I'm new to ZenPhoto... Many things to like, but, after trying many themes, the only one that really works for me is the Andrey theme. However it won't show any pages. Tried ZenPage - its nice but isn't the Andrey theme. The most recent forum mention is 3 yrs old!
I've searched for tutorials working with pages in themes and there's not much out there and nothing recent. I want to use an 'about' page and the 'contact form' and I don't want the ZenPage 'theme'. Just some of the ZenPage functionality with the gallery looking like the theme I've chosen...
Zenphoto
Comments
http://www.zenphoto.org/news/theming-tutorial
The date for articles on our site means their initial creation not their status! All are current to our best knowledge. We will add the latest modifcation date so that is more clear.
The Andrey theme is not supported specifially anymore, we just make sure it works as it is. But we would welcome if you like to take over maintainance and extend it to support Zenpage.
Phrases like this don't help!: "Look at the included standard theme for suggestions...You can then take this knowledge and use it to create your own theme."
I've looked at the files in many themes (both included and 3rd party) and they don't make use of the same options/code lines/etc.
Some files missing in the Andrey theme are obviously needed, but the several examples in other themes don't have much consistency or provide "knowledge" that makes sense. Most of those examples are very long and complicated and include or do tons of stuff I don't want or care about.
To start with I don't want to create my own complete theme from scratch, yet... I just want to show an 'about' page and get a 'contact form' to show in an attractive gallery-styled theme that works for my needs.
Zenpage does some neat things, but for now I have no use for RSS or "news"... Zenpage seems more about news than about pages! The layout is completely different from what I need. Modifying the Zenpage appearance and layout to make it look like a gallery is a herculean task that should be totally unnecessary just to make an essential page or two show up.
IMHO, showing certain basic "pages" should be a "core" function that a custom theme can then modify, use, or not use. Having such functionality missing from the core installation really makes it difficult to get this otherwise great package into a usable form - for those who are new to it.
You find all required theme pages for Zenpage support are just pages.php and news.php as described on the tutorial. There are even bare bones example theme files with the basic php setup needed. Of course you need first to understand how Zenphoto themes in general work to understand that all and to leave out what you might not need.
So a very very basic page is theme page named pages.php with calls to printPageTitle() and printPageContent(). All else you can style as you like. There is no required html setup for Zenphoto themes. Each theme can do what it likes for styling. So take for example image.php of the Andrey theme, rename it and strip out the image stuff and add the page stuff. Don't need RSS? Then don't use it (pages are not covered by it anyway).
You can even use normal custom pages to add static pages without backend management functionality. All explained on the tutorial as well.
I am really not sure what you expect, that you learn that in a minute? You will find no CMS out there.
Would I expect to learn PHP in a minute? NO! But basic functions for the gallery shouldn't be more difficult than choosing an option in the Admin settings or installing a plugin.
Specifially the Andrey theme is not supported for years and also predates Zenapge. The Andrey theme already existed when I joined the project. Therefore it has no support. It is really up to a theme or its author what to support and how to do that.
I am sorry but doing some work your own is the price of using an independently self hosted tool like Zenphoto. We really don't have the resources to maintain other themes than the included official ones.
That is why we welcome users to contribute their extensions. We need more theme in general but if no one wants to do them it is not going to happen. So if you really like this theme, please extend it and give it back to the community. That is what open source is about. Please see the "Get involved" page for info how to do that.