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Help with Customizable Event Designs

Posted: February 12, 2014 at 1:06 pm

Viewing 30 reply threads


mblair

February 12, 2014 at 1:06 pm

I’ve read through all the documentation, help files within EE 4.1.1 and the WordPress page about Post Type Templates. I’ve copied the archive.php and single.php files from my theme, changed their names to the EE version and moved them back into my theme folder. I see them there. I’ve gone back in to EE and now don’t know what to do. I want to be able to customize those pages as I would a normal theme page. I admit I’m a bit of a hack so I may be way off on the steps I’ve taken?? Advise?


Lorenzo Orlando Caum

  • Support Staff

February 12, 2014 at 4:07 pm

Hi there,

I believe you are referring to these steps in the help tab for the Critical Pages screen:

http://cl.ly/image/1T0u3M2w1G0E

The changes should be made in the location below using an FTP or SFTP client (FileZilla and Cyberduck are free options):

wp-content/themes/yourthemefolder

Does your theme have an existing archive.php file in the location above?

If so, you can duplicate that file (create a copy) and then rename it to archive-espresso_events.php. This will tell Event Espresso to use this theme template for the events list page and you can make edits to customize this file as needed.

Then you would want to follow similar steps to create a single-espresso_events.php theme template which would be only used for your Event Espresso single events page. Duplicate the single.php file in your theme folder and rename to single-espresso_events.php.

Let me know if this helps!


Lorenzo


mblair

February 12, 2014 at 5:47 pm

I did all the steps you outlined above. I guess where I’m stuck is I don’t know how to ” make edits to customize this file as needed.” There doesn’t seem to be a Page called Events that I can customize using my theme. What am I missing?


Lorenzo Orlando Caum

  • Support Staff

February 12, 2014 at 6:37 pm

The Events list page is now virtual and doesn’t use a shortcode on a WordPress page. However, you can use the following shortcode on a WordPress Page to show a list of your events:

[ESPRESSO_EVENTS]

Create a WordPress page with a slug of “events” and then add the shortcode above and save changes.

What changes are you trying to make?

The archive-espresso_events.php and single-espresso_events.php are useful for creating a different layout just for Event Espresso content.


Lorenzo


mblair

February 12, 2014 at 6:52 pm

OK, I made a new page called Events with the slug as events. http://motorsdrivestraining.com/events/
It doesn’t look anything like the other pages on my site. See http://motorsdrivestraining.com


Lorenzo Orlando Caum

  • Support Staff

February 13, 2014 at 11:29 am

Hello again,

Your site appears to be using styling for a blog page / archive page for your Event Espresso content.

Also, I see that your navigation content and footer content are missing. I believe I can fix this with some minor adjustments to your theme templates.

Could you please create and share a temporary WordPress admin login and a temporary SFTP or FTP login?

Then securely submit that temporary information through this link:

https://eventespresso.com/send-login-details/

Cheers


Lorenzo


mblair

February 13, 2014 at 2:40 pm

@lorenzo Did you get my login info?


Lorenzo Orlando Caum

  • Support Staff

February 13, 2014 at 4:04 pm

Hi Melissa, I’ve responded privately about the temporary information. You should receive a message to your email account shortly.


Lorenzo


mblair

February 14, 2014 at 10:22 am

@Lorenzo, things seemed to break when I did this step:
If so, you can duplicate that file (create a copy) and then rename it to archive-espresso_events.php. This will tell Event Espresso to use this theme template for the events list page and you can make edits to customize this file as needed.

Should I delete those files and try and start over?


mblair

February 17, 2014 at 9:55 am

@lorenzo. Can you send me a snapshot of what a customizable event design could look like? I’m not sure how the Arabica theme plays into this? I would really like to be able to get this fixed. Any ideas?


Dean

February 18, 2014 at 12:41 am

Hi,

Regarding “If so, you can duplicate that file (create a copy) and then rename it to archive-espresso_events.php”

Basically, copying the themes archive.php and single.php is the best way forward.

You will end up, initially, with 2 identical files one called archives.php and one called archives-espresso_events.php (and the same for single).

You can then edit the espresso_events versions and they will be used to display the events.

You may also need to create/copy other files depending on how the theme is set up.

For example with the Twentyfourteen default theme you would need to create a new template for the content as well.

You will need HTML, PHP and maybe some CSS skills to achieve this, so you may wish to contact a developer for assistance – https://eventespresso.com/developers/event-espresso-pros/


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 18, 2014 at 9:25 am

@mblair,

May I ask what your looking to change? Depending on what you’re looking to do, hacking the event templates may not even be necessary.


mblair

February 18, 2014 at 9:34 am

Hi Josh,
Lorenzo wrote back privately, “Hello again Melissa,

I looked at this with a developer last week and I took another look today. Your theme is coded in a specific way which is preventing Event Espresso from working as expected. I’ve renamed the WordPress page with the Event Espresso shortcode to training events:

http://motorsdrivestraining.com/training-events/

This has restored the navigation on the events list page but unfortunately, it did not help with the single event page. Is there another theme that you may be interested in using?”

