Trouble with composite layout for editions

Hi Michael,

Thanks for using ProsePoint. I think there are multiple things happening here, so let's treat them one by one.

> I'm having trouble getting an edition to display content specified in
> the zones when composite layouts is enabled.

Can you tell me more about the specifics of your situation? Such as:

You have an edition node and you have selected a composite layout in the node's edit form, yes?

> display content specified

There are multiple types of 'content'. Are you trying to display fields (ie. Headlines), blocks, nodes, something else? In the Zone's tab, what is listed in the table as Items?

> (BTW, not sure exactly how composite and panels are same and different
> as I'd like to add some features in panels but they seem to conflict with errors.)

Composite Layout is a completely different solution from Panels, although addressing similar functionality. Can you tell me what 'some features in panels' you were thinking of?

> Also, not only do I have a blank page below the header, I can't get the
> edition to be "current" regardless of date or number of editions (like 1).

You mean, you can't make it say 'current' instead of 'Thursday, November 27th ...' ? The 'edition' field is actually a textarea that the user fills in (so they can put anything they want in it). If, when creating an edition, the edition textfield is left blank, the edition textfield is automatically filled in with the date (at time of posting). However, this is just a sentence which the user is free to change at any time.

> I still can't see a composite page displayed when I click on the channel
> it is set for; only when I view it specifically.

Not sure I understand fully the situation you're describing (and once you work out the above, you may work this out for yourself anyway), but ... Composite Layout only operates on nodes/editions when display in full view. Composite Layout doesn't do anything to nodes viewed in shortened (ie. teaser) form.

Please consider what I've written above, and if you'd like more clarification or discussion, please let me know.

Thank you so much for your prompt reply!

I apologize for not giving you more accurate descriptions of the
issues. I'll do my best to answer your follow up questions, below.

On Nov 26, 2008, at 7:54 PM, bengtan wrote:

> Your question #52611 on ProsePoint changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/prosepoint/+question/52611
>
> Status: Open => Needs information
>
> bengtan requested for more information:
> Hi Michael,
>
> Thanks for using ProsePoint. I think there are multiple things
> happening
> here, so let's treat them one by one.
>
>
>> I'm having trouble getting an edition to display content specified in
>> the zones when composite layouts is enabled.
>
> Can you tell me more about the specifics of your situation? Such as:
>
> You have an edition node and you have selected a composite layout in
> the
> node's edit form, yes?

Yes, that is correct.

>> display content specified
>
> There are multiple types of 'content'. Are you trying to display
> fields
> (ie. Headlines), blocks, nodes, something else? In the Zone's tab,
> what
> is listed in the table as Items?

I have a range of node types in there because I'm experimenting, but
mostly I want to display story nodes and I have a few of those. I've
done that by trying headlines as a blanket content type to collect
what was recently published, then the specific ones with numbers to
control the actual content builds, then specific stories with video
and images. All of those work fine when I display the NEWS node by
selecting the view tab. The issue is that nothing at all displays when
I click on the logo for the front page, or when I hit the equivalent
button for NEWS. I get the error: "There is no edition scheduled for
this channel. You probably want to create a new edition for this
channel."

>> (BTW, not sure exactly how composite and panels are same and
>> different
>> as I'd like to add some features in panels but they seem to
>> conflict with errors.)
>
> Composite Layout is a completely different solution from Panels,
> although addressing similar functionality. Can you tell me what 'some
> features in panels' you were thinking of?

I'd like to create more complex layouts and I'd like to be able to put
rounded corner lines around the content and not just have white space.
This isn't ideal in every case, but Panels gives me the option to be
specific about which panels have rounded corners.

>> Also, not only do I have a blank page below the header, I can't get
>> the
>> edition to be "current" regardless of date or number of editions
>> (like 1).
>
> You mean, you can't make it say 'current' instead of 'Thursday,
> November
> 27th ...' ? The 'edition' field is actually a textarea that the user
> fills in (so they can put anything they want in it). If, when creating
> an edition, the edition textfield is left blank, the edition textfield
> is automatically filled in with the date (at time of posting).
> However,
> this is just a sentence which the user is free to change at any time.

I realize this was unclear, sorry.

