software. Your forum software is so easy to use, but pages is rocket science.

 

Support won't help me, I have seen users here struggle to create things even when working together and helping eachother, and the only other option is to pay someone tons of money... Please consider making pages easier for noobs. PLEASE

Danny

 

Why.... WHY can't IPB make pages easier. Why can't there be ... Pre made templates!

Front page templates... Do you wanna display articles like a blog (photo to the side with description beside), or like a polariod (image with description below), or like a grid. 1 main article & then smaller articles below etc. Joomla asks you things like... Display title, date, time, author. Main article: 0-10, Secondary Articles 0-10. Its so easy!

Listing pages... Do you want to display the first image in the article, do you want to display article rating, do you want to display article sorting bar.

That will be awesome.

+1

I agree.  The casual hobbyist and enthusiast admin are highly limited with what's out of the box and there continues to be an expectations gap of what IPS markets Pages to be and what we can actually accomplish.  

 

Hmm I tend to agree with xert77 here. I bought pages about a week ago and just to do basic things takes ages to learn. I have spent hours today trying to get a list of my article categories on the front page or any page for that matter. There is a block for it but it only works on articles -why? ...... this is basic stuff for cms and takes 5 mins in Wordpress. Put an image in a page, click it and it opens the image, how to make light-box work for this? I can go on and on with basic stuff that should be working as standard.

I can see the power pages has and I am getting there, but its mighty painful. I would imagine a lot of folk just give up after a week or so. I'm soldering on for the moment.

I just feel like every other IPB product works so freaking well, and they are all fairly easy to deal with both front & back end. Then you get to pages & it's a complete mess, it feels like having to code a whole website from scratch... Lets face it, you have to code the template you want, code how you want fields to display... You may as well code the whole thing.... Why need pages.

If Pages was made more like Wordpress, Joomla etc... It would make IPB perfect.

What annoys me more is that every question I ask in support about pages is replied with... This requires custom code so I can't assist. You will need to ask on the forums. I then come on the forums and I see tons of Pages threads with 0 replies, people asking for help yet no one can.

Please IPB, just look at pages & make it easier. We aren't all code genius's. Plus if it's so easy, why can't you provide some tutorials or walkthroughs? It can't be hard to provide some templates right, or do you guys struggle to use it too...

Every other thing you do is amazing. It's just when it comes to pages, no one cares that noobs are struggling. I know that we could use Joomla or Wordpress, but why when we have something created by you guys thats intregated with the forums.

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. Pre-made templates are something we'd like to do. We'd also like to release our own work we've done here for examples to use. 

You may find the improvements being made to Pages in a soon-ish release to be of more help to you. Finally, we have a number of tutorials done and on the way that are being reviewed internally. Hopefully all of these combined will maximize the benefit of the product to you. 

Thank you again.

Thanks for the feedback, Danny. 
You are certainly right about the documentation. Pages has it’s own structure and logic of modules and without proper documentation it can be be a struggle to understand it and get good results. 

But I also disagree about some points. 

• Wizards and Template: If you add a page, a database, a field, a menu, … – you will get wizards which guide you through the setup. Templates are now easier than ever, since you just open the page builder and drag & drop everything wherever you want to. That was impossible in 3.4, where the slightest layout change would require coding. Not anymore!
• Customization. Customization requires custom code. That’s just in the nature of things. The look of WordPress posts/pages is defined in template/CSS files and if you want to make even little changes, you would have to make code changes. That’s just the way it is. More user options alone won’t change this. I would even say that Pages offers more choices than those other CMS. In WordPress you can only define the position of sidebar widgets through drag & drop, in Pages you can do that for the whole page and for every page individually. 
  Another improvement in 4.0 is the field output, which is now controlled directly in the field settings, again helping you NOT to touch the page templates. Most other standard content management systems don’t even have custom fields as a stock options.
• And lastly, where are those “tons” of forum questions about Pages with 0 replies? If the questions are understandable and can be answered with reasonable effort, I keep answering them for months. 

