Hi Friends,
After some research (searching forum and manual) I haven't found very much helpful info about how to use the anycontent.php feature. So besides getting answers for myself, maybe this topic will help others too. Perhaps for someone who knows php, it's very clear how to use it. But for me, not so much.
When you read the manual section for the anycontent.php feature, it says you need to know php to use it. But in another topic where I made a new feature request for front page content, Andre answered this:
Just add your HTML code to the anycontent.php file. ...
So it sounds like I might be able to use it, since I do know some basic html. But exactly where to put the html is not clear to me. The example in the manual, and the actual anycontent.php file are entirely different (except for the <?php at the beginning, and ?> at the end). So I assume that the example in the manual displays an entirely different page (or section of a page) than the anycontent.php file. And of course I realize that the default anycontent.php file is not meant to be used as it is. But just as a user experience comment, it might be helpful if the example in the manual looks something like the actual default anycontent page (i.e. with the copyright, version, and license info included)
Anyway, since the example in the manual does not use html, I can't really use it as a guide....unless I actually want to display a message to guests, I guess.
In perusing the actual default anycontent.php file, the only recognizable html is between
echo <<< EOT
and
EOT;
which I assume is where the html code should go, as Andre suggested. Correct?
And it looks like the entire html content needs to go inside the css "tableb" class' cell (<td>). Is that correct? I guess the tableb class is what makes it look like part of the theme?
Could I make several cells (<td>)? What if I made another row (<tr>)? Or could I replace everything between the EOTs? Like for example, could I use a div element instead of tr? Or could I put an entire table, inside <table> tags? I guess it
is entirely possible to have an entire table inside a <td> element. So maybe these questions are moot? I guess if I replace the <tr> tags, I lose the tableb styling, right?
I'm actually not sure exactly how I want to use the anycontent feature. What I
am sure about is that I want to get rid of the Random section. My first idea is just to display the same 2 or 3 images, all the time. If my gallery becomes very popular, I may want to use it for a Featured Images or Featured Artist section, which would change periodically. So far, the gallery hasn't caught on yet, so I'm very limited in what to display there. But let's start with the idea of having 2 images displayed in this new section (or maybe it's called a block?).
Do I write the html using <img> tags? What do I put for the URL, to have the thumbnail show up? If I can make the thumbnail show up, would I need to make the images to be active links to the intermediate page (<a href=url>)? Or is the thumbnail automatically a link?
Just above the starting EOT it says:
starttable("100%", $lang_index_php['welcome']);
Does that mean it displays the word "welcome" in whatever language the user uses? So for example, where it says "Random files" in the attached image -- is that where "Welcome" will show up, in this new section/block? If that's the case, then I might want to change it, to something like "Featured images". Or is 'welcome' just part of the code, and doesn't get displayed?
Thanks for you help and patience with all my newbie-ness