The scheduling function doesn't seem to work because regardless of
what date I set it to, either by leaving it blank or specifying a date
manually, the Editions Manager either says "past" or "future" edition
but never "current." That, however, is NOT the case with a sister
installation. On that other installation I can get the Editions
Manager to read "current," but it still won't display any content if
"composite layout" is selected.

>> I still can't see a composite page displayed when I click on the
>> channel
>> it is set for; only when I view it specifically.
>
> Not sure I understand fully the situation you're describing (and once
> you work out the above, you may work this out for yourself anyway),
> but
> ... Composite Layout only operates on nodes/editions when display in
> full view. Composite Layout doesn't do anything to nodes viewed in
> shortened (ie. teaser) form.

I do have "Full node" selected for content as well as "Title (link)"
and "Teaser."

> Please consider what I've written above, and if you'd like more
> clarification or discussion, please let me know.

By the way, if you're willing, I'd like to ask you a little about
theming this impressive profile in a future exchange, including drop
down suckerfish menus (I was partly able to get YUI menus to work but
not fully) and more customized pages, but I'll wait until this issue
is past.

Thank you very much for your time and best regards,

~Michael K

Hi,

> I've done that by trying headlines as a blanket content type

Well, actually Headlines is a CCK field which references story nodes. Slight correction of terminology, but probably unimportant.

> "There is no edition scheduled for this channel. You probably want to
> create a new edition for this channel."

This is probably your issue. What channel is your edition node configured for? (Since channels are taxonomy terms with extra settings, the equivalent question is ... what term/category did you select for your edition?).

If you are viewing the NEWS channel, you'll be viewing the latest edition associated for that channel. The error message is telling you there are no editions associated with that channel.

> I'd like to create more complex layouts and I'd like to be able to put rounded corner lines around the content and not just have white space.

Hmmm... Composite Layout isn't as full featured as Panels. Inbuilt rounded corners could be a feature request, but I'm not sure what the priority will be.

However, you can create rounded corners yourself (presuming you can do it with HTML/CSS already). Just override a template file (ie. modules/composite/theme/composite-layout-threecol-33-33-33.tpl.php) by copying it into your own theme, modify it (to add the extra <div>'s you need) and then add the styles to your theme's CSS file. I'm presuming you are already fluent with the techniques used for making rounded corners, otherwise this paragraph won't make sense.

> The scheduling function doesn't seem to work because regardless of what date I set it to, either by leaving it blank or specifying a date manually, the Editions Manager either says "past" or "future" edition but never "current."

My guess is that you've got two distinct fields confused. One is the 'Edition' field, one is the 'Scheduled for' field. You can change 'Edition' to whatever you want (and it is auto-populated by the 'Scheduled for' field if left blank. However, scheduling is controlled by the 'Scheduled for' field.

However, can I get you to try something? Run cron once (you can do this from .../admin/reports/status/run-cron which redirects back to the Status Report) and see if the Editions Manager says something different. Running cron shouldn't change anything, but if it does, it indicates a cache-ing issue.

BTW, do you have page cacheing enabled (from .../admin/settings/performance) ?

> On that other installation I can get the Editions Manager to read "current," but it still won't display any content if "composite layout" is selected.

I'd like to defer this one until the previous is resolved first. Let's sort out one issue at a time.

> I do have "Full node" selected for content as well as "Title (link)" and "Teaser."

Say you have a node A (which is composite layout enabled) which displays node B & C as part of A's composite layout. Node A will only display as a composite layout when node A is viewed as a full node, not when node A is viewed as a teaser node. Whether nodes B or C are displayed as title, teaser, full, as no bearing on the decision by Composite Layout whether to operate on node A.

> By the way, if you're willing, I'd like to ask you a little about theming this

Sure, but I agree with you. Let's sort out these issues first.

Thank you for spending the time to answer my questions.

A quick few replies, below:

>> "There is no edition scheduled for this channel. You probably want to
>> create a new edition for this channel."
>
> This is probably your issue. What channel is your edition node
> configured for? (Since channels are taxonomy terms with extra
> settings,
> the equivalent question is ... what term/category did you select for
> your edition?).
>
> If you are viewing the NEWS channel, you'll be viewing the latest
> edition associated for that channel. The error message is telling you
> there are no editions associated with that channel.

