How about an optional blank, theme consistent, customizable, first page?

[artistsinhawaii]

Tranz and Joachim have me convinced now that renaming the index.php is not so good an idea, but how about an optional, blank, theme consistent, customizable,  first page?   

The user could decide whether or not Coppermine would open to this page via a Config manager option. 
 i.e. 
            Open with cover page  O  yes   O  no
            URL of coverpage       [Cover.php     ]     <--default name of customizable first page

Since the blank page would require init.inc.php it would adopt the a look consistent with the rest of the gallery. It would look like coppermine with "The content of the main page" options all blanked out.  (In other words, it would still include the gallery name, description and menu.)  Most importantly,  it would change, along with the rest of the site, to whatever theme the visitor selects.


More experienced users could immediately work this blank page into a built-in homepage, making Coppermine a complete website package along with it's many plug-ins and mods.  Users with little or no HTML or PHP knowledge could opt to tackle this first page later.

The first page could then easily be coded to create shortcuts to various other pages, highlights, links, author comments, etc.

Thanks for reading,

Dennis

[RatKing]

So why not code this your self?

It should be quite simple to do. Add an option to the config table in the DB, add it to the config page. Give it three options to choose from.
1) No frontpage (default)
2) CPG style front page
3) Standard HTML page

The user can than choose between having a frontpage that conforms to the CPG theme or a page of their own construction.

Themes would then add a standard index.html page in their theme directory which a user can fill with his/her own creation.
The other page would be as you said an empty CPG page that I think would do best to read this same index.html page for the content that would have to be displayed in the screen instead of the normal CPG content.

That way everyone should be able to admin this even though they have very limited HTML and no PHP knowledge.

[artistsinhawaii]

So why not code this your self?

It should be quite simple to do. Add an option to the config table in the DB, add it to the config page. Give it three options to choose from.
1) No frontpage (default)
2) CPG style front page
3) Standard HTML page

The user can than choose between having a frontpage that conforms to the CPG theme or a page of their own construction.

Themes would then add a standard index.html page in their theme directory which a user can fill with his/her own creation.
The other page would be as you said an empty CPG page that I think would do best to read this same index.html page for the content that would have to be displayed in the screen instead of the normal CPG content.

That way everyone should be able to admin this even though they have very limited HTML and no PHP knowledge.

Those are great options and I would do so if I could.  But with less than 8 weeks of HTML and less than 5 weeks of PHP, minus 5 days of harddrive meltdown and having to rebuild my system from scratch, I don't think I'm quite up to that, yet.

And really, the point is to have it as a new feature, already included in the package, that everyone can enjoy and use at their disrection.  Something built-in, ready to use or put aside for another time.

Hopefully, I'll get to the point when I can implement the ideas you suggested and if this never gets added as a new feature, I can upload it as a mod.


Thanks for the reply,

Dennis