 

 

 

For over a year now I have Tried pages, given up... Tried again, given up. There is so much potential in pages - I have seen it on professional website (websites with coders & budget!) but people like me CANT use it.

 

Just wan't to thank you for sharing - because I have been down the same road. First with IP content in the 3.x series and now with Pages. I had to give up pages myselve and hired a programmer to help me (expensive) - because a portalpage and articlesection is something I have really needed for a long time now. 

I think that InvisionPower tend to forget that many Webmasters are not programmers. I'm not anyway. I would like to spend my time making content - not code stuff. 

I hope that the improvements promised by Lindy will help. With the history in mind I'm not so sure. The reason for saying that: I think about IPcontent and the struggle many of us had to get a nice page - and at the same time IP told us it was so easy to use.

The fact is that Pages is highly customizable - and the same was IP.content. I would rather have less opportunities and choices - but be able to create a good looking page and nice looking articles without having the programming skills really needed now. Thats really just a basic wish.

 

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. Pre-made templates are something we'd like to do. We'd also like to release our own work we've done here for examples to use. 

You may find the improvements being made to Pages in a soon-ish release to be of more help to you. Finally, we have a number of tutorials done and on the way that are being reviewed internally. Hopefully all of these combined will maximize the benefit of the product to you. 

Thank you again.

I appreciate you responding Lindy. I am just struggling with Pages, all of your other products are easy & pages is really difficult.

it took me ages to create even this:

And the problem is, because I had to format all this myself I worry about how it will look or work on mobiles. I also have this weird bar that I can't get rid of without 'custom code' apparently.

It's like the content is being displayed like it would be in a forum instead of a website. Literally if I made forum posts it would look exactly the same as it did in the pages listing, before I added customizations.

 

Thanks for the feedback, Danny. 
You are certainly right about the documentation. Pages has it’s own structure and logic of modules and without proper documentation it can be be a struggle to understand it and get good results. 

But I also disagree about some points. 

• Wizards and Template: If you add a page, a database, a field, a menu, … – you will get wizards which guide you through the setup. Templates are now easier than ever, since you just open the page builder and drag & drop everything wherever you want to. That was impossible in 3.4, where the slightest layout change would require coding. Not anymore!
• Customization. Customization requires custom code. That’s just in the nature of things. The look of WordPress posts/pages is defined in template/CSS files and if you want to make even little changes, you would have to make code changes. That’s just the way it is. More user options alone won’t change this. I would even say that Pages offers more choices than those other CMS. In WordPress you can only define the position of sidebar widgets through drag & drop, in Pages you can do that for the whole page and for every page individually. 
  Another improvement in 4.0 is the field output, which is now controlled directly in the field settings, again helping you NOT to touch the page templates. Most other standard content management systems don’t even have custom fields as a stock options.
• And lastly, where are those “tons” of forum questions about Pages with 0 replies? If the questions are understandable and can be answered with reasonable effort, I keep answering them for months. 

I do believe more user options would help. I can't make a really nice frontpage or listing page in IPB, I just can't. If I used Joomla or wordpress I could & I have done in the past years ago. I just found Joomla and Wordpress to assist in creating those pages more.

I would LOVE to create a frontpage like this:

 

I would love to create a listings page like this:

 

I understand that things require custom coding. Back when I used Joomla if I wanted my content in a really unique way I would have to purchase a template or install a plugin. But I could still easilly display my articles in the above pictures. You would go to the frontpage settings, select which Article categories you wanted to display - Or select 'just show frontpage articles', then select how many you wanted to show, what information you wanted to display (author, time of creation, photo etc). You could then display them like in the second photo (a blog list) or have it like the top image, or even a bit of both.. where the main articles would be displayed in blog above the grid system.

