tabulas help
Tabulas is a bit
like LJ but much more customisable; rather than simply editing default templates you can use your own. You shouldn’t have too much difficulty converting diaryland templates for tabulas, but there are some basic differences between the systems which you’ll need to be aware of. (If this is sounding all a bit complicated, go to Pixelscripts and get a template there; if you know of another site offering templates for Tabulas, leave me a note!)
Tabulas templates are a lot like diaryland blogstyle, in that there are separate templates for your entry page and for the individual entries. Unfortunately, most
diaryland templates aren’t set up like this (though there are some) so you’ll have to do a bit of extra work.
For this tutorial, I’m going to convert one of my diaryland templates for use with tabulas. It isn’t blogstyle, so I’m going to have to create a separate
template for the entries. Once I’ve generated the code for diaryland and pasted it into Notepad, I need to find the code that determines how my individual entries look.
Here it is:
That was pretty straightforward, right? I’ll cut that out and paste it into another text file, ready to become my
individual entry template, and replace it with <!–content–>>.
Next, I need to stick <!–navbar–> after the <body> tag, otherwise the tabulas
system won’t accept my template. As I’ve set my blog to be hidden from search engines such as Google, I also need to add <!–metatags–> somewhere in the
<head> section (if I didn’t mind being googled, I could leave that out).
Now it’s time to make my links tabulas-friendly. This being a lex-o-matic generated template with bonus links, I could have inserted these while getting
the original diaryland code; here’s the complete list:
| name of link | tabulas | diaryland |
|---|---|---|
| current | index.html | index.html |
| archive | archives.html | older.html |
| profile | profile.html | http://members.diaryland.com/ edit/profile.phtml?username=%%username%% |
| gallery | gallery.html | - | friends | friends.html | - |
| friends of | friendsof.html | - |
| favourite entries | favorites.html | - |
| links | links.html | - |
| content | content.html | - |
You’ll probably notice that most diaryland templates will have other links such as rings or guestbook; change or delete them as you wish.
OK, that’s your main template done! Now on to the entry format. Go back to the code you cut and pasted earlier, and replace the diaryland variables with their
tabulas equivalents. Remember, tabulas has a couple of extra tags that not all diaryland members have, so you’ll probably want to add them at the bottom of your
entry.
| function | tabulas | diaryland |
|---|---|---|
| date | <!–date–> | %%date%% |
| time | <!–time–> | %%time%% |
| entry | <!–entry–> | %%entry%% |
| entry title | <!–etitle–> | %%short_description%% |
| username | <!–username–> | %%username%% |
| current mood | <!–mood–> | %%option 1/2/3%% * |
| current music | <!–music–> | %%option 1/2/3%% * |
| current book | <!–book–> | %%option 1/2/3%% * |
| comments | <!–comments–> | %%comments%% * |
* These options are available to gold/supergold diaryland members only, and may not be included in your template.
If you’d like to customise your blog further, there’s a more comprehensive list of tabulas variables here.
Meanwhile, it’s time to enter our new template into the tabulas system. Log in to tabulas and go to the template building page. Paste in your edited template, give it a name and enable it on your blog.
The final step is to create the new entry format. Go back to the individual entry template you made, paste it here, give it a name and enable it.
That’s it, you’re done! (You might want to go to the general styles page now to make your smilies match, or edit the text that goes with your comments link.)
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