After much reading of the forums, application documents, external blogs, etc. and watching the tutorial VDOs I decided it was time to quit fooling around and simply install “Core” and give it a spin. Well, right off the bat I’ve hit a snag, and I’m sure it’s operator stupidity, but would like to get past it if you folks would be so kind to help.

Themes: Upon install the documentation suggested that I need to install theme packages of interest. I went to the Site Themes download page and grabbed two; then chose one of them upon initial instal. After browsing to the site I see that I don’t want to start with this theme, but for the life of me (and after tons of searching, clicking, more reading, etc.) I cannot see where to switch the theme to one of the others I installed (or a new one for the matter).

Reading various forum entries I gather that there is not a simple menu choice for switching themes (like in WP, etc.), but I’m not sure of this. The documentation that I found is awkwardly vague to me on this topic. I looked at the files via FTP and find nothing of obvious help there. I looked at the code via the control panel and considered replacing the theme name in each place that I can find it, but this doesn’t ensure that I’ll find every occurrence of it.  Do I need to reinstall the thing to select something at initial install? I don’t intend to use a canned theme for my project, but I’d like to learn the app by tweaking before adding my more custom xhtml and css.

Site Title: Another issue was that in the Admin preferences (I think that’s where it is, it was late) the site title was something like “default_site_title” in the site header, so I replaced that with my site title. The default title disappeared, but my title did not update. There is now no title on the site header even though the title is in place in several locations in the control panel preferences. What did I do wrong? (the new title is not a long title, in fact shorter than the default).

I know that these issues are due to my tendency to want to control everything manually by hand coding and using Textmate and Transmit for everything. I hated my transition to FilemakerPro (from FoxPro, etc.) for the lack of direct database control too. I got over it and I’m sure I’ll eventually get this as well (unless you toss me before I get there ).

Thanks in advance for any help.

Dale

Hi, Dale -

No, there is no one-click theming.  ExpressionEngine is an incredibly powerful and flexible system that really shines when you want to design your own look and feel.

Have you seen Building an ExpressionEngine Site?

For number 2 - that sounds like you changed the weblog short-name as opposed to the Weblog’s name.  The short-name is how the templates know from which weblog to pull data; so if you change that, you have to update it in the templates as well.

As a note, you do have complete control in ExpressionEngine - you’ll just need to learn the system first, and we’re here to help. =)

If you have other technical support questions, since you’re now using ExpressionEngine, go ahead and post in the correct forum down below!

Post back if you have any other questions =)

Lisa,

Thank you for your speedy reply. Yes I did find the reference to One-Click switching, but I was a bit confounded that there was no mention of a solution (such as “you must re-install or hard code the change”). That may seem obvious to current users, but it’s a pure guess to those of us coming in new. I’m not certain if the theme is mentioned in the PHP files, etc. so I’ll have to go through every document of the site, since that article does not offer any useful hints. The one thing that is useful from that article is that it does say that EE is geared toward those who like to work from a “blank sheet” perspective. As I mentioned, the use of a theme was just to get a feel for the app. I will now reinstall (or dig through the code) and assign “default” as the theme I guess – or look to gut it from the CP first maybe. I would have appreciated it if the instal document would have given a heads-up, but instead my understanding was that by uploading themes prior to the install one can make some kind of change, even if by FTP, etc. I guess the wording made it unclear to me.

Regarding the link to the resource for building EE sites. I had not seen that (which surprises me for all the reading I’ve done) and I thank you. I will go through it.

As to the title (under Admin->General Weblog Prefs.): I have * Full Weblog Name: “correct name” and * Short Name: “correctname” (no quotes on any). This is where I changed it originally and the title simply disappeared rather than being replaced with my title.

My reason for posting here was that this trial installation is a preview to buying the commercial license and other modules. I didn’t realize that the ultra-newbie questions would be appropriate in the other areas. Sorry.

Thank you for your help, Lisa.

Best regards,

Dale

You have two options to start using a different theme.  Reinstalling should not be needed.

1) Simply copy and paste the templates from the Template Library; or, upload the theme as instructed, and create a new weblog choosing that theme as the one to use.

Yes, since you changed the short-name, you’ll need to update that in the templates as well.  One of the core concepts in ExpressionEngine is that there are no assumptions about data - templates and weblogs have no relationship other than the one that you create by calling those weblogs into your templates using the weblog’s short name.  Make a bit more sense?

And no worries!  I simply mention the other forums as those are the best way to get the fastest and most appropriate technical support as you learn the system.  =)

Lisa,

Thank you. There are some “conceptual hurdles” that are bit mind twisting for me because of certain terms in use here. (I’m not coming from a blogging point of interest.) I did get that there are “no assumptions”, but still learning where stuff is located, etc. I recognize that EE is a powerful CMS and as such my needs are not geared toward “weblog” application, though there is to be a blog in place. Sometime the terms throw me off track. I appreciate the courtesy I have seen here, as those of us new to EE try to wrap our heads around the terms in use.

I think that for my purposes it will be best to disengage the theme and follow the example in the tutorial to which you linked in post #2. I’d prefer to be seeing the HTML/CSS first anyway. I don’t do “change” well, when it comes to tools, but I’m looking forward to learning EE. The browser approach is just a bit foreign to me.

Thanks for your patience.

The terms for any new software can be difficult - you should see me with Photoshop!  But you will learn those, and we’re here to help. =)

You can also save templates as text files, if you prefer to work directly with the templates through your favorite editor.  That may help you out a bit.  The templates will still need to be created in the browser first, though.

Lisa, thank you for the reminder that the template needs to be created in the browser first. I expect that I will do my editing in Textmate and copy over to the CP. That has been my intention anyway.

Thanks.

The template needs to be created, but you can then Save templates as text files so you needn’t copy/paste from Textmate into EE after the initial creation.

Thank you. I had read that previously, but still absorbing the flow. I need to actually create some templates and weblogs and interact with them now. I think I’ve neared my limit of new info via reading for a while and will now benefit by some trial and error.

Good deal, Dale - don’t hesitate to post if you need help!