I don't find widgets to be a problem, they are easy. You just create them & drop them where you like, it's great. It's like modules in Joomla and Wordpress - ONLY EASIER. So there I give you guys credit, widgets and blocks are very easy to place on the website. The thing I struggle with is Joomla and Wordpress have a Content area. Every page has a content block where content will always go (article listings etc). In IPB, we have to add the content ourselves onto the page & then instead of it giving us display options for the content, we have to code it & format it ourselves.

I could be wrong here, I may not understand pages fully. But this my perspective as a novice.

 

Listing page...

Do you want to display the sort sort bar - Yes/no

Do you want to display it as a grid or a blog listing - grid/blog

How many articles per page would you like to display - 1/20/50

Would you like to display the articles first image as a thumbnail - yes/no : Would you like to display this to the left or right or if in grid top/below - left/right/top/below

Would you like to display the star rating - yes/no

 

Simple options like this... Where you just create a listings page for say the news articles. Then you have the option to display the content in different ways. Just 2 basic templates is needed with some extra options. A blog format or a grid format. 2 pre made templates. Which have some options to hide or display some information (author, comment no etc). Then we can go in & add our own blocks in your awesomely easy system.

 

Also don't get me wrong about Fields etc. THAT is a great addition. It basically makes it like Joomlas Zoo product which costs like £100 to buy. It takes basic articles & article submission pages & allows you to customize them. The only thing I don't like about the way it's done here, is you have to format the stuff yourself. In Zoo it gives you options on how you wanna display it & where.

For example, in IPB I added an image field for users to upload an image for the article. I wanted this to display to the right with the written content to the left.

I eventually managed to get it to work by looking up basic HTMl tutorials and had to format the image to float or something to the right. Before I formatted it, it was displaying above the content.

In Zoo, I wouldn't have to code myself, it would have given me options:

Add image -

Add Image URL -

Then give me simple options, do you want a border, do you want it displayed center, left, right, what size do you want the image.

 

 

 

 

Just wan't to thank you for sharing - because I have been down the same road. First with IP content in the 3.x series and now with Pages. I had to give up pages myselve and hired a programmer to help me (expensive) - because a portalpage and articlesection is something I have really needed for a long time now. 

I think that InvisionPower tend to forget that many Webmasters are not programmers. I'm not anyway. I would like to spend my time making content - not code stuff. 

I hope that the improvements promised by Lindy will help. With the history in mind I'm not so sure. The reason for saying that: I think about IPcontent and the struggle many of us had to get a nice page - and at the same time IP told us it was so easy to use.

The fact is that Pages is highly customizable - and the same was IP.content. I would rather have less opportunities and choices - but be able to create a good looking page and nice looking articles without having the programming skills really needed now. Thats really just a basic wish.

I agree, perhaps I was niave when purchasing pages. I saw images of what it could do and it looked wonderful. I expected it to be just like Wordpress or Joomla, but in the end it turned out to be a lot harder.

Regarding some of the requested options …

• The sort-bar. That only appears for typical listings, where sorting makes sense. If you switch the database to article mode, it disappears. So you already have the choice. 
• Articles to show: Already an option of course. As well as “categories”, “show only featured articles”, “show pagination” and things like that. Things like ratings also disappear automatically if you turn them off. 
• Thumbnail image: already an option. (“record image”)

Styling these things (e.g. the borders and width of the record image) is by default mostly left to the theme and the templates, which is actually good practice. The database and the fields are about the content, the styling comes from the theme and the templates. If you mix these things too much, it gets really messy. Then you would maybe download an additional theme (with a grid view for example) in the marketplace and and it would break your database view or the mobile view because the styling from your database and the styling from the theme wouldn’t work together. 

Please, please, please, please re-add the ability to export templates without a database. Lack of premade MP templates for the articles database, including feed block templates, is directly related to Pages requiring we export the entire database, which makes absolutely no sense for the database that is preinstalled, and doesn't actually work for it, and that's not even considering the point that block templates cannot be exported via any means.

