Hey Guys,
So I’ve been using Backlight Galleries in my existing site. I would like to add the available Backlight Contact form to that existing site. Is this possible?
I publish my galleries from Lightroom Publisher. And then just create links in my site to those galleries. So I don’t use Backlight for my full site design.
I would like to use the Contact Form, available in Backlight.
So I’ve been editing a ‘Contact Form’ page, but now I’m not seeing an obvious way to add that stand-alone page as a link in my site. As in, how do I actually publish that page?
In working on the page, when I try to “preview in browser”, I get “Not Found”.
What (probably obvious) detail am I missing here?
Thanks
If you’re not using Backlight for your full site, then the answer is no.
The reason is that for Backlight pages to be created, the index.pho and .htaccess files from the root of the unzipped Backlight-Installer download need to be installed in the root of your site. Doing that now would likely mess up your existing site.
So there’s no way to maybe embed just the contact form by itself?
I need a contact form on my site and I only write HTML and CSS at this point. PHP and JS are above my pay-grade.
No, a Backlight contact form needs to be embedded into a Backlight page.
But there are other contact forms you can find by searching the web.
Or, if you’re using WordPress, there are contact form plug ins.
Plenty of options.
Yeah, I don’t use word press.
And pretty much all the contact forms I’ve been seeing available online have monthly/yearly subscription fees. Not going to do that. It’s one of the main reason I use and support Backlight.
Maybe it’s a feature that’ll become available in Backlight in the future?
Obviously, galleries and album sets can be published independently, and then linked from an existing page, as that’s what I do.
Anyways, food for thought.
Thanks, Rod.
I suppose you could create a full installation of Backlight in a subfolder (named “contact” perhaps) and create the contact page there. Make the home page of that sub site one that has an embedded contact form.
Are all the pages created by you html pages? In that case you might be able to mix Backlight pages together with your own pages. Do you have a link to your site?
Just checkout out your site, and I don’t see any particular reason you shouldn’t be able to mostly recreate this using Backlight. Then you would be able to use the full feature set, including the contact form.
Hey Guys,
The current site is my old site. It was created using an old PSD to HTML conversion app (now deceased) and then I modified and added various things in Adobe Dreamweaver over the years.
I decided to try and learn code this year, and am now creating a whole new site, from scratch. Basically based off a lot of those design elements as my guide, but all newly coded. Thus far, I’m doing well on the HTML and CSS side of it, but PHP and JS is beyond my scope, at least for now.
But yes, Daniel, it is all HTML and CSS, with some galleries added. That’s why I was hoping I could simply create a stand-alone ‘Contact Form’ page, publish that to my main site folder and then simply link to it from my other, already created site pages.
… does that make sense?
Matthew, I decided that it was time for me to learn some code this year so I actually understand what you guys are talking about with your many suggestions. And to basically help me find my way around my website. But that being said, I have no intention of switching to coding as a full-time gig. I enjoy and do use Backlight for my Client Galleries, and I’m currently setting up Store Fronts for my Painted artwork. Hoping to have it online in the coming weeks. (fingers-crossed!)
Using the TTG tools, starting way back before the CE days and discovering I wanted to customize things beyond the available controls, is how I got into the little bit of coding that I do. I really enjoyed learning css, html, some jQuery, and enough php to sort of understand what the code is doing when I read it, but only really enough practical skills that allow me to get my site back up after I’ve crashed it with crappy syntax or something.
All that to say that if you want to learn coding, the Backlight environment is a great place to use what you’ve learned. Just look at what Daniel’s done with his site, for example.
Thanks for that heads-up, Rod. Daniel’s site looks excellent! I didn’t know you could do all that from within the Backlight framework.
Is that mostly just done with CSS styling? As in creating a new stylesheet and just going to town on it?
Impressive, however it was accomplished.
But I would generally encourage you to work within the provided framework as much as possible – not writing code – and only reach for code when you really find the need to go custom. You can do a lot without code in Backlight, though. That’s sort of the point.
Hey Daniel,
As per your question, yes, it is pretty much all HTML and CSS. At least the parts I’ve done. I have added some embedded galleries (using Juicebox Pro) similar to my current site, and am using Backlight to create a Gallery Store for my Painted Art. And I use Backlight all the time for Client Portrait Galleries. So it’s a combo.
My hope had been to simply add a linked page for the Backlight ‘Contact Form’, so I can have that on the site.
I may eventually start from scratch with a full Backlight redesign, but right now I just need to get my site and Gallery Store online, ASAP. So that BL idea will have to be looked at later.
So…, do you have a suggestion as to adding a stand-alone linked Contact Form page?
Hey Daniel,
Thanks, man. I appreciate the offer to take a look at it.
Currently though, I don’t have it up online yet, only local. I am pushing a deadline about a week and a half away, to have it up, as I have a virtual convention that I need my Art Store ready-to-go, in time for.
Do you mind if I swing back around to you in a week or so?
To Rod, Matthew and Daniel.
Just wanted to say Thanks, again, guys.
I got my new website uploaded and online. Got a page or two still in the works, and will definitely tweak as I go, and as my coding abilities continue to ramp up. But it is online if you guys want to check it out. https://solarviewstudios.art/index.html
As per the first part of the thread, for the first time I’ve coded it all from scratch, and then used Backlight for my Online Store. And added some embedded galleries using Juicebox, which I’ve been using a while, too.
Thanks for all your continuing help!
Sol
