Forum Activity for @strumelia

My Developer Tools skin cloner is not working right

Ning To Jamroom

OK, so as things stand right now....
none of my cloned skins (mdLisa2, 3) are exhibitig all the several hundred customization tweaks I have so laboriously created over the past two months. Various things are changed or missing.
BUT...my single newly-updated 1.0.11 Ningja skin, which is currently activated...is showing ALL my 2months' worth of customizations correctly. It's the one perfect version of everything I've customized.

Not understanding everything yet, but- How do I SAVE this one good version and keep all my modifications absolutely SAFE,....and then put in place a new 1.0.11 Ningja skin which has no modifications at all, so I can keep updating IT in the future as you advise? (I could not do this in the past because the Cloner was not working as it should have been).

I know you are telling me:
"you should not be doing your customization ON the actual NingJa skin, but instead:
- clone the NingJa skin
- make your customizations on your CLONE."

But I was not able to do that til now, because up til, every time I activated one of my customized cloned skins, it was not showing many of my customizations, despite the code saying it was right. Thus, I've been having to keep the Ningja skin activated and do my customizing on that all this time- so at least I could see my efforts.
And now I'm stuck in this dilemma as I've described above. All my hard work is there in my basic Ningja skin which is updated already, and I have no 'virgin' Ningja skin...plus the mdLisa clones I made from my customized Ningja are not showing many of my customizations...so I can't use them as the active skins.
What to do?

If I could just get past this f-ing clone/custom/updating/skin issue, I could go back to BUILDING MY SITE- because there are some major and crucial things that need doing and changing. I can't move in and go live as it is now.

I have been putting the IMPORTANT basic organizing site issues and changes I need to do on the back burner because I was expecting the Site Builder Tool to enable me to drag/drop modules and links and columns around from my Ningja skin custom clone. (since I'm not a coder) So meanwhile, I was trying to keep busy customizing colors, links, language, fonts, and header and such...but ran headlong into the cloneTool/updatingskin issue. I have a fresher ning archive I wanted to import over the old one to test that vital function, in anticipation of a 'final/live' member content migration, but I can't do that either because the Import Tool is being fixed right now. I feel like I am at a standstill, and it's very frustrating. But at least I can see my skin customizations in my active customized Ningja skin (which I wasn't supposed to be customizing so now I'm doomed?)

If I lose everything I've struggled to achieve for two (three?) months now, I might have to simply give up.

Sorry, I guess I just had to vent today. I don't know what to do about my customized skin dilemma now.
updated by @strumelia: 12/30/14 01:29:35PM

My Developer Tools skin cloner is not working right

Ning To Jamroom

Brian, one question for the moment-
My basic Ningja skin has been modified so many times... I don't HAVE an unmodified version of Ningja to 'start with. So...how can I GET one and get rid of the massively modified Ningja .11 updated skin I now have? (I have cloned skins that are named mdLisa1, 2... for safekeeping.)
Am I supposed to clone an unmodified Ningja and call it jrNinggjaCustom in ADDITION to having my customized mdLisa1, 2 cloned skins?

My Developer Tools skin cloner is not working right

Ning To Jamroom

Wait... some customizations seem to be now appearing where they did not ten minutes ago (and yes I cached and integretied...)
I need to do some some more waiting and testing, but maybe it just takes a few minutes to show up, or maybe only half as bad as it looked at first-

I'll get back here in an hour or two to update.
----I just read your post and will try to soak in what you've said- give me a few hours here. Thanks.
updated by @strumelia: 12/30/14 09:45:29AM

My Developer Tools skin cloner is not working right

Ning To Jamroom

Brian,
I DO notice a change in that a lot of what I've customized has now 'stuck' better.

But a lot of things are not making sense to me:

Sorry to be a downer today, but to be honest I could cry.

I don't know WHY logos are reverting back to JR logo in header in my clones, or WHY my customized header links some of them have now disappeared , some are reverted back to previous 'language' wording....
I don't know how I am supposed to keep my customized skin updated, or if my new updated Ningja skin is supposed to be wiped clean of all my customizations of the past two months.