Those of us that can code cannot help those that cannot premade in this area with the way it is now. I cannot even do a custom locally with the way it is now, as there is no way to transfer such, which ends up with me working on a live site. Not cool. I was actually waiting for a topic such as this to be made. If somebody with a basic clue and can code like myself is struggling due to this, I can't imagine how painful this is for the layman, and the surprised look from staff was not expected... I put in a feedback topic a while ago begging for this to be restored, and have left it since then, but it is a very real need.

I agree that pre-made database templates should be a priority - The pages application is powerful for those with the correct knowledge. It is better than before but the lack of some default templates(minus two) makes it harder to use.

 

 

Regarding some of the requested options …

• The sort-bar. That only appears for typical listings, where sorting makes sense. If you switch the database to article mode, it disappears. So you already have the choice. 
• Articles to show: Already an option of course. As well as “categories”, “show only featured articles”, “show pagination” and things like that. Things like ratings also disappear automatically if you turn them off. 
• Thumbnail image: already an option. (“record image”)

Styling these things (e.g. the borders and width of the record image) is by default mostly left to the theme and the templates, which is actually good practice. The database and the fields are about the content, the styling comes from the theme and the templates. If you mix these things too much, it gets really messy. Then you would maybe download an additional theme (with a grid view for example) in the marketplace and and it would break your database view or the mobile view because the styling from your database and the styling from the theme wouldn’t work together. 

Thanks for the reply, I will definitely be looking at these settings later on. At the moment I added my own image field and disabled the record image, is this the wrong thing to do? I wasn't sure if I could position the record image where I wanted. 

 

i I hope you guys don't think I am attacking IPB. I love IPB and I think you guys do an amazing job on releases and support. I just feel like Pages could be easier for casual web masters, and if it already is easy, have better documentation and examples.

Documentation on how to create a news category with news articles & then display those on the front page as a blog or grid layout. Something like that would be amazing.

one thing that does really confuse me is the format options that are already there, the coloured lines ones... I don't really see what they can be used for and why they are there.

 

Please, please, please, please re-add the ability to export templates without a database. Lack of premade MP templates for the articles database, including feed block templates, is directly related to Pages requiring we export the entire database, which makes absolutely no sense for the database that is preinstalled, and doesn't actually work for it, and that's not even considering the point that block templates cannot be exported via any means.

Those of us that can code cannot help those that cannot premade in this area with the way it is now. I cannot even do a custom locally with the way it is now, as there is no way to transfer such, which ends up with me working on a live site. Not cool. I was actually waiting for a topic such as this to be made. If somebody with a basic clue and can code like myself is struggling due to this, I can't imagine how painful this is for the layman, and the surprised look from staff was not expected... I put in a feedback topic a while ago begging for this to be restored, and have left it since then, but it is a very real need.

I'm glad to hear that people who know what they are doing are struggling too.  The reason I made this was after seeing 2-3 people passing code back and forth trying to make a fairly decent looking front page. The code they eventually created was massive & I just wondered why it was this difficult to create something that can be done so easily in Wordpress and Joomla. those people were struggling and they had more knowledge than me, and we're working together.

 

I agree that pre-made database templates should be a priority - The pages application is powerful for those with the correct knowledge. It is better than before but the lack of some default templates(minus two) makes it harder to use.

 

I agree. I think pages has such huge potential, even for the little guys. 

 

At the moment I added my own image field and disabled the record image, is this the wrong thing to do? I wasn't sure if I could position the record image where I wanted. 

The record image is perfect for your “article teaser images” because: a) it’s already in the article templates and therefore easy to activate. b) it has thumbnail settings for faster loading of the list views. c) it’s used as sharer image for sites like Facebook. 

 

The record image is perfect for your “article teaser images” because: a) it’s already in the article templates and therefore easy to activate. b) it has thumbnail settings for faster loading of the list views. c) it’s used as sharer image for sites like Facebook. 

ah ok awesome. I will check that out then. Thank you

And regarding the grid view for article listings: while that is not a default option, it only needs a small template change, since a responsive grid is already in the CSS. 