My problem is that when I try and do the archives-espresso_events.php thing, event espresso doesn’t work with my theme. So, we switched to using the shortcode and that works for the events page but not the single event page. I would like to be able to use EE in the way that it’s intended and be able to modify the ‘look’ of the pages. I have to admit, not understanding what the end result of the new EE template is supposed to look like, it’s hard for me to understand what is and is not working. I might end up having to ditch EE and just push everything through Infusionsoft. ๐Ÿ™


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 18, 2014 at 9:59 am

A few points on this: If the theme is not compatible with Event Espresso, can the theme dev fix the incompatibility? Is it possible to choose a different WordPress theme?

When it comes to modifying the look of an event page, changing the templates is not necessary. Someone will front end web development skill (CSS) can make this happen by adding new style rules into the theme’s stylesheet or even use a plugin like this one:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/reaktiv-css-builder/

It turns out that it’s possible to change the look of a webpage without touching the PHP/HTML code. The CSS zen garden has some great examples of how CSS can transform the look of the same web page:

http://csszengarden.com/

If you’re interested in learning how to change the look of the page with CSS I can recommend starting with these resources:

http://htmldog.com/guides/cssbeginner/
http://css-tricks.com/video-screencasts/15-introduction-to-firebug/

If you prefer a developer to work on this, Dean posted a link where you can find developers we recommend.


mblair

February 18, 2014 at 10:04 am

OK, thanks Josh.


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 19, 2014 at 1:44 pm

You’re welcome.


mblair

February 21, 2014 at 8:48 am

I gave up on EE 4.0 and removed it. I reinstalled all the most recent EE 3 files. Everything is working perfectly except I am still left with the same problem I had when I upgraded to 4.0. When working on EE and trying to set up an Event, the Event Description area doesn’t work correctly. I can use the Text tab area but the WYSIWYG is no longer working. It works everywhere else in my site but will not work in EE. Any ideas of what could have happened?


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 21, 2014 at 9:01 am

Hi there,

It may be the theme is adding extra buttons to the Tiny MCE editor, which can break things for Event Espresso. Can you try installing this plugin to see if it helps?

https://github.com/joshfeck/remove-extra-editor-buttons

There’s a download zip button on that page where you can download the plugin and then try to install it.


mblair

February 21, 2014 at 9:07 am

No luck. It’s odd because I was using EE 3 and everything worked fine. I upgraded to EE4 and that’s when this editor problem started. I removed EE4 and reinstalled 3 and that problem is still there.

I didn’t have Tiny MCE editor installed. Maybe I should install that and then try this plugin?


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 21, 2014 at 9:14 am

@mblair,

TinyMCE is built into WordPress. It’s also know as the visual editor. No other plugins should be installed.

Are you running a current version of WordPress?


mblair

February 21, 2014 at 9:17 am

Yes, I’m running 3.8.1

Another odd thing I noticed is that I have a number of events set up and I have the dashboard thing turned on but it shows no upcoming events in my dashboard. The widget is there it’s just now showing an upcoming events.


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 21, 2014 at 9:30 am

Can you try this?

1) Install the theme test drive plugin

2) You go to Appearance > Theme Test Drive which is yoursite.com/wp-admin/themes.php?page=themedrive_options_page

3) Select a theme like Twentytwelve

4) Click Enable Theme Drive

5) Go to the Event Espresso event editor and try out the visual editor. You can also try re-entering the dates for the events. After you save the event you can check the widget.

This will help us find out whether it’s a conflict with the WordPress theme.


mblair

February 21, 2014 at 9:42 am

Everything works correctly now. I hate to have to switch my theme at this point. It worked initially. It only stopped working after I installed EE4.


mblair

February 21, 2014 at 10:04 am

I guess I’m going to have to find another theme if I want to use EE. What themes work best with EE 4?


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 21, 2014 at 10:21 am

I installed a copy of the Frisco theme on a fresh installation of Event Espresso 3 and I can see that Event Espresso 3’s visual editor is getting hijacked by the theme’s scripts.

The remove extra button plugin has been updated to fix the issue with the Frisco theme. Here’s a link where you can download it:

https://github.com/joshfeck/remove-extra-editor-buttons/archive/master.zip

The dates should be fine now that you’ve re-saved them.


mblair

February 21, 2014 at 10:27 am

That worked! You made me such a happy girl. I wonder if that will fix the problem I was having with EE 4 also? Maybe I’ll play with that this weekend just to see. Thank you so much!!!!!


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 21, 2014 at 10:30 am

It turns out the fix I made for EE3 will not fix the Frisco theme visual editor issue in EE4. Sorry.


mblair

February 21, 2014 at 10:46 am

Good to know. I have other thinks I’d rather do this weekend ๐Ÿ˜‰


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 24, 2014 at 10:25 am

Once the issue is fixed for EE4 we’ll update this post.


mblair

February 24, 2014 at 10:28 am

You guys are awesome. Thank you!


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 24, 2014 at 10:34 am

You’re welcome.

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