The video tutorial for the essay module shows accessing and placing the uploaded images in the preview of the essay album by clicking on an icon that appears adjacent to the menu area. When I attempt to use the essay template, that icon does not appear in the album preview and I am unable to access the uploaded images and place them in the essay album as shown in the tutorial.
My page template uses PHP to place an image and the menu in the top pallet, replacing the area where that icon appears in the tutorial. Switching the essay page template to the default page template (included in the BL installation) returns the default navigation. This icon then appears, enabling access to the uploaded images and preparation of the essay album as shown in the tutorial.
I tried preparing the essay album by instead using the default page template and then switching the essay template to use my own page template after competing the album. Based on a simple test, that seems to be an effective work-around, although this seems to be an awkward way to prepare the essay album.
Is there another way to access the uploaded images in the preview of the essay album, while using my own page template, rather than switching temporarily to the default page template?
Thanks in advance for all feedback!
Would moving the Top Pallet buttons to the opposite side solve the problem?
and do you have a link to an essay album to share?
Rod,
Thanks for your quick reply.
I am developing a new site in a subdomain at http://devel.fisherpix.ca/. After spending considerable time trying to figure out how to access and load images I have prepared only a crude “test” essay at http://devel.fisherpix.ca/galleries/600interpretive/long-exposure/.
It is obvious that the site is a “work in progress” and there is a long list of “to dos”!!!
I am obviously at a neophyte level - what are the Top Pallet buttons to which you refer? The top pallet contains only the image and the navigation placed there by the PHP.
I just noticed that the mobile width page does not include the navigation - added to the list of “to dos”!
Barry
Top pallet buttons are things like the Social Media button, the quick search icon, the multi-language icon as well as that image choosing icon for the Essay. The Cart icon too, I believe.
If you’re not using any of those, they won’t appear.
In my testing, with a similar top-pallet logo set up as yours, I made these settings in the page template:
In Top-pallet:
Buttons: float-right
Social Media:
Empty all Social Media icon and url fields
Set Toolbox Width to 0
Navigation > Horizontal Navigation:
Location: Top Pallet
Float: Right
I get this in an Essay album:
Make sure your Top Pallet buttons have colors that don’t blend with the Top Pallet background color.
Rod,
Thanks for page template settings information.
Using these settings there are 2 menus in the top pallet - the one provided by the PHP file (to the right, as it was previously) and an additional one - the default included by Backlight, left of the first menu. But the icon for the essay album still does not appear when the essay album is open.
When I disabled the PHP file the first menu is removed but that icon still does not appear.
I looked at the page elements information in Chrome and saw that my custom CSS file sets the display for the widget-container to none. Deselecting that line resulted in the icon appearing and clicking the icon resulted in the display of images appearing in the essay album (still with 2 menus).
I will try “playing” with the CSS file so that the added menu shows only the #album-composer settings. Or I can add it to the PHP file. Either approach should (? I hope) eliminate the second menu items appearing. I should also review my CSS file and remove redundant code.
Rod - did you also have 2 menus appear at some point, i.e. both the PHP items and the BL default items? How you deal with the widget-container in PHP or CSS?
(I have no recollection of how/when I picked up the CSS for the widget container as I explored other websites using BL. I obviously know just enough about web page settings to be dangerous.)
Barry
I didn’t realize you were creating your own navigation with phplugins. If that’s what you want to do, then disable the navigation in the template.
Your css is hiding any buttons that would show, so I’d suggest instead of using custom css to hide that widget, make the necessary settings in the template to only show what you want to show. That’s what I did with the sample I showed.
I didn’t have two menus appearing. In the template, I assigned the horizontal navigation to the top pallet. The only thing I was doing to the top-pallet in phplugins was to insert the graphic logo in place of the Top Pallet Title.
Personally, I wouldn’t use custom css on the widget container in this case. I’d just set things up to not display the search icon, the language icon, and set the mobile menu width toolbox width to 0.
Thanks yet again Rod.
The method you describe makes much more sense than what I had in mind. I see that your tips website describes how to place the graphic in the top pallet.
I will work on this and let you know the result.
I explored your photography website (I had previously explored your helpful tips website). My compliments regarding both the images and the information you have posted.
Barry
Thanks. The design on my main site recently got messed up (in case things looked a little weird). Just corrected it today.