I feel like so many things I do in my skin to make my site look like I want it to just get sneakily wiped or changed, and I dread every time Ningja skin gets an update...it keeps throwing me back where I have to keep redoing same changes over and over and over that I had sucessfully changed in my prior skin. I spent FIVE HOURS yesterday hunting down color tweaks, fonts tweaks, header tweaks, background tweaks, and had things looking much more like my goal. All this i did in Ningja .10 because the cloner hadn't been fixed yet. and now I notice little things here and there that have changed back in my clone despite my having carefully cloned ningja before applying the new update to .11 .

I mean, just one example- I cloned my .10 ningja skjin to new name right before I updated Ningja this morning. (first i updated all the toher modules and core) then updated Ningja to .11, then cloned the updated ningja skin as well...and my header logo has been replaced (again) by the JR logo. (wtf??) My logo is ok on my .10 clone skin, but other customizations were changed back or lost. Even though they seem to be there in the template code the way I had put them.

I have changed and saved a DOZEN times over the past month: my header links...to include one for "Forums" and one for Blogs, and to rename Images to Photos, and Profiles to Members. Now after being soooo careful and cloning/saving/comparing etc... now I find yet again my added Forums link is gone (yet the blogs one I had added remains in place..?!), my Photos, Members links are renamed again back to the default even though my template code seems to name them correctly...

I may need to take some time off. This skin template editing/updating/cloning/changsaving stuff is literally driving me insane and I'm losing SO much time and money by taking SO many hours off my regular job in order to keep redoing the SAME 100 silly details over and over and over, while I'm not positve sure my code is correct- though it appeared to be working fine before. And every time Ningja gets another update I dread it because I know i'll have to hunt down and do all these same things over yet again.

Is there something i am missing about the whole update/clone process, step by step? How am I supposed to update Ningja and then apply the update to my cloned customized skin without losing customization details in my clone over and over?

Maybe I need some real help, but still if I don't understand the cloning/updating procedure I envision these issues happening over and over forever.
Meanwhile, I can't get to the issues that I REALLY need to for my site- like moving modules on my main page or adding a module for forums, organizing basic layout and fixing major stuff....because all my time is being spent re-tweaking colored panels and fonts and links and logos and backgrounds over and over... and isn't that the definition of insanity?
Sorry to unload, i am just so exasperated today and may be losing my mind.

where the heck is "include profile_header.tpl"

Ning To Jamroom

so...do we have to do anything?

where the heck is "include profile_header.tpl"

Ning To Jamroom

Good point SE- we have discussion threads with HUNDREDS of replies...you'd definitely want to be taken to the new post, not to the beginning of a 35 page long forum thread. I can't test that right now though.

where the heck is "include profile_header.tpl"

Ning To Jamroom

OMG....totally missed that how to create new groups or events!! THANK YOU BRIAN. (whew!)

OK, so what I thought was a problem is NOT A PROBLEM after all.
It's just that what i was seeing on the timeline were comments on people's profiles...so their profile links were showing...as the location of the item.
Just made a test group and everything is showing and linking properly on the main page Timeline...YAY!
updated by @strumelia: 12/29/14 01:04:48PM

Suggestion for the Timeline on Main Page

Ning To Jamroom

Yes this helps me understand!
Now I don't have to wonder whether others have the trash can and I don't. And since I have a way to go in someplace and delete an item from the back end, that's what i can do on the rare occasion that I need to delete something. (I tried deleting it from the profile as you suggested, but oddly that did not remove it from the main page timeline, but my other way {through the activitytimeline module databrowser} did just that)
Thanks! I'm marking this thread resolved.

where the heck is "include profile_header.tpl"

Ning To Jamroom

D'oh! I didn't want to use one of my current groups for the test since it might send an email notification to some member (that happened already once!).... so I decided to create a quick Test Group and post to it to show you....
only I can't for the life of me figure out where to Create and New Group...!!
I feel so DUMB today!
Where do I create a new Group (or a new Event for that matter?) Just not seeing it anywhere! ughhhhh....helllllpp.....

where the heck is "include profile_header.tpl"

Ning To Jamroom

Great, 'cause that's quite important if people are to go check out new activity on the site!...especially since we cannot currently 'follow' a Group and be email-notified of new activity within the group.

Thank you!

oops cross-posted. I will make a screen shot on my own site now...brb.
updated by @strumelia: 12/29/14 12:25:41PM