An open letter / question to forum users

Hello to everyone reading this-

I purchased Canvas 2 days ago and I am unsure as to how to proceed using the templates. I posted a question to the moderator/author asking for advise but have not received a response yet (too soon I guess being the weekend) and would very much like to get going. I am not entirely new to html coding having created some basic sites many years ago using Dreamweaver (pre-HTML5).

I am curious at to how the rest of you have proceeded with the Canvas templates. Did you load a template into a text HTML editor and start searching through code to find the correct code to change? Has anyone used a wysiswyg editor to visually see the template and help you locate the corresponding code? How about some editor recommendations? Which editors do you guys use? Tips? Tricks? etc. Seems to me that it is a daunting task to find the correct code as some of these templates are very large and complex.... but I am sure that many of you have some tips and hope that some of you would be willing to pass them on.

Any help or recommendations would be very much appreciated.

Ivan

Hi Ivan,

It can be a bit overwhelming because there is so much there - but when you actually delve into it, it's actually sort of simple. Unzip the download file to a folder and look in the documentation folder, and open the Index.HTML file there. In the installation section, copy the directories it tells you over to your web server.

Now, as far as using the templates, it's really a matter of looking through the ones they provide, choosing what one(s) you like and copying them over and customizing them to your liking. I used to do web development years ago - I got out of it right when CSS was coming out, and I never really liked any WYSIWYG type tools. I still like Notepad+ (freeware program). A lot of people use Atom.

For customizing, you have to be somewhat careful about just changing things in the code, unless you know what you are doing. It's one of my slight criticisms about Canvas - they don't really give very good documentation IMO... not at a very detailed level anyway. But in addition to the documentation, open up the Canvas website --> http://themes.semicolonweb.com/html/canvas/intro.php

Roll over the shortcodes tab up top and find pages showing various features. If you want to add those features, open up the page in your directory structure that the shortcodes is being used on. Example - you look at the buttons shortcode page on the Canvas website and it's buttons.php. So you open buttons.html in your Canvas root directory and find the code for the button you liked - then you copy and paste it into the page you want it on.

Don't forget to also look at the Features, Pages and Portfolio menu tabs on the Canvas website - some stuff is found in there too that isn't in the shortcodes list.

Hi Mike-

thank you for your reply!!! as I think I stated I am familiar with HTML (pre-CSS) and and coded a couple of pages back in the late 90's early 2000's. So the code is not unfamiliar. As you indicated the documentation is very poor... considering their ad states how simple it is to make changes. There should be a step by step tutorial pretty much like you laid out....
Such as: "step 3 - lets start with a simple page. Using any HTML text editor lets open the "template for dummys" in your HTML folder. Step 4- find the code that says blah blah blah. This is where you will insert your logo." etc. It would probably take them all of 30 minutes to construct a simple beginner instruction page - eben using the templates they have

In any event- I already started coding- using one of the video templates I have a nice video as my background and removed parts I didnt need by commenting them out ( shopping cart, search etc.) I figure better to comment them out then lose the code if I ever need it.

BUT I am having a tough time with the menu. I dont need all of the fancy drop downs... only 5 or 6 clickable links to product page; about; contact form etc. Simple! I know how to code all of the simple HTML menu items. I just cant figure out what to remove. All of the fancy menu css coding and widgets has me confused. Every time I comment stuff out, other things get out of whack. (The menu bar disappears entirely or it fills up the whole page- etc).

See another good tutorial- "How to edit the menu bar>"

Anyone have any ideas on removing and/or editing the menu bar code?

Ivan

I recommend starting with something bare bones like Codecademy.com

They are going to give you a very basic understanding of what everything is and how it all goes together. By the end of it you'll probably be frustrated and think "wtf..... what do I do now? Start JS'ing things?". The learning curve for me went from staring at HTML and code all day without really getting what I was looking at but very gradually everything started to fall into place and I understood the information. Just gotta 'brute force' it into your head at first and then everything starts clicking. You'll learn a lot faster by actually building the website using this template. But you can't really use the template unless you understand the nomenclature / jargon of the information being presented to you.

To get that basic level of understanding:
codecademy.com

followed by:

bitbucket
github
google

Now, enjoy your puzzle!
-Van