Perhaps I don't understand the workflow? I have indeed set the edition
node for the NEWS channel, which sets the title of the edition to the
channel name. But the schedule for field does not relay a "current"
status (it only reads "past" or "future," not "current"), regardless
of the date I set with the list buttons of the schedule field.

Maybe the date preference is not set properly? I don't use the same as
the default for Australia that ships with Pp, so maybe by setting my
preference that is creating a conflict somewhere? Anyway, I just
selected "create a new edition" to make a fresh one, I select the NEWS
channel and add one story to the headlines CCK field (which in this
case sources a YouTube video), then I let the site determine the
schedule field by default, which was "Friday, 28 November 2008
12pm" (my current time in New York City is 12:55 pm), but the Editions
Manager says it's a future edition??? Finally, when I click on the
news menu button, I still have nothing show up and still see the
error: "There is no edition scheduled for this channel. You probably
want to create a new edition for this channel." It does show up in the
All Editions tab where I can view it, but it just isn't displaying.

>> I'd like to create more complex layouts and I'd like to be able to
>> put rounded corner lines around the content and not just have white
>> space.
>
> Hmmm... Composite Layout isn't as full featured as Panels. Inbuilt
> rounded corners could be a feature request, but I'm not sure what the
> priority will be.
>
> However, you can create rounded corners yourself (presuming you can do
> it with HTML/CSS already). Just override a template file (ie.
> modules/composite/theme/composite-layout-threecol-33-33-33.tpl.php) by
> copying it into your own theme, modify it (to add the extra <div>'s
> you
> need) and then add the styles to your theme's CSS file. I'm presuming
> you are already fluent with the techniques used for making rounded
> corners, otherwise this paragraph won't make sense.

I can understand most of what you're saying but haven't had a lot of
success duplicating the Pp theme and making modifications to template
files. I do see there is a new edition to Pp that now supports layout
sets, which seems useful when I can get to the point of specifying
complex layouts and having them show up in the edition!

>> The scheduling function doesn't seem to work because regardless of
>> what date I set it to, either by leaving it blank or specifying a
>> date manually, the Editions Manager either says "past" or "future"
>> edition but never "current."
>
> My guess is that you've got two distinct fields confused. One is the
> 'Edition' field, one is the 'Scheduled for' field. You can change
> 'Edition' to whatever you want (and it is auto-populated by the
> 'Scheduled for' field if left blank. However, scheduling is controlled
> by the 'Scheduled for' field.
>
> However, can I get you to try something? Run cron once (you can do
> this
> from .../admin/reports/status/run-cron which redirects back to the
> Status Report) and see if the Editions Manager says something
> different.
> Running cron shouldn't change anything, but if it does, it indicates a
> cache-ing issue.
>
> BTW, do you have page cacheing enabled (from
> .../admin/settings/performance) ?

I ran cron but nothing stands out other than I need to update a couple
modules and the new Pp .10 version. I also turned off caching a while
back while troubleshooting a different issue.

>> On that other installation I can get the Editions Manager to read
> "current," but it still won't display any content if "composite
> layout"
> is selected.
>
> I'd like to defer this one until the previous is resolved first. Let's
> sort out one issue at a time.
>
>> I do have "Full node" selected for content as well as "Title (link)"
> and "Teaser."
>
> Say you have a node A (which is composite layout enabled) which
> displays
> node B & C as part of A's composite layout. Node A will only display
> as
> a composite layout when node A is viewed as a full node, not when
> node A
> is viewed as a teaser node. Whether nodes B or C are displayed as
> title,
> teaser, full, as no bearing on the decision by Composite Layout
> whether
> to operate on node A.

Somehow my other Pp site is working now, so I can show content for
composite layout enabled or not when clicking on the menu button for
the channel. Weird. But for this site it's still broken, so I am
guessing that has directly to do with not being able to have the
scheduler set a "current edition."

By the way, I will mention in case it matters that I'm trying to
develop a complicated taxonomy structure with nodes that live in
several areas, so in addition to the channels, I'm trying to create
additional multiple selection boxes so that a story is placed in more
than one area of the site.

