Hello James,

Welcome on board I do think you would want to migrate the articles over to EasyBlog first and to do that, all you need to do is to head on to the Migrators area at the back end of EasyBlog and click on the Joomla articles tab.

Once migrated, you should create another menu item on your site (Which should be visible to you only) that links to EasyBlog's front page. Once you are happy with the result, replace your existing "comments" page menu with this new menu and you are good to go

You can find our quick start guide at http://stackideas.com/guides/easyblog.pdf or alternatively, you may view our documentation at http://stackideas.com/docs/easyblog

Hi, Mark,

Thank you so very much for jumping in undaunted by my noobiness. I've been looking around at the various menus, and happily a good deal of it is making sense already, but...

here's an example of how the simplest things become a snag when one is not everyday working with the Joomla interface itself: you suggest I 'create another menu item on your site (Which should be visible to you only)' but how ? By making it 'published' but setting the access to something other than 'public?' If not, then what? If so, then which Access option? Registered, Special, and Customer Access Level are what is shown in addition to the public option and I have no idea what any of these mean...

Your suggestion to get the blog right then substitute the new menu item for the Comments item is definitely the way to go, so the question above needs answering first, I think, or does it?

I've looked at the 'Migrators' tab/features set but we have no Joomla 'articles' (or other types) to migrate into EasyBlog as a post. They will be coming from the author's postings at Goodreads and Google+ to start with. So I would do that by copy and paste as a new blog post, right?

Are you saying I should have some EasyBlog posts already entered before I do the menu item? Since I am setting this up for the author and perhaps some guests in the future to use, I now have myself (which happened automatically when I installed EasyBlog) and the author set up as every kind of user with all permissions. The interface says that I as web manager have 1 post, but this must be some default thing (because I did not create a post) ? Can I create posts by copy/paste on behalf of the author logged into Joomla as myself? Should I set up a test author post before I can 'see' the page, or doesn't it matter?

I expect getting this sorted out will take some time, but I am patient.

Thanks again.

James

Hello James,

I hope I get you right here.

The ACL is not to be concern at the moment, just create a menu with using the front page layout type with access level to registered as it will be only viewed to registered user such as your self, check screenshot --> http://screencast.com/t/8UNxSAsrcU3M
If you do not whant to create a menu you could just copy this to the URL to display your blog --> http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?option=com_easyblog

I've looked at the 'Migrators' tab/features set but we have no Joomla 'articles' (or other types) to migrate into EasyBlog as a post. They will be coming from the author's postings at Goodreads and Google+ to start with. So I would do that by copy and paste as a new blog post, right?

Are you saying that you would like to migrate this article in easyblog? Title: OCCUPY YOUR MIND --> http://screencast.com/t/XClAhMvIm6y2
If there is no migratory for this component in easyblog means you would have to recreate the blog post manually in easyblog.

If your site is live then its probably best to have proper content in the menu-item before showing it to the public, but if you had set this menu-item to have access to only you then it shouldn't be a problem. Upon installation easyblog will post 'Congratulations! You have successfully installed EasyBlog!' automatically for you since you're the superuser. Once you have installed easyblog it should be usable with the default settings, when assigning new bloggers you should check out the bloggers icon at (backend -> easyblog -> bloggers). Whit in that page press the new button to create a new blogger and assign them to their respective group screenshot --> http://screencast.com/t/07L2NPdzxDSk

Now to ACL, (backend -> component -> easyblog -> ACL) where you set what activity or permission for the group you have.

Please ask if you need further assistance please provide us with the Joomla back end access as well as the FTP access so that I can help you with your issue.

Thanks:)

Thanks, Khairul, but I am afraid I am only slightly less confused than before ;-)

Anyway, I have set the "blog" menu item to 'published' and 'registered' but I see the blog page at http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=latest -- regardless of whether the menu item is published or unpublished, public or registered. I do not understand what is supposed to happen when I save the menu item as 'published' and 'registered.' What am I failing to understand?

However I now understand I must enter the author's posts manually via copy and paste and I see where and how to do this under 'blog entries,' and I can test the results at http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=latest -- so far, so good, and thanks.