So to have a grid view for articles:

1. Add a custom database template in the Pages’ template manager. Make sure it’s of the type “Featured Records”. Also make sure you assign it to your article database. Also call it “Article Grid” (that name is later used in the code). 

2. Open the “index” template of this newly created template group. 

Replace this part:

{{if count($articles)}}
		{{foreach $articles as $id => $record}}
			{template="entry" app="cms" location="database" group="article_grid" params="$record, $database"}
    {{endforeach}}
{{endif}}

With this:

{{if count($articles)}}
    <div class='ipsGrid ipsGrid_collapsePhone'>
		{{foreach $articles as $id => $record}}
            <div class='ipsGrid_span6'>
			{template="entry" app="cms" location="database" group="article_grid" params="$record, $database"}
            </div>	
    {{endforeach}}
    </div>
  {{endif}}

That’s it. Your articles are now displayed as a grid which automatically collapses on smaller screen. 

And a bonus for all those who want the 2x1x1 layout from 3.4 – use this instead:

{{if count($articles)}}
    <div class='ipsGrid ipsGrid_collapsePhone'>
		{{foreach $articles as $id => $record}}
            {{if ($id == 0)}} <div class='ipsGrid_span12'>
            {{else}}<div class='ipsGrid_span6'>
            {{endif}}
			{template="entry" app="cms" location="database" group="article_grid" params="$record, $database"}
            </div>	
        {{endforeach}}
    </div>
{{endif}}

 

Fantastic example @Ralf Herrmann really much appreciated. If you also can show the CSS to changing the padding for the articles 2+3 (4+3 in the example)... you are the hero of the day! 

 

And regarding the grid view for article listings: while that is not a default option, it only needs a small template change, since a responsive grid is already in the CSS. 

So to have a grid view for articles:

1. Add a custom database template in the Pages’ template manager. Make sure it’s of the type “Featured Records”. Also make sure you assign it to your article database. Also call it “Article Grid” (that name is later used in the code). 

2. Open the “index” template of this newly created template group. 

Replace this part:

{{if count($articles)}}
		{{foreach $articles as $id => $record}}
			{template="entry" app="cms" location="database" group="article_grid" params="$record, $database"}
    {{endforeach}}
{{endif}}

With this:

{{if count($articles)}}
    <div class='ipsGrid ipsGrid_collapsePhone'>
		{{foreach $articles as $id => $record}}
            <div class='ipsGrid_span6'>
			{template="entry" app="cms" location="database" group="article_grid" params="$record, $database"}
            </div>	
    {{endforeach}}
    </div>
  {{endif}}

That’s it. Your articles are now displayed as a grid which automatically collapses on smaller screen. 

And a bonus for all those who want the 2x1x1 layout from 3.4 – use this instead:

{{if count($articles)}}
    <div class='ipsGrid ipsGrid_collapsePhone'>
		{{foreach $articles as $id => $record}}
            {{if ($id == 0)}} <div class='ipsGrid_span12'>
            {{else}}<div class='ipsGrid_span6'>
            {{endif}}
			{template="entry" app="cms" location="database" group="article_grid" params="$record, $database"}
            </div>	
        {{endforeach}}
    </div>
{{endif}}

 

Yay! OMG, I am gonna have to try this later. This looks amazing, thanks so much for your help. I am guessing that it also includes the record image below the title and above the content, if you have a record image?

Here is why I didn't use Record Image, because I couldn't figure out how to change it's position.

I didn't want it displayed at the bottom like this, I wanted it displayed to the top right. Also everytime I edit an article, I click off the 'show this was edited' and it still showed "edited just now by xert77".

Why am I unable to position the Record Image field in the list like I can with normal fields that I create?

 

If you also can show the CSS to changing the padding for the articles 2+3 (4+3 in the example)... you are the hero of the day! 

Add ipsPad as additional class to whatever you want to show with a default padding. 

So for example <div class='ipsGrid_span6'> becomes <div class='ipsGrid_span6 ipsPad'>

I took your advice and put the listing page into Article mode and it already has started looking better. I just have some weird align issue on the one with a record image.

