My minimalist dark Pluxml theme

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Julien Lengrand-Lambert

Not so long ago, this blog was powered by PluXml, a complete CMS that has the great advantage of running without any database.
You can learn a bit more about my experience of Pluxml in one of my last posts.

My design was based on two main objectives : dark colors and minimalism.
I never really liked fancy colors and hate to find them in websites. I think I succeded, and you can find the result on this test platform.
Here is a screenshots of of the main page :

pluxml theme 1024x617 My minimalist dark Pluxml theme

my dark pluxml theme

The theme is based on two main colors : dark gray/black for the background and light grey for the foreground part. Web links are in colors in order to give some highlighting on the page.
The structure is divided into three main parts:

The header section, which is dedicated to present the different parts of my work. This can be my pictures collection, my programming tips or my github repository.
The sidebar section on the right, where are listed the ways you can use to find me on the web and some more information about the blog. This means the n last published articles and a list of my social network profiles.
Finally, the central part contains static pages and articles.

This theme is strict XHTML 1.0 compliant as it passes the W3C validator without error neither warnings.

Feel free to use it, the last version can be downlodaed on my github or in pluxml ressources. You will find more information about how to use it in the README.
Just let me know if you like it , and feel free to ask for help !

A lightweight dynamic CMS, database free!

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Julien Lengrand-Lambert

Before choosing WordPress as a CMS, I searched for a minimalist way to both learn web development and get a nice looking blog.
My choice went To Pluxml, which is a french initiative to run websites without databases. This way, you can freely use it on a portable USB key. Everything is based on the XML format.

PluXml is a full CMS developed in php which contains lots of tools, from editors to admin menus or comments handling. It supports multiple users with different credentials.
I think this is a perfect choice for people that search for a lightweight solution and know a bit of programming languages.
In fact, I switched to WordPress only because I wanted to have a multilingual blog, but still use PluXml for personal use.

The only drawback of Pluxml would be its french roots. Almost all the documentation, forums and support that can be found is in french and so are the comments of the php files ! But as its success grows, there should be more english language coming I think . . .

The installation is way simple :

Simply download the last version of Pluxml here, and unzip it in the desired folder of your server.

install 1024x616 A lightweight dynamic CMS, database free!

main install page of pluxml

Connect to the main page of your website. You will be answered to set up the CMS.
Simply click on install if all dependencies you need are installed. Note that you can choose the language you want to use. Immediately, you will be redirected to the main page of your website.
Finally, remove the install.php file that can be found in the sources of pluxml to avoid any security breach.

Your website is now ready for use !
You can change most of the settings, write articles and handle comments in the admin menu :

admin settings 1024x618 A lightweight dynamic CMS, database free!

some admin settings of Pluxml

The system to add plugins is similar to most of CMS, download it on the dedicated page, dowload it in the plugin folder of pluxml and enable it in the admin menu :

admin plugins 1024x612 A lightweight dynamic CMS, database free!

plugin activation in pluxml

Lots of themes have been created by the community. They can be downlodaded here. To install a theme, dowload the source, unzip it and dowload it to the themes folder of pluxml’s root. Finally, choose it in the admin menu (section “display settings”).
Final tip : Most of your information are stored in the parametres.xml file available in the data/configuration folder.
You can have an idea of what pluxml can give here ( on my sample server) or in the list of websites powered by Pluxml!

Enjoy, and let me know if you need any french translation!

A simple way to get a multilingual blog

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Julien Lengrand-Lambert

Hi all,

Some time ago, I searched for a way to have a blog as simple as possible (and avoid wordpress or joomla monsters). I ended up using Pluxml for a while, and you can find the result here .

One of the things I wanted absolutely was to write my blogs in several languages (french and english). After some time, I finally found a way to do it with a bit of javascript.

The main idea is simple : You get one div by language. On startup, only one div is shown, and a click on a “switch language” link shows the other div while making the first disappear.

You can see an example of the result here.

To do this, you need two things :

Insert some javascript functions in your webpage. You can do this by importing a file, or simply copying the following code in your template:


<!-- Script créé par KevBrok   -->
<script type="text/javascript">// <![CDATA[
	/*
	* Montre / Cache un div
	*/
	function DivStatus( nom, numero )
		{
			var divID = nom + numero;
			if ( document.getElementById && document.getElementById( divID ) ) // Pour les navigateurs récents
				{
					Pdiv = document.getElementById( divID );
					PcH = true;
		 		}
			else if ( document.all && document.all[ divID ] ) // Pour les veilles versions
				{
					Pdiv = document.all[ divID ];
					PcH = true;
				}
			else if ( document.layers && document.layers[ divID ] ) // Pour les très veilles versions
				{
					Pdiv = document.layers[ divID ];
					PcH = true;
				}
			else
				{

					PcH = false;
				}
			if ( PcH )
				{
					Pdiv.className = ( Pdiv.className == 'cachediv' ) ? '' : 'cachediv';
				}
		}

	/*
	* Inverse les divs: Cache les divs visible et montre le divs cachés  
	*/
	function InverseTout( nom )
		{
			var NumDiv = 1;
			if ( document.getElementById ) // Pour les navigateurs récents
				{
					while ( document.getElementById( nom + NumDiv ) )
						{
							SetDiv = document.getElementById( nom + NumDiv );
							DivStatus( nom, NumDiv );
							NumDiv++;
						}
				}
			else if ( document.all ) // Pour les veilles versions
				{
					while ( document.all[ nom + NumDiv ] )
						{
							SetDiv = document.all[ nom + NumDiv ];
							DivStatus( nom, NumDiv );
							NumDiv++;
						}
				}
			else if ( document.layers ) // Pour les très veilles versions
				{
					while ( document.layers[ nom + NumDiv ] )
						{
							SetDiv = document.layers[ nom + NumDiv ];
							DivStatus( nom, NumDiv );
							NumDiv++;
						}
				}
		}
// ]]></script>

Then, Write down your article in both languages, one after the other in you editor. Each language should be placed in a separate div; and a button placed to switch from one language to the other. Here is an example :

<a href="javascript:InverseTout( 'mondiv' )">Français / English</a></pre>
<div id="mondiv1" class="cachediv">
<div style="border: 1px solid black; background-color: whitesmoke; margin-bottom: 2px;">My article in english</div>
</div>
<div id="mondiv2">
<div style="border: 1px solid black; background-color: whitesmoke; margin-bottom: 2px;">Mon article en français</div>
</div>
<pre>

There you are ! The “class = cachediv” is used to hide the on load.

All you have to do now is to “beautify” the code by changing the link into a flag, and enhance the way div are displayed.The bad thing is you will have some javascript code in your articles, and both languages are present on the same page.

Hope this help

And if you have a better idea, please let me know !

[source]

NOTE : Sorry for the code being in french (its not mine). I could take some time to translate it if you want

Look up to the future !

Linux User, Blogger, Engineer, Climber, Human . . .

Tag Archives: pluxml

My minimalist dark Pluxml theme

A lightweight dynamic CMS, database free!

A simple way to get a multilingual blog