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Thread: Customization Advice Needed for Pebble V2.2




Customization Advice Needed for Pebble V2.2
user name
2007-08-18 17:11:48
Having battled my way through most of the upgrade to Pebble
version
2.2, I am now settling in to down the cosmetic tweaking, but
I am
having some difficulty doing so.

First of all, half of the help screens (especially those
involving
theme, decorators, and most if not all of the developer
notes) seem to
be missing, so this adds to the challenge.

In my case, I have upwards of ten or twelve different blogs,
with
Pebble running in multi-user mode, but with aggregation
turned off.

Basically, I need to include a few global javascript include
hooks as
well as some html snippets in places that get picked up in
different
groups of blogs without having to have individual
template.jsp and
screen.css files for each blog.

Ideally I would like to create around two or three different
themes
which larger groups of blogs could all share.  This strategy
doesn't
seem to work very well as, regardless of what gets created
in the
webapps directory, the only themes which seem to appear in
the user
data directory are those associated with a particular blog. 
I could
simply hack the default theme files to get what I want, but
unfortunately I have several different web domains all
sharing
different groups of blogs on the same back-end pebble web
application
server (so they all share the same default theme).

Short of that, I would settle for adding this kind of code
to the
template.jsp of each blog, but I seem to be running into
errors when
tweaking the individual template.jsp files, which results in
an
automatic reset to  the default theme.  The odd thing is
that the
actual template.jsp and screen.css files which initially get
placed
into the directory of each blog appear to be empty files, so
it isn't
clear what should be used as a starting point for these
theme files
(short of manually copying the source code from the files in
the
default directory).

Obviously, my problems are likely located somewhere in my
blog theme
files, most of which have been manually refreshed to the new
default
theme files, but which seem to contain errors of some sort. 
Given
that I am an upgraded web site, I suspect that some of the
errors
could be lingering obsolete files hiding in the Tomcat work
directory
(or elsewhere).

I think a couple of features which would be helpful in
cleaning up the
mess which can quickly accumulate in these cases (especially
to people
such as myself who are upgrading) is a way to :

(1) Remove and/or archive an existing blog.
(2) Remove and/or archive an existing theme.

Either that, or simply some instructions on which files need
to be
removed to effect these changes.  My guess is that, to
delete a theme
for example, there might need to be as many as three
different sets of
deletions.  For example to delete a theme named
"Foo", the following
three directories might need to be deleted (assuming a
Tomcat web
container in this example) :

(1) /pebble/Foo/theme.
(2) /webapps/pebble/themes/user-Foo
(3)
/work/Catalina/localhost/pebble/org/apache/jsp
/themes/user_002dFoo

Most of the things I am attempting to change are relatively
trivial,
like shrinking the height of the header image from 200 to
100 so as to
better fit a custom header image I have successfully
substituted.
This sort of thing would seem like a simple edit to the
#header
section of the screen.css style sheet.  Doing so doesn't
seem to
change anything however.  It isn't until I change the
default theme
header image and reset to the default theme that I see any
changes.
This is obviously due to the fact that something is still
sensing bugs
hiding in my blog's theme files causing the reversion to the
default
theme every time (even though my theme files are themselves
copied
from the default).

Thanks

David McLure

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Re: Customization Advice Needed for Pebble V2.2
user name
2007-08-19 17:44:51
Update:

I seem to have located the source of the errors which were
plaguing my
pebble installation and  to everyone's relief, it was my own
doing.

Among other things, I had previously attempted to create a
generic
theme which was independent of any blog, thinking that this
was the
only way to share a theme, but this was causing problems
since a theme
apparently needs to be associated with a blog in order to
function
properly (mine was not associated with a blog, but was
merely a
directory of theme files I had created somehow back in
v2.0.1 days.
Anyway, long story short, I eliminated this old theme and
everything
began behaving again.

I have since learned that the easiest way to create a shared
theme is
to simply pick one of the themes in the group of blogs that
can share
themes and get this theme the way you want it - then simply
have the
other blogs use this theme.  The only real difference
between this and
my previous failed strategy is that the shared theme is now
a
legitimate theme, complete with its own blog (which created
it).

If none of this makes any sense, then no worries.  The
important point
is to know that Pebble version 2.2 is awesome!  (albeit
missing some
help pages).

David McLure

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Re: Customization Advice Needed for Pebble V2.2
user name
2007-08-20 03:14:41
Hi David,

Some responses inline.

Cheers
Simon

On 8/19/07, David McLure <davidmclures.net> wrote:
> Update:
>
> I seem to have located the source of the errors which
were plaguing my
> pebble installation and  to everyone's relief, it was
my own doing.
>
> Among other things, I had previously attempted to
create a generic
> theme which was independent of any blog, thinking that
this was the
> only way to share a theme, but this was causing
problems since a theme
> apparently needs to be associated with a blog in order
to function
> properly (mine was not associated with a blog, but was
merely a
> directory of theme files I had created somehow back in
v2.0.1 days.
> Anyway, long story short, I eliminated this old theme
and everything
> began behaving again.

This will work - a theme is just a directory of files. If
you want to
create a new theme that is independent of a blog, just don't
prefix
the name of the directory with "user-".
"default" and "simple" are two
examples of blog independent themes.

> I have since learned that the easiest way to create a
shared theme is
> to simply pick one of the themes in the group of blogs
that can share
> themes and get this theme the way you want it - then
simply have the
> other blogs use this theme.  The only real difference
between this and
> my previous failed strategy is that the shared theme is
now a
> legitimate theme, complete with its own blog (which
created it).
>
> If none of this makes any sense, then no worries.  The
important point
> is to know that Pebble version 2.2 is awesome!  (albeit
missing some
> help pages).

Which help files are you missing?

> David McLure
>
>
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> Still grepping through log files to find problems? 
Stop.
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AJAX and a browser.
> Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >>  http://get.splunk.com/
> _______________________________________________
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> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/pebble-user

>

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Still grepping through log files to find problems?  Stop.
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