Edit: It was because I had the text in a teaser paragraph that was not defaulted as "set record as content field". Once I set it to content field, it worked.

So now I am using a record image & have the text in the main content, the listings page looks great.

 

The only problem now, is that the article page looks worse. I have the Link fields I created below the Content field, and yet the content field displays below instead of the links...

I would love the Links to be displayed beneath the Image and Content at the bottom. I have the fields in the correct order (links at the bottom) so not sure why they display at the top.

The thing that baffels me is that there seems to be no decent documentation on the css classes, on how variables work, on how to fetch data within the templates etc.

 

Add ipsPad as additional class to whatever you want to show with a default padding. 

So for example <div class='ipsGrid_span6'> becomes <div class='ipsGrid_span6 ipsPad'>

Thanks, but how did you know that about the class ipsPad? (I know, you could go through the whole firebug process and that would work for classes that are being used actively) Is there a document that lists all classes with design examples?

I did some customisation for ip.content in the 3.x version of the community and really hated the whole process. Then you open up a topic in the forums and some more advanced user tells you to just use some object call. Great. I'd love to do that. But what I would love more is to know about those object functions before even asking in the forums.

$this->DB->build( array( 'select' => '*', 'from' => 'downloads_files_records', 'where' => "record_backup=0 AND record_file_id=" . $file[file_id] . " AND record_type IN('upload','link')" ) );
$this->DB->execute();

That's an example from my template modification. How the hell do I know about the $this->DB->build/execute() function? Is this sort of stuff documented anywhere?

 

And regarding the grid view for article listings: while that is not a default option, it only needs a small template change, since a responsive grid is already in the CSS. 

So to have a grid view for articles:

1. Add a custom database template in the Pages’ template manager. Make sure it’s of the type “Featured Records”. Also make sure you assign it to your article database. Also call it “Article Grid” (that name is later used in the code). 

2. Open the “index” template of this newly created template group. 

Replace this part:

{{if count($articles)}}
		{{foreach $articles as $id => $record}}
			{template="entry" app="cms" location="database" group="article_grid" params="$record, $database"}
    {{endforeach}}
{{endif}}

With this:

{{if count($articles)}}
    <div class='ipsGrid ipsGrid_collapsePhone'>
		{{foreach $articles as $id => $record}}
            <div class='ipsGrid_span6'>
			{template="entry" app="cms" location="database" group="article_grid" params="$record, $database"}
            </div>	
    {{endforeach}}
    </div>
  {{endif}}

That’s it. Your articles are now displayed as a grid which automatically collapses on smaller screen. 

And a bonus for all those who want the 2x1x1 layout from 3.4 – use this instead:

{{if count($articles)}}
    <div class='ipsGrid ipsGrid_collapsePhone'>
		{{foreach $articles as $id => $record}}
            {{if ($id == 0)}} <div class='ipsGrid_span12'>
            {{else}}<div class='ipsGrid_span6'>
            {{endif}}
			{template="entry" app="cms" location="database" group="article_grid" params="$record, $database"}
            </div>	
        {{endforeach}}
    </div>
{{endif}}

 

I did exactly this and I got an error.  Dont know what I did wrong...:(

 

I did exactly this and I got an error.  Dont know what I did wrong...:(

Knowing what error you got might help someone to come up with solution

Hi @Ralf Herrmann , thanks for the tips. It has really reduced the size of the code I had previously tried while makine 1x2x2 layout.

I have applied the index my entry and following view has become. There are two things I want to ask ;

1. How can the allignment be achieved so that left and right edges are alligned with first item ( Blue arrow ) ( I have used original index with only your additions. Entry template is the one I have mentioned here )
2. After the second row there is a margin-left added. I know it can be overridden by custom.css but anyway to avoid it ? ( Red Arrow )

html[dir="ltr"] .ipsGrid > [class*="ipsGrid_span"] {
    float: left;
    margin-left: 2.12766%;