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2012-03-05, 12:04:46
(This post was last modified: 2012-03-05, 12:06:02 by film letöltés.)
Hello Connie, ANSH7662 and others,
The timing of this thread is amazing as yesterday I wondering exactly the same thing and was thinking of asking it in the forum but decided to see if I could find a way easily to accomplish this. I do have a solution that seems to work for me - The code change is at the bottom of this post.
First I would like to offer possible reasons why a website developer would want a certain page limitation for the customer. Maybe ANSH7662 has similar reasons or not but this is why I think it might be useful.
In my experience (yours may be different) but the general small business owner (of which I think this product is PERFECT for) knows a little bit about editing documents (like MS WORD or an e-mail etc) but is completely unfamiliar with the limitations of website programming and design. If you let them loose on GS and allow them to create 100+ pages they may assume that it will "Sort it out automatically" without any considerations to the length of the menu bar or other design limitations. For example you can't fit 20 page links onto a menu bar that's designed for 10. The website will break and a phone call or e-mail will surely follow with a WHY does it happen.
Educating the end user on the Do's and Don'ts of adding content with low support overheads is a major challenge and I believe this should be compensated with a thorough, step by step manual and maybe even a video of how to do things. Basically what I'm saying is that trying to explain that adding pages to a MENU is a no-no but internal linked pages are OK could be easily forgotten over time - They being self sufficient should be the main goal. These are users that don't know how to or have never even resized images before (which is why imagizer is so great) and I REALLY like to keep it VERY VERY simple for them.
I know dropdown menus can alleviate some limitations regarding the menu system but GS doesn't have the feature natively and I'm still figuring out I18N's plugin of which I need to perform some final CSS formatting so I 'm completely happy with it. (but that's another topic)
Another comment I have related to the above reason is that most small business websites only really need up to 10 pages (again my experience). They have only a few requirements and rarely do I get asked for more than 10 pages. In fact I encourage them to have less than that because of usability considerations and mostly they can use headings to sperate the content on the same page. Of course it depends on the content though but I recommend less than 10 pages for a typical small retail or service oriented business.
The second reason I can think of is for financial gains. For those business that want more than the allotted pages need to pay for small fee to UPGRADE to another package that offers more pages. Similarly if someone wanted a Photo gallery or Clients only area then a small fee would be asked to enable this feature. It's just marketing I suppose. A product can have a very small base price with limited features but then pay more for extras or Add-ons which may include more pages etc.
Sorry for the long explanation (I can get carried away at times)
Now for the solution that I have found which is simply to remove the "Create New Pages" button on the PAGES page. I believe this is the only link that allows the creation of a new page from the backend. By the way I also use the "User Manager" plugin which is great and I DISABLE the Plugins, Settings and theme tabs so users don't meddle with stuff.
To remove the button open up Admin/template/sidebar-pages.php
Near the top I REM out the following line so the user can't see it to click on it and can easily be undone if I need to add a new page for them.
<li><a href="edit.php" accesskey="<?php echo find_accesskey(i18n_r('SIDE_CREATE_NEW'));?>" <?php if((!isset($_GET['id'])) && (get_filename_id()==='edit')) { echo 'class="current"'; } ?>><?php i18n('SIDE_CREATE_NEW'); ?></a></li>
Not an upgrade friendly solution but a workaround none-the-less.
It's an interesting topic and the above is just what I think about it
The timing of this thread is amazing as yesterday I wondering exactly the same thing and was thinking of asking it in the forum but decided to see if I could find a way easily to accomplish this. I do have a solution that seems to work for me - The code change is at the bottom of this post.
First I would like to offer possible reasons why a website developer would want a certain page limitation for the customer. Maybe ANSH7662 has similar reasons or not but this is why I think it might be useful.
In my experience (yours may be different) but the general small business owner (of which I think this product is PERFECT for) knows a little bit about editing documents (like MS WORD or an e-mail etc) but is completely unfamiliar with the limitations of website programming and design. If you let them loose on GS and allow them to create 100+ pages they may assume that it will "Sort it out automatically" without any considerations to the length of the menu bar or other design limitations. For example you can't fit 20 page links onto a menu bar that's designed for 10. The website will break and a phone call or e-mail will surely follow with a WHY does it happen.
Educating the end user on the Do's and Don'ts of adding content with low support overheads is a major challenge and I believe this should be compensated with a thorough, step by step manual and maybe even a video of how to do things. Basically what I'm saying is that trying to explain that adding pages to a MENU is a no-no but internal linked pages are OK could be easily forgotten over time - They being self sufficient should be the main goal. These are users that don't know how to or have never even resized images before (which is why imagizer is so great) and I REALLY like to keep it VERY VERY simple for them.
I know dropdown menus can alleviate some limitations regarding the menu system but GS doesn't have the feature natively and I'm still figuring out I18N's plugin of which I need to perform some final CSS formatting so I 'm completely happy with it. (but that's another topic)
Another comment I have related to the above reason is that most small business websites only really need up to 10 pages (again my experience). They have only a few requirements and rarely do I get asked for more than 10 pages. In fact I encourage them to have less than that because of usability considerations and mostly they can use headings to sperate the content on the same page. Of course it depends on the content though but I recommend less than 10 pages for a typical small retail or service oriented business.
The second reason I can think of is for financial gains. For those business that want more than the allotted pages need to pay for small fee to UPGRADE to another package that offers more pages. Similarly if someone wanted a Photo gallery or Clients only area then a small fee would be asked to enable this feature. It's just marketing I suppose. A product can have a very small base price with limited features but then pay more for extras or Add-ons which may include more pages etc.
Sorry for the long explanation (I can get carried away at times)
Now for the solution that I have found which is simply to remove the "Create New Pages" button on the PAGES page. I believe this is the only link that allows the creation of a new page from the backend. By the way I also use the "User Manager" plugin which is great and I DISABLE the Plugins, Settings and theme tabs so users don't meddle with stuff.
To remove the button open up Admin/template/sidebar-pages.php
Near the top I REM out the following line so the user can't see it to click on it and can easily be undone if I need to add a new page for them.
<li><a href="edit.php" accesskey="<?php echo find_accesskey(i18n_r('SIDE_CREATE_NEW'));?>" <?php if((!isset($_GET['id'])) && (get_filename_id()==='edit')) { echo 'class="current"'; } ?>><?php i18n('SIDE_CREATE_NEW'); ?></a></li>
Not an upgrade friendly solution but a workaround none-the-less.
It's an interesting topic and the above is just what I think about it
