do the following and only the following and report back
1) go into the atahualpa theme folder and rename index.php to indexold.php
2) go into the backend of your site, you will have defaulted to the default theme
3) go to dashboard->Plugins - activate the Marquee-plus plugin
4) go into the atahualpa theme folder and rename indexold.php to index.php
5) go to dashboard->Appearance->Themes - Activate the Atahualpa theme
6) go to ATO->Style & edit HEADER AREA->Configure Header Area - remove everything but '%pages %logo %bar1 %image %bar2'
7) go to dashboard->Plugins - de-activate the Marquee-plus plugin
8) go to the front end - is it working with no errors (there will be no marque)

As per your last instructions. In Atahualpa theme I changed index.php to indexold.php then executed command to get to backend(admin panel) and get nothing but a blank screen.

However I have a backup in which I lose a few posts but I can get back to where we were.

All this is very puzzling. It should be able to enter the admin panel irregardless of selection of theme or plugin. Once in the admin panel I should be able to make theme and plugin selections. Logic tells me that, that is the way it should work. Seems as though it goes into admin panel and immediately jumps into wordpress where the error occurs.

It also does appear that the "echo show_marquee" that we input via the ATO header config is actually in the wordpress_db. How do we get rid of it without the use of the admin panel ATO?

If all this could be explained the whole exercise would be worth while and justified as education but if necessary we can merely just go back to using the backup.


Alfie

well do you have anything in the themes folder besides the atahualpa folder? Do you have the default theme there?

JuggleDaddy

The themes folder has classic, default and Atahualpa.

When I enter the admin panel it seems to like to go to Atahualpa (without my reuest click?). Before changing index.php to indexold.php that is when we were getting the error. When we changed to indexold.php we got a blank screen (I believe it cannot find index.php and that is the reason for the blank screen) but in either case it liked to go to Atahualpa. You had expected that it would go to the default theme. Suppose i just copied Atahualpa to a temp directory so that I had only default and classic in the theme folder would this accomplish what you were trying to do?

As I said before if I understood what is happening here that would definitely be worthwhile (I'm beginning to realize that I do not understand exactly how Wordpress works and certainly not where the ATO is placing the config data. )

Yes I would like to isolate this problem but I can quickly use my backup and get back to our original marquee problem.

Whatever you wish to do or both.

alfie, are you renaming the index.php in the themes folder or the index.php in the atahualpa folder? you should be renaming the index.php that is in the atahualpa folder

when you rename the index.php in a theme, you are effecively deleting the theme. When wordpress starts up it looks for the current theme (by accssing the DB to find out what is active) then it looks in the themes folder for it. If it can't find the theme, it reverts to teh default theme.

If this is not happening, you have some other issue going on.

I renamed index.php in the Atahualpa theme. I understand what you are saying but apparently it does enter the atahualpa theme and doesn't like indexold.php therefore, the blank screen. When I renamed it back to index.php I then got the same marquee error again.

If this is one of those puzzling situations with no immediate answer why don't I just use the backup and return to the marquee code problem and see if we can solve that.

Do what you wish, I'm just trying to point out that there is something 'different' about yur wordpress.

What version of Atahualpa and WordPress are you running?
What version of php?

Wp 2.9.1 Atahualpa 3.4.6
php 5.1

I replaced system with backup and I am working again, I lost a few posts but i can re-enter.

I downloaded marquee-plus again and re-entered the code you gave me. i did not enter the echo show_marqueeplus1(); because it did nothing the last time and I still multi levels of categories. It appears as it we are not loaded tghe marquee with data. I looked at the code and added $output = $marquee_cat; below your last line. However in order to make it scroll it seems that i must surround %cat in the ATO header config with <marquee>%cat</marquee> otherwise it dfoes not scroll. With this it scrolls but there is no data.

Wanna take another shot at it.

I think you are confusing two different effects. teh code '<marquee>xxxxxxxt</marquee>' is an HTML code that will scroll what ever is in between the '<marquee>' and the '</marquee>' across the screen. But as I said in post #3 the <marquee> </marquee> is not HTML compliant

The reason you see the categories is because when Atahualpa process the header config, it replaces the %cat with a list of all the categories.

All of that has nothing to do with the 'marquee-plus' plugin or teh code change I gave you to change it. At this point I would suggest deleting the marquee-plus . The code I gave you was something I thru together and I don't plan to support it and I'm sure the author of the plugin won't eithor.

So basicly you can use the <marquee> </marquee> if you so choose, but I have no more to offer.

Cannot use the <marquee> </marquee> tags since it may scroll but there is no category data. I believe that there is something wrong with the way in which the get_categories() is being used in your mod. Wordpress does not provide troubleshooting by using breakpoints and watches therefore it is impossible to stop and check to see if the categories have been added to $marqueeplus_value_1 . Is it possible to use an echo statement (like they used to do in the early days of computers) but then where would we look for the results.

One more comment on this subject. The category marquee approach would be very useful in Atahualpa and I'm sure that the author of the marquee-plus plugin may be interested in evaluating what we have started. I tried to leave a comment on their website but they are having problems. If i could get their e-mail address I would try to desribe the problem.


