Would it be possible to make this front page/news blog with SMF?

Started by Dwev, November 09, 2017, 07:13:37 PM

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Dwev

I'm tinkering with SMF for a few days, it should in the near future serve as our new forum software, and I like it a lot so far.

Now I'm wondering if I could use SMF also to make a new version of our homepage, maybe with the help of a portal.

Our current (Dutch language) homepage van be found at macfreak.nl

To be sure that you can see it, I included a screenshot as well.

Colin

Welcome to SMF,

That is definitely possible. Almost all of the portal solutions should work (SimplePortal etc...).
"If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody is not thinking." - Gen. George S. Patton Jr.

Colin

Dwev

The news on the left of the page is written on the forum, in a board that it specifically created for this reason (and only editors can write there).

The topics on the right are the titles of forum threads that had the most recent activity.

Can anybody explain or give pointers how to do this with SMF?
I tried SimplePortal, ezPortal and TinyPortal and got the idea that this can't be done with those.

Am I wrong?

Shambles

You are wrong.

My portal of choice - SimplePortal - certainly does this. For the left hand side you'd create an "Articles" block; on the right side you'd use a "Recent posts" block.

Dwev

Thanks everybody for helping, at least it seems that I'm going in the right direction now...    ;)

I made a Home Page with SimplePortal, the work in progress can be seen here: robert-benschop.nl/smf/index.php

But some questions remain, here are the most pressing right now:

• Is it possible to cut off articles after a set number of lines, instead of a set number of characters?
• If people click on Read More they are immediately referred to the forum, how can I keep them in the articles/news itself?
• Can I set a maximum width for blocks?
• Is it possible to only display the titles of the Recent Posts?

Shambles

Glad things are moving on for you.

Your queries are actually Simple Portal configuration/settings related - you'd be better off asking in the SP support thread where SP users would give better guidance ;)

Dwev

@ sǝๅqɯɐɥS: you're right, I'll post my questions over there.

lurkalot

A very quick and dirty layout using Tinyportal As it's using a responsive theme I used the responsive version of TP

Dwev

@ lurkalot: wow, impressive.

Am I right that you think this is easier to do in TinyPortal instead of SimplePortal?

And can you share how you made the layout in your first image?
Because that's very close to what I want to achieve.

lurkalot

Quote from: Dwev on November 11, 2017, 10:07:36 AM
@ lurkalot: wow, impressive.

Am I right that you think this is easier to do in TinyPortal instead of SimplePortal?

And can you share how you made the layout in your first image?
Because that's very close to what I want to achieve.

Easier for me, yes, I don't use SP.  ;)

Like I said it's a quick and dirty mockup which I put on one of my test sites, you can check it here live to see if it's close, and what would need tweaking. http://cctestsite.info/testsite2/index.php

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