Standard Page Layout


The standard page layout provides five user areas on the screen:

  • Banner
  • Left Sidebar
  • Main content
  • Right Sidebar
  • Footer

The standard layout of the site is fixed by the src/main.php script. You can edit that script to alter the overall layout if you wish. However, the basic layout will work for most websites. The structure produced by the main.php script is shown below.

Layout and CSS ids

Each of the identifiers references a style in the standard stylesheet. You can change the border, colors, fonts, background color and image by editing the stylesheet. Any area can be hidden by setting the appropriate value in the $showStuff global variable. See the  settings file for more information.

By default, the banner displays the file "logo.jpg" from the root directory of your site. You can overwrite the logo image with your own image.

By default, the left sidebar displays a table of contents (TOC) and a RSS feed link. The TOC file contains the list of files and titles you want to display. The TOC file can be either an XML file (toc.xml), a simple text file (toc.txt). The plain text file contains lines of value pairs in the form page=title. If neither file is specified in the settings file, a directory listing of the pages directory is used to generate the TOC. Entries are added to the TOC file as pages are created or updated. The title entry field and checkbox at the top of the editor form are provided for the TOC information. If you want to change the order of the TOC entries, use the [Edit TOC] function on the right sidebar. Note that you will be directly editing either the XML or text file, so you must make sure the format of the file remains valid.

By default, the right sidebar contains a login form, or the functions available after login. These functions are provided through pre-defined pages located in the pages directory with the names beginning with an underscore (_). Edit these pages to include additional functionality. If you don't want the login form to show up but still want to be able to login, edit the settings.php file to disable the form, and then use the following URL to login:

index.php?page=default&login=name&pass=pass

Any area can load a HTML file for its content. The contents can be created from the site after it is running by creating the appropriate page. Login and use the "Create New Page" button from the left sidebar to create the appropriate page:

  • Banner - banner.html
  • Left sidebar - lside.html
  • Right sidebar - rside.html
  • Footer - foot.html

If these pages are defined, additional functions to edit these pages will appear in the default right sidebar.