Ross This relates to an issue I've been thinking about for a while. If one had a pile of html and wanted to convert the docs to Forrest internal format, and then convert them back into html as a Forrest generated site presumably leaving the source documents in their original location would result in Forrest reconverting them whenever one of them was requested - which would slow things down quite a lot. As you would only really want this done once what would be the best way to approach a 'once-off' conversion' - run forrest once in 'build' mode, delete (or whatever) the original docs and then run Forrest in 'run' mode?
On 19/01/06, Ross Gardler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Gav.... wrote: > > Ok, so I have a site I have been throwing stuff into now and then, the > > forums seem to be getting more popular, as are the stats steadily > > rising. So I'd like to use forrest on it now. > > > > The site in question is http://www.minitutorials.com . > > ... > > > To the point, how do I now convert this site to use Forrest , v3 if possible > > but > > earlier if it illustrates it better to me. > > First thing to do is decide what you mean by "convert this site to use > Forrest". In your questions below you indicate many options. I'll give > you my own opinion and hopefully this will help you decide on exactly > what you mean. > > > David C prompted me into this inadvertantly with his HTML conversions of > > Incubator to Anakia. Do I have to manually re-write all of my sites .html or > > .php pages into xml source files or can I do this another way. > > Forrest is about integrating multiple input types. No, you do not need > to convert your existing content. David is doing the reverse for the > Incubator. They have html and want to use Anakia, thus he is helping > them convert from html to the necessary format by using Forrest. > > Forrest is already building the incubator site with the existing html > sources, no conversion is necessary. > > > Ah, theres > > something, most of my pages are PHP, does that make a difference. If it > > does, I'll get rid of them I dont care, theres not much PHP code that I cant > > do another way (or get rid). > > It really depends on what your PHP is doing. You mention (below) that > one use is the inclusion of the navigation on the left and the panels on > the right. This kind of inclusion need not be done in PHP, this would be > done by the dispatcher. > > However, if you have some content that is being generated by PHP then > you may choose to keep that PHP code and embed the output within your > Forrest skinned page. > > There is no one answer to this, you need to evaluate each case in > isolation. Forrest can support either keeping it or replacing it. > > > Then, looking at the site, can I then use CSS or whatever to somewhere near > > resemble what I have currently or not - again, I don't care, its a useful > > site, but > > hardly earth-shattering and could probably do with a makeover anyway - which > > when forrest-enabled I could do as often as I like with new themes right? > > Not a problem. Your site is pretty close to the default theme in the > dispatcher. All that is required is to either modify the theme so that > it uses the CSS lass names you define in your existing CSS or, use your > existing CSS definitions with the current theme class names. The latter > is probably easier. > > For an example look at the coat theme. This is really the default theme > with a few contracts removed and a modified CSS file. It does not define > any new contracts. > > --- > > How to proceed? > > I would forget about content in the first instance. Focus on getting > your theme to look right. Once that is done you can start migrating > content across. > > Do "forrest seed-v22 and modify the *.fv file and the CSS. See the > recent thread David started regarding a "quick start" for dispatcher. > > Ross >
