Controlling the folds

The coloured bars that you see in the first screen of the demo site are a part of Organica's built in horizontal sliding accordion. There are four bars in total and they each have the ability to display any modules from the user1 to user3 positions and also the main content body.

The colours for each fold are controlled in the template parameters in the template admin in Joomla 1.5 and the template index.php file in Joomla 1.0.

There are two settings for each fold.

The first is the overall colour of the folding bar and the second is the title that is displayed on the bar. The background colour is a single image located in the images/folds directory in the Organica template folder. The source file for these images are located in the source folder in the source zip. There are 41 coloured folds to choose from.

Here are the images that are available to be used for the coloured folds:

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The second setting is a transparent image that sits above the coloured fold and is basically the label for each fold. This is an optional setting and you have the choice to display these images or not in the template administrator in Joomla 1.5 and the index.php file of the template in Joomla 1.0.

We have put together 20 popular words for labels for you to use but its very easy to create your own in your favourite image editor. The font we have used is called courier new, but if you dont have that font on your system then courier will most certainly be available.

The text that is positioned on top of the folds eg locations, home, about us etc - is referenced by the index.php file and controlled via a variable in the template administrator in Joomla 1.5 and in the index.php file in Joomla 1.0. These images are stored in the template folder in the images/labels/ directory.

The titles that come with the template include:

• About Us
• Blog
• Contact Us
• Directions
• Downloads
• Events
• Features
• Files
• Finding Us
• Flickr
• Folio
• Gallery
• Home
• Locations
• Music
• My Life
• Newsletter
• portfolio
• Resources
• Services
• Specials
• Twitter
• Work

If you would prefer not to use the folds on your site then all you need to do is avoid publishing any modules to the user1, user2 or user3 positions.

Controlling the slider

Organica's slider is a full width jQuery content slider that is built in to the template. It basically operates according to the number of modules you have published in the module positions named slide2 to slide9 with the addition of a few cosmetic settings that can be controlled in the template administrator in Joomla 1.5 or in the index.php file in Joomla 1.5.

The transparent menu items at the top right of the template are the menu tabs that trigger the slide to occur and the text for each tab is controlled by the parameter in the template administrator under the section called "Slider Menu Titles". In order to change the text for these items its as simple as typing the text you want to use in the input field that corresponds to the tab you want to use.

Slider Settings.

Each tab on the top right correlates to the module position numbered slide2 through to slide9. The first tab refers to the opening slide which contains the main content body and the horizontal accordion and to keep things a little easier to understand we started numbering the other slider modules from slide2 onwards.

If you are using Joomla 1.5 then there is nothing more to do, however if you are using Joomla 1.0 it is necessary to perform a few extra steps before the modules slide2 to slide9 will be available. See the below for further details on how to go about doing this.

Publishing modules to slider positions

The menu items are automatically published when modules are published to slide2 through to slide9. If there are no modules published at any of the module positions from slide 2 to slide 9 then the first menu tab will also be unpublished.

Creating extra module posiitons in Joomla 1.0

To setup extra module positions in Joomla 1.0 - navigate to  Site --> Templates --> Module Positions. You should see this screen:

In a spare module position type the names of the slide module positions you want to use. Its probably quickest to add all 9 just in case you need to use more slides at a later date. Enter the details in the exact manner as you can see below:

Equal Height Columns

Organica also comes with the awesome equal heights jquery script that creates - you guessed it - equal height columns. Organica's sub template setup comes with a maximum of four columns on the sub pages. The widths of the columns are set in the template administrator and the eQual heights script ensures you that the columns are all the same height.