Placing all this aside using the multi level category bar in Atahualpa keeps growing to multi levels and is not very attractive. Using the basic ATO options what can i do to improve appearance. I tried the count option but it didn't seem to do anything?
The plug-in option that was offered was also very limited.

Everything I've said here indicates that we should not give up on the marquee scroll approach.

Alfie,

I really think you should look at a different taxonomy. What you are describing seems like it is going to get very confusing to visitors to your website. Maybe you should consider using tags instead of categories and use one of the many tag cloud plugins. Just my .02 worth.

Alfie,
If you would like my continued support on this, I have to charge you, I've spent too much time for free on this (I'm not paid for this help I give). The change to the plugin was meant as a one time hack. If you want personal support, send me a PM and I'll quote you my rates.

Juggledaddy

I really appreciated your efforts and i would love to place you on the payroll however at this point there is no payroll and I'm not in a position to create large expenses. However i believe I have a great idea and if it takes off and I can raise money that will be an option for this problem or the many others that probably are still to occur. In the meantime I'll try to spend some time on it myself while I'm also trying to perform the duties of an editor. I have made a donation and will continue to add small contributions until I'm in a position to go big time.

Thanks for your time and effort.



Imilessw

Perhaps you would like to discuss the appropriate taxonomy of the present Atahualpa category bar2 which I feel is prfesently awkward. I have made a number of references to why I believe this is true in the above dialogue. That is why I believe that the marquee method is so important. Again i refer you to the many marquees that exist on buildings in NYC and how they have effectively attract visitors.

Alfie

Alfie... I like the way the current menu bars work and highly resist making it more cumbersome. Buildings are not the web just as print media is not the web. I urge you to think about what the purpose of your site is and design the navigation around that. Scrolling, blinking, and flash animation are to most in the industry distractions rather than attractions. People want to quickly get to what they are looking for and if they have to wait for stuff to scroll or come into view they will be gone in a heartbeat. Maybe I am not clear on what it is you are trying to accomplish and if you have an example even a poor one please post a link. Good luck on your quest.

Perhaps you can just comment on the present category bar2 in Atahualpa. I find a multi-level category bar quite cumbersome - (that is what i presently have) It keeps growing every day as i add categories. I've tried the count option and it doesn't seem to do anything as well.

I know I'm repeating it again but i also have a sidebar category list box where all of the categories are shown and are clickable.
I'm tempted to just eliminate the awkward cat bar 2.

I would build a hierarchy of categories with no more than about 8-10 top level cats. I would also consolidate categories as much as practical. Could you please post the link to your site?

You have virtually answered my question. The assumption is that the number of categories are assumed to be limited. In my application that is exactly contrary to what makes it special, the categories are thought provoking. They are not the ordinary that you may observe and they could be very large in number. That is exactly why I would like to have a scrolling marquee and a sidebar listbox (which I have)
The marquee would grab your attention with stimulating categories and the list box would allow to find what you want and click away.

There may be one other way, that is a line at a time with the ability to click on a right down arrow which would give you another line of categories. Sort of like a parallel list box. Not as good as a marquee but a compromise.

Sorry, I'm not ignoring your request for a link but for the present time I am keeping it available for certain people but confidential.

I appreciate the dialog - its helpful.

As far as the marquee is concerned, I do believe we're almost there with the suggestions made by JuggleDaddy. However since knowledge of the internals of Atahualpa is limited to just a few people it's difficult to know where to place code.

What you are describing is tags, not categories.

Imilesw

Just one last question. On your earlier reply you said that on a whim you used <marquee>%cat</marquee> in the configure header area and the marquee scroll worked for you. Does this mean you saw the categories scrolling? I tried the same and i saw a blank scrolling bar, there were no categories.

If you actually saw categories being displayed there must be something else in your configuration that had an effect.


This is secondary but tags or categories its a matter of perception. To me tags are used for search engines to find web sites and categories are part of the CMS application using categories and posts.

I did indeed see the categories although they were unclickable. When I talk about tags I am really referring more to tag clouds which can show categories in a cloud widget depending on the plugin used. Some of them even move. You might want to do a search through the WordPress.org plugins for tag cloud and try a few. They may be what you are looking for. And as I mentioned some of them let you use categories in the cloud. I would also research WordPress tags as I still think they may be more appropriate for what you are trying to accomplish but it would take a bit of playing around with them to see if they would work for you.

It's obvious where a catalog marquee would appear but I'm not sure where i would place a category cloud but I'll give some thought to it.

However, lets go back to the fact that you did see categories in the scrolling marquee because i didn't. There must be something in your header config that is different from mine. I have %pages %bar1 %logo %cats %bar2 %image and of course some other styling. I'd like to determine why it was working on your system and not on mine. The only other set up besides the header config is the bar2 styling - can you tell me what you are using. Any thoughts on this anomoly? I would be satisfied if it scrolled the categories w/o being clickable.

Actually the buttons are clickable. The following is what I have in my Configure Header Area at my test site.
It seems to work in Firefox and Chrome. In Opera the links are not clickable and in IE8 the scrolling behavior doesn't work well.

Larry

have no idea what
<?php bfa_widget_area('name=My new widget area'); ?> is

but i tried it and it did not work. Still have a blank scrolling marquee??

Getting late - tomorrows another day.

Alfie

The only thing that was important in that line was