xert77

Nice work, this is already looking amazing! Hope you get the indent sorted, I think someone above had a similar issue (might be wrong though)

Thank you very much Mike John!

@Mike John I firstly want to thank you for being so generous & providing this product for free, just like in 3.4. Until I get my pages sorted I will be using this. One problem I am having is the colour scheme is differen't from the rest of my website. Is there an area where I can change the bar colour etc easily? Also is there a way to change the menu name from Portal, to something else?

@Ralf Herrmann Would it be possible to change the title of this thread? Perhaps to something that shows this thread is informative. I didn't expect so much information to be provided on how to improve the look of pages.

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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. 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. 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.

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.

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