Evo4 CMS Basics

If you’ve hacked WordPress themes before, you probably don’t need a lot of advice, but there are a few basics about Evo4 CMS we feel we should clue you in on to save you some time.

Making the blog appear in its own section, rather than as the default homepage

1. In the WordPress admin area, add a new page with "Home" title and select "Homepage" template (this template comes with Evo4 CMS theme).
2. Add a new page with the title "Blog." This is only to create a navigation item; you will never put text on this page.
3. Under Settings > Reading, set "Front page displays" to "A static page" by selecting the radio button. (We find "static" an odd label, given that all content on WordPress is contained in a database, but this is the label WP has chosen to differentiate between "pages" and "posts".)
4. Below that, select "Home" for Front page, and "Blog" for Posts page.
5. Organize the page order as appropriate.

UPDATED 4/9/10: subnavigation in left column on pages

If you have downloaded the most recent version of Simple Section Navigation (v. 2.0.1, 3/22/10), you must replace the code in the subnav with the following:

<ul>
<?php simple_section_nav(‘before_widget=<li>&after_widget=</li>&before_title=<p class="widgettitle">&after_title=</p>&a_heading=1′); ?>
</ul>

Currently, this version of the plugin, with the above before and after title settings, inserts a p tag inside the li tags on the first item. By default, SSN inserts an H2 tag on the first list item.

The rest of the info below still applies.

Making subnavigation appear in the left column on pages (prior to latest SSN update)

The following code is embedded in the subnav div on the default page template (page.php):

<ul>
    <?php simple_section_nav("<li>","</li>"); ?>
</ul>

If you install the Simple Section Navigation plugin, subnavigation items will automatically appear whenever there are at least two pages in a section. You can also exclude pages from being shown in the navigation by using the Exclude Pages from Navigation plugin. If you wish to have the parent page included on the list (as above, "Evo4 CMS Basics" appears on the subnav list), check the "Link heading" checkbox on the plugin configuration page. We suggest leaving all other options unchecked. [in new version of SSN plugin, there is no configuration page].

If you don’t wish to use the subnav div for subnavigation (perhaps because you prefer to use a dropdown menu only), you can delete or comment out the above code from the default page template and not install Simple Section Navigation (NOTE: leaving the code in place without installing Simple Section Navigation displays a "fatal error" in the sidebar and nothing below the sidebar renders; the footer disappears).

If you elect not to use Simple Section Navigation, you may still find the Exclude Pages plugin useful.

In cases where you want other things (such as a promotional message or newsletter signup box) to appear in the subnav column in some sections but not in others, one approach is to make a new page template for each particular section with your section-specific additions contained in the subnav. Remember to put the following code at the very top of the new template so that it’s available on the template list (see the homepage template for example):

<?php
/*
Template Name: Your template name
*/
?>

The other (in many cases, best) way to add other items to your subnav sidebar is with custom fields. But that’s a whole other subject.

Managing the widgets

There are 7 widget areas: 3 in the sidebar on the blog pages, and 4 on the footer (on all pages). The widget items shown on this example website are the default widget items for each area. You can remove the default items by adding a new widget in the WordPress admin area under Appearance > Widgets. You may elect to edit the default widget items directly on the footer (footer.php) rather than in the Widgets control panel. Doing so allows you to use PHP code in the widgets (e.g., the self-updating copyright date in footer3).

If you want to add executable PHP from within the Widgets control panel, you must install the Executable PHP Widgets plugin.