Thank you again,

~Michael K

Hi,

I think I might need to have a closer look, otherwise we're likely to keep ping-ponging messages back and forth.

Is it possible for you to ...

Create me an Editor account (or if not, then a Staff account) on your site?

Or else,

Can you send me a mysql database dump/export of your site? (I don't need your .../files directory)

If doing the first, do NOT put the username/password in a reply to this (otherwise it gets publicly posted up at Launchpad).

You can reach me privately from the information at https://launchpad.net/~bengtan (or else use the contact form www.prosepoint.org/contact).

> trying to develop a complicated taxonomy structure

That should be no problem. Only taxonomy terms in the 'Channels' vocabulary get treated as channels, but channels are just terms with extra settings, so there should be no issue.

It would be my pleasure to create an Editor or even admin account for
you. I'll do that tomorrow morning.

Thank you very much,

~Michael K

On Nov 28, 2008, at 8:41 PM, bengtan wrote:

> Your question #52611 on ProsePoint changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/prosepoint/+question/52611
>
> Status: Open => Needs information
>
> bengtan requested for more information:
> Hi,
>
> I think I might need to have a closer look, otherwise we're likely to
> keep ping-ponging messages back and forth.
>
> Is it possible for you to ...
>
> Create me an Editor account (or if not, then a Staff account) on your
> site?
>
> Or else,
>
> Can you send me a mysql database dump/export of your site? (I don't
> need
> your .../files directory)
>
> If doing the first, do NOT put the username/password in a reply to
> this
> (otherwise it gets publicly posted up at Launchpad).
>
> You can reach me privately from the information at
> https://launchpad.net/~bengtan (or else use the contact form
> www.prosepoint.org/contact).
>
>> trying to develop a complicated taxonomy structure
>
> That should be no problem. Only taxonomy terms in the 'Channels'
> vocabulary get treated as channels, but channels are just terms with
> extra settings, so there should be no issue.
>
> --
> To answer this request for more information, you can either reply to
> this email or enter your reply at the following page:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/prosepoint/+question/52611
>
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.

Hi,

Re: scheduling of editions for News channel ...

It looks your site has been upgraded to date 6.x-2.0-rc5. Unfortunately, there is a bug in that version that breaks any views that uses date filtering.

See http://drupal.org/node/339348#comment-1132160

ProsePoint uses the view channel_editions_archive to implement scheduling of editions, and it uses date filtering.

Upgrading to Date 6.x-2.0-rc5 broke ProsePoint.

Please downgrade back to the version that comes with ProsePoint, or else take this issue up with the module maintainer.

You found it!

Thank you so much for taking a look at this for long enough to sort
this out. I see from the issue you cite, below, that KarenS fixed the
bug in the -dev version, so I've since installed that one for the time
being and things are back to working!

I suppose this is a good lesson in the importance of upgrading
ProsePoint versions completely and not one module at a time since
there is time spent on checking the compatibility of modules. The
newest module is not necessarily the best one, even though in most
cases it is, so I'll be more careful to log any changes to the Pp
version if I make any.

Again, many thanks for your help. It's nice to know you're out there. :)

~MK

On Nov 30, 2008, at 8:57 PM, bengtan wrote:

> Your question #52611 on ProsePoint changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/prosepoint/+question/52611
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> bengtan proposed the following answer:
> Hi,
>
> Re: scheduling of editions for News channel ...
>
> It looks your site has been upgraded to date 6.x-2.0-rc5.
> Unfortunately,
> there is a bug in that version that breaks any views that uses date
> filtering.
>
> See http://drupal.org/node/339348#comment-1132160
>
> ProsePoint uses the view channel_editions_archive to implement
> scheduling of editions, and it uses date filtering.
>
> Upgrading to Date 6.x-2.0-rc5 broke ProsePoint.
>
> Please downgrade back to the version that comes with ProsePoint, or
> else
> take this issue up with the module maintainer.
>
> --
> If this answers your question, please go to the following page to
> let us
> know that it is solved:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/prosepoint/+question/52611/+confirm?answer_id=6
>
> If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
> following page to enter your feedback:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/prosepoint/+question/52611
>
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.

Thanks bengtan, that solved my question.