I know it’s degraded but please help

Well I’m not 100% positive what you’re looking for but I know that you can use tables in your layout and say define properties in a enclosed style-sheet if you want. If you want check out my site https://scudly.com and look at my Girls-Suck theme, I use tables to get a bunch of the layout things done because if I use stylesheets to define widths and whatnot each browser handles it differently. All you’d have to do is strip some of it away and possibly make your own ‘page’ within the wordpress system and use that as your index. I think something like that would work but I’m not 100%. But I do know you can use tables easily enough for your layout things.

Thanks! I think I wasn’t entirely clear but I can likely use your example and I appreciate it.

I should have explained this better. I’d like the template itself to include the tables so the content area is ready to be added by anyone, even if he doesn’t know HTML.

I’ve seen WP 1.5 sites that use tables but I’m not sure whether the templates themselves include them.

We’re getting closer though and I really appreciate your help.

Thanks! ??

G.

Many of us can sympathise with the position you are in. In these exceptional circumstances I might consider 2 lots of layout or CSS. Use the @import possibly to serve accordingly ?

the template itself to include the tables so the content area is ready to be added by anyone, even if he doesn’t know HTML.

Today I am unusually slow ?? – so I don’t get this above.
You can set up the template with tables or whatever (OK, some ppl here might not like it, but you still can!) and after that the bloggers don’t have to deal with it, or with the “content area”… they just go into the admin panel and type.

Errr. I don’t think it’s *you* that’s slow but me!

I’m looking at some really marvelous templates from the current contest (and others). I have a ton of them uploaded and ready to play. It’s almost sensory overload!!!

Right now I’m playing in the wonderful wuhan. Here’s the main template code:


<?php get_header(); ?>

<div id="content" class="narrowcolumn">

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<div class="post-top"><div class="post-bottom"><div class="entry"><div class="title">
<h2 id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
<small>Posted by <?php the_author() ?> on <?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?></small>

</div>

<?php the_content('Read the rest of this entry &raquo;'); ?>

<p class="postmetadata"> <?php the_category(', ') ?> <strong>|</strong> <?php edit_post_link('Edit','','<strong>|</strong>'); ?><?php comments_popup_link('No Comments »', '1 Comment »', '% Comments »'); ?></p>
</div>

</div></div>

<?php endwhile; ?>

<div class="navigation">
<div class="alignleft"><?php posts_nav_link('','','&laquo; Previous Entries') ?></div>
<div class="alignright"><?php posts_nav_link('','Next Entries &raquo;','') ?></div>
</div>

<?php else : ?>

<h2 class="center">Not Found</h2>
<p class="center"><?php _e("Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here."); ?></p>

<?php endif; ?>

</div>

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

Now see, all those PHP commands have me twitchy and useless. Even more than usual. Also, remember, I’m not using these as blogs although that may not matter. I’ve figured out how to eliminated the categories and post information – did that before and I think I remember.

But where in the above do I insert tables to make them part of my template?

Sorry to be so dense and I really, *really* appreciate the help and patience here.

G.

Well, if I were you, I’d go the other way around ??
As I understand the main reason for using tables is this –
for groups who still have Netscape 4.x users and I need to try to develop templates and themes that use tables
and as far as I remember their problem is that a DIV based layout doesn’t really work in earlier netscape browsers.
In this case I’d set up a page (index) built on table(s) and insert the template tags into it for whatever I need to call for.
If you just “insert” tables in the template you quoted, they will still have problems with all the div and css based layout.
just my $0.02

Hey there.

All the PHP commands are the ones that display the text that has been written it at the WordPress control panel. They are the “template tags” and they pull out the information from the database and put it on the page. A list of these tags are available on the Codex – https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Template_Tags .

To insert tables all you do is edit the HTML in what you pasted (the tags you recognise) and change it into the table layout that you require. Hopefully you can pick up what each of the PHP commands do as you go along (normally through trial and error!) and you will have your very own template at the end. Then you will have the tabular layout defined in your templates and all your users need to do is go to the WordPress administration area and fill in the form to make a post. WordPress will use your template to turn their post into a webpage that has the layout you wrote.

(A nicer way of doing the above would be to start from scratch – creating a template using just plain old HTML and text to represent your finished site. Then all you have to do is change the non-layout bits (so all the weblog posts, etc) into the template tags and then add that template to WordPress.)

Note that the design of the WordPress template system is such that each template file only makes up a small part of what is displayed on screen. The PHP commands that call get_header() get_footer() get_sidebar() all call *other* templates (that are in seperate files) that display bits on the screen. You can probably tell what they do from their names.

So for the template you have pasted above, it first of all tells WordPress to print the header (from a seperate template), then does its own work (displaying all the messages posted to the weblog) and finally tells WordPress to print the sidebar (that’s the navigation thingy that is usually on the left/right of every weblog) and then to print the footer of the page.*

And all you need to do is replace the HTML in the templates with the HTML that you want to display :).

* – moshu has written a really cool “Visual Anatomy of a WordPress Theme” and it pretty much outlines what I’ve said above in a nicer way.

If you have any more questions, fire away. I’ve probably made things 100 times more confusing…if so, ignore what I just said!

Thanks.

Rob

Rob, thanks so much. I think you’ve “shown me the way” both by your explanation and the link. Thanks also to Moshu but I do believe I’m going to get this working.

I’ll report back but I do feel confident that I’m on track now.

Again, thanks.

G.