However, the front page shown breaks the Joomla template. The grey sidebar on the right does not show up at http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=latest even though I have assigned the same content to this page as I have assigned to the grey sidebar on the 'Comments' page. Is there no way to have the blog page conform to the the template and allow the sidebar to show up on the right? I don't see anything under 'Settings' > 'Layout' to change this.

The page at http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=latest looks really lousy. Is there no way to put an image beside the Ad Hoc title and the welcome message? It is a very jarring change from all of the other site pages without the image and the sidebar. Suggestions?

Why Oh Why does the 'continue reading' link at http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=latest open the rest of the post with the home page sidebar????

Is there no way to get control over how http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=latest appears at first and how it appears after you click 'continue reading?'

Hello James,

i am really sorry for the confusions here and earlier as well. The problem with sidebar appearing is actually because there's no menu item associated with the extension. This is the default behavior of Joomla because Joomla determines which module to show depending on how those modules are being configured.

Perhaps, if it's okay with you, provide us with the back end access and I'll set this up for you once so that you can see and understand better of how all of these works together? I will also help you run the migration process for the articles but you need to let me know which category would you like to import the articles from.

Mark, thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

Well, we're making progress and I'd prefer to set it up myself if possible, though it may take a little more explaining, and a little more care in what you say...

For example, as I've noted, there is indeed a ' menu item associated with the extension,' that is the one which is 'published' but not 'public' ('registered' instead), so I don't know why you are saying this. Or what am I misunderstanding here?

I have assigned the content from the 'Comments' sidebar to the 'Blog' menu item/page. Again, I don't know what you mean with regard to 'modules.' The sidebar content I have set up as html 'modules' and assigned them to appear on the 'Blog' page.

Please forgive my reluctance to have you or someone else go in and do this for me. Surely it cannot be so difficult to explain, if it is just a matter of settings. I have to be able to do all this myself -- that's my job ;-)

So, my questions at present remain 1) putting an image beside the blog title; 2) having the sidebar and its content appear at http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=latest ; 3) having the 'continue reading link' behave as expected instead of opening on the left side of the home page...

Okay, we are definitely making progress now...I got an email response from Khairul -- which is not showing up here for some strange reason-- but by making the menu/page visible (that is, by making it 'published' and 'public' ) the sidebar and its content are now showing, and the 'continue reading' link behave as expected. HURRAY!

Unfortunately, the page is still dog ugly. So my question #1 above still remains: Is there any way to put an image beside the blog title 'AD HOC' so the blog itself looks like part of the rest of the site? I want to put an image such as the one which appears on all pages except the Home page. Whereas the image on the 'Download' page reads "Download,' on the blog page it would read 'Author's Blog' the name of which is 'AD HOC.'

Is this possible?

Also, I don't see any option for making a comment. From what I see in the 'Comments' settings, which I have not changed since installation, commenting should be 'on' and any visitor should be able to comment without registering or signing in. Am I wrong? Is there some permission setting for this? Please explain.

The login button shown when you click on the lock icon / button on the right of the toolbar is light grey with white text and therefore very nearly invisible in every theme, while this button has black text in all of your front end demos for every theme. How do I change this button?

Thanks.

Hello,

Sorry about that, I repose it here,

Hello James,

I could try and trouble shoot it for you but for a detailed explanation it is quite hard to explain over this forum. If you had set the menu item to registered only registered user could view the menu item in your menu, if you want your blog post to be private you could set them as only registered members could view before publishing the post.

The reason why the right sidebar is not there is because you are not using any menu to display the easyblog component.
http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=latest is not used for browsing the blog.

The link below is more of what you will get when you set it to a menu item to display easyblog.
http://nineinchbride.com/component/easyblog/latest.html?Itemid=435

'continue reading link' will have the route expected.

For you question, you could actually post html/image tags in your site i.e.

<img src="/images/innerpagereviews.jpg" align="left">

with in the description field, in your
backend -> easyblog -> settings -> workflow -> general -> blog info
you could use CSS to style it to make it look better.

You can set public to be able to comment in your site in
backend -> easyblog -> ACL -> Public
and enable Post Comments to yes.

The easyblog CSS is clashing with your template CSS, please incert this code in your template CSS to change the color.

#ezblog-menu .blog-navi .user-form form .button {



    color: #555 !important;



}

Thanks:)