Symphony.

First, I would like to thanks for this wonderful tutorial which gives a really clear starting view of what we can do with Symphony and how it works. It’s very clear, easy and step by step, so much that I could cope with it, and it brought me on the ride.

As a newcomer to Symphony, May I give some feedback about things which could made me confused during the process. I hope this could be useful to the documentation team. Let me know.

Step 1. Extend Your Greetings Section

1.2 Add Content, Date, and Language Fields

Point 3:

Tick the Show Column box, so that we’ll see our entries’ languages when browsing our Greetings index in the back end.

This box doesn’t exist anymore

Figure 1 (http://getsymphony.com/workspace/assets/learn/01-section-editor-1265914194.png) : The view has changed, the options for select box are different

Step 2. Create a Master Layout Utility

2.2. Update Your Page Template

We already have a template for each individual greeting entry. Let’s update it to accommodate our new content structure

If i'm not wrong, the div is missing to get the same result as shown in the screenshot it's necessary to add before h3 :

<div id="greeting-entry" class="content">

Step 3. Add a Dynamic Navigation Menu

3.3 Add the Menu to Your Master Layout

Now let’s write the templates for it. Below our existing , add a new one

For a newbie it’s not that clear you’re supposed to put it below the template which contains the HTML. And a question also, why not putting it before the existing template ?

Let’s add the template for the page nodes

For a newbie it’s note that clear what is a page nodes.

It doesn’t says where to put the code in the page xsl file.

To make it clearer, it may be nice to give the whole code in a link, like in steps before.

Step 5. Optimize Page Handling

5.2. Update Your Navigation Template

Don’t understand why it didn't work for me.

Step 6. Enable Front-End Submission

6.2. Add Submission Form Markup to your Page Template

Go to Blueprints > Pages and in the Template column, click “add.xsl”. Replace the existing Body content with this stylesheet

The step in which you’re supposed to create the page «add» is missing.

Step 7. Create an RSS Feed

7.2. Create your Feeds Page

It may be worth to precise that it’s not necessary here to include the master template as the output given by defaut is ok there for a RSS feed.

When copying the code to put in the page for the RSS, it’s necessary to supress the title element given by defaut by Symphony.

7.3. Apply some Finishing Touches

Even if it’s oviously clear because the header is only there. It may be interesting to precise that it is in the master.xsl

Thanks for the feedback, it's always good to hear what we doing right, and things that we need to improve on. I'm sure someone in the docs team will look at your comments and fix where necessary.

As I understand it that tutorial was written some time ago and as Symphony has evolved, our tutorial hasn't quite involved with it :)

Thanks again!

It's what I suppose, but nothing very annoying with that, it's still clear and understandable. As the documentation team is working on new tutorial, and as I'm a newcomer to Symphony, I'm ok to test them if they want : ) I can also translate some in French, does the Symphony's website is configured for multilingual support ?

Super duper helpful, thanks! We'll get back to you about the translation question :-)

You're welcome ! I can do a little translation till october (for instance for the first online tutorials which are quite short).

But I'll have much more time after october to do more. All the more, I hope I will be accepted in a formation in Digital humanities at this date, going back to school to learn more XSL and XML.

Another thing you may want to do is include a standalone copy of Symphony without an ensemble for each tutorial or the tutorial section in general, and using exactly the same version as the tutorial. So that way the tutorial never gets old, because it matches the Symphony version it's paired with.

A note next to the standalone copy could say..

This is version X.X and it's what the example was for this tutorial, however it may not be the latest version of Symphony, see the download page for more details.

I think @into makes a good suggestion. A pragmatic question though: how does one keep the tutorial up to date with the Symphony CMS evolution?

With hard graft I imagine...

Having a few problems with the above also. Not a pleasant experience trying to learn a new CMS when the tutorial isn't clear in places.