Elxis and template compatibility

[varaonaid]

Hey there,

I'm brand new to Elxis and am considering using it for my new website.  I've used Joomla to manage my website for almost two years but all the "issues" that have cropped up in the Joomla community have me rather disgruntled and I'm nervous about continuing to use it since I feel it has an uncertain future.  This is what precipitated my look towards other options.

I'm also checking out the current version of Mambo 4.6.x and have done some searching on these forums to try to understand many of the differences in these three CMSes.  I found some great information that is encouraging me towards Elxis

I decided to simply give both Elxis and Mambo a try and install both on my website to try them out.  I have a Joomla template that I need to use and, for the most part, it worked OK with Elxis.  However, there are a few issues with it and I don't understand why it isn't working properly.  I'm posting the website links (sorry, it's very rough at this point because I'm just  trying out the new CMSes and the template) so that you can see the issues going on and, hopefully, help me figure it out so I can use Elxis.

Here are the links:
http://www.impromp2.org/dev2  (Elxis install)
http://dev.impromp2.org   (Mambo install)
http://www.impromp2.org   (Joomla install)

As you'll see, in Elxis, the left menu isn't showing up correctly.  It's a simple list rather than the way it's supposed to be (and is showing up on both of the other CMS installs).  I followed the template setup instructions and changed the menu type to "flat list" rather than "vertical" which solved the issue in my other installs but didn't make any changes in Elxis.  The second issue is I don't understand why the main text is showing up pushed so far down the center of the page.  Again, this isn't what happened on the other installs and I'm trying to understand why.

*Please* don't take any of that as complaints of Elxis.  I understand that each of the CMSes are different and aren't guaranteed to be compatible.  However, I'm hoping that perhaps I can get help understanding what's causing these two issues so that I can use Elxis anyway. 

Thanks SO much in advance for your help.  I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

All the best!
Rae

[Ivan Trebješanin]

Welcome varaonaid,

Your "problem" is that Elxis 2008 is introducing some news in template rendering, that makes it different from Mambo/Joomla!...
Very soon we will release some guidlines to explain that differencies.
In case you don't know already, Elxis 2008 is XHTML and CSS Valid. Also, it loads standard.css, wich already have most of the CSS classes defined, thus making template developer's job easier.
We want to avoid using old tables, wich are now depreciated in "Web 2.0", and use divs and css visual formatting. Also, there are some new CSS classes, that don't exist in Mambo/Joomla! Please, give us some time to create guidelines, and keep an eye on elxis.org and elxis-downloads.com. There is a new site in prospect, dealing with what you need, and it will be elxis-templates.org
Some great days for Elxis and it's community are ahead, so just have a little patience and faith.

[varaonaid]

Hi!

Thanks for such a quick reply!  It's clear that there are great things happening in the Elxis community.  It's great to see a CMS with active development and such a friendly, responsive community.

I just have one worry... I'm not *actually* a "web developer" in terms of really understanding css and things like that.  I can edit files with good instructions and follow directions but the reason I've been able to do well with Joomla is that it was simple to use.  So while it's awesome to see that Elxis conforms and exceeds current web standards and while I understand that underlying factor will make developing my site easier, I guess I'm wondering if you think working with Elxis will be over my head.  Do you think the coming instructions on how to modify Mambo/Joomla templates will be easy enough for someone like me to follow? 

Again, thanks for your reply.  I look forward to hearing your perspectives on my questions.

[datahell]

Currently someone has given me a joomla template to make it compatible with Elxis. I have to say that it is much easier to create a template from scratch rather than try make a joomla template compatible with Elxis. There are many differences. But if you want to do it you should pay special attention to these:
 
Styles that exist in mambo/joomla as IDs have converted to classes in Elxis. The reason is simple: having IDs declared more than once make a site XHTML invalid based on the standards provided by W3C. So if you see things like that in your CSS: #xxxxxx { } check if they must be replace by .xxxxxx { } Check Elxis source code to see how Elxis render these blocks of code. 2 examples are modules latest news and popular items.

Elxis pre-loads a standard.css file (includes/standard.css). You should  overwrite the classes from that file in your template's css if you wish to match your template's appearance.

Elxis does not uses tables. Instead of tables it uses unordered lists. Only in the members list page Elxis generates a table.

Elxis render differently blogs. For example it has a blog_leading div.

[varaonaid]

Thanks for the info Datahell.  Unfortunately, it scared me to death!  As I said, I can follow instructions but I don't truly understand code so much of what you suggested went over my head.   I'm hoping that when the instructions/guidelines Ivan spoke of come out, I'll be able to follow them.  I really do think the Elxis is emerging to be the best Mambo based CMS.  The more I work with my trial install, the better I like it.  I only hope I can get to where I can edit my template to be compatible with it!

[Ivan Trebješanin]

Don't be scared my friend,
Why should you be afraid of learning new things, improving yourself, of moving forward?
I assure you that neither Joomla! nor Mambo have such friendly support like Elxis does. Just relax and learn.
Don't forget to share any knowledge you already have, and have fun. Together we stand 

[varaonaid]

Hi Ivan,

No not scared of learning new things... I try really hard to continue to do so.  Just felt *really* overwhelmed by the technical nature of what datahell was talking about and not sure how much free time I will have available to completely learn a new "language".  I must say that, so far, this has been a *very* friendly community so I'm encouraged about that.  If you folks are willing to help me out, I really do want to be able to make it work.  Elxis has made so many improvements over its "parent/sister" CMS that I feel great about it.  I'll be happy to share anything I learn with the community, just don't know how helpful I'll be in that regard.  I'm pretty much a newbie.

Oh, one more thing.  Ivan, is there a way to be notified when the new version of PowerBoard (for Elxis 2008) will be released?  I'm interested in using it, when it becomes available.

Many thanks for the reassurance!

[Ivan Trebješanin]

...is there a way to be notified when the new version of PowerBoard (for Elxis 2008) will be released?  I'm interested in using it, when it becomes available.

I am really glad to read that someone is interested in PowerBoard, but there is a lot of work to be done. It IS FULLY FUNCTIONAL, but there are some simply annoying issues. We have already started fixing them, but there was a little "detour" along the way. In a few days we will get back on this matter.

[datahell]

Ivan 2-3 more people have asked me the Powerboard component. When you have it ready I will create a SEO PRO extension for it. Just make sure everywhere is used the sefRelToAbs function for the URLs. We will make it super. Continue your work now and we will co-work afterwards.