Well, this is very, very depressing. I had such high hopes for this, that I might be able to add a field for "author" to articles that are book reviews, which seems like a fairly straightforward thing to accomplish. I'm far from stupid, and I've tried to read the docs, I even tried to watch the little video, but here are the problems: the video is too fast to be able to figure out what's happening; I tried to go frame by frame but I seem to miss some frames, trying to do it that way. As for the docs, well, I just can't understand them. I'm very, very grateful that an effort was made to render them in English, by those who aren't native English-speakers, but they just don't make sense, don't hang together grammatically to make anything clearer, and their end result is to leave me more confused than when I began.

All I really want to do is to make a new field in some articles; I have a section called "Reviews," divided into 2 categories, Fiction and Non-fiction. Anything posted in that section will be book reviews, so I would like to be able to have a dedicated field for the name of the author of the book being reviewed. I suspect that this means that I need to create a new Content Type, but I can't figure out anything about how to go about doing that, or what to do with the new Content
Type if I should succeed in creating one.

What I need is something that says clearly, first do this, then do that, and finally do this other thing, but I am not finding anything remotely that clear in the docs.

Can anyone help me with this rather simple task?

Thx,
Andria

Hi AndriaD,
keep hoping, we will help you .
We will try to create a first basic content type.

1)Go on Field manager, click on category icon, create a field category nammed "my field cat".
2)Go back on field manager, create a new field nammed "my first field", select the type "input text", assign it to the category "my field cat".
3)Go on Content Type Manager. Create a new content type nammed "my content type". On the right, on admin panel, select your field category "my field cat", you will see your field "my first field", click two time on this field and it will be go on assigned field. Save your content type.
4)Go on article manager, create a new article, fill a title, select a section and a category. Click on jSeblod CEK button and select your content type nammed "my content type". You will see your form with your field "my first field". Fill it. Save.
5)See how your new article is display on your website.
Do that and tell us if it's ok.
Then we will continue.
Best Regards.

Ok, when I create the field category, what is the "Parent"? Top, or Joomla article? or something else? It won't let me create a new category without specifying the Parent.

Thx much,
Andria
<-- me freaking out -- I hate when I can't understand things!

Ok, I did this; I tried making the Parent "Joomla Article", then I tried making the Parent "Top" (the reason for trying both is shown below, in my problem with step #3);



Ok, I did this, no problems;



Here, I ran into a serious problem. When I tried to select "my field cat" as the category, it simply isn't there, whether I made its parent "Top" or "Joomla Article". The only choices are Quick Category, Auto Process, or Joomla -- no "my field cat" is shown. Here's a screen capture:


So, I could go no further, since I could not even assign the new content type to "my field cat" as directed to do. No idea where to go from here.

Still lost and freaking out,
but many thanks...
Andria

Hi AndriaD,
Category for content type are only to organize your content types, no matter with field.
In content type edition view, look on your right, you have an interface to assign fields.
Regards.

I agree with AndriaD. The software is as good as a documentation is. I'm not an EN native speaker too, so I do understand you, but... You have to have a good documentation. I'm really missing a concise explanation, how a workflow goes, more examples, more pictures... Pleas make a good documentation first in you mother language (French - i believe) and then let us help yo translate it to whatever language we need. I'm sure that there are good guy who are willing to translate from FR to EN and from there to whatever language.

Thank you for a good work anyway!

Cheers, D.

Hi Dorbar,
Many thanks for your post.
You are right and some people work on. You will see jSeblod documentation on a wiki to make much more easier to translate and modify. And we work too on some videos. We hope you will be agree to help us.
And you will see, jSeblod CCK 1.2.5 was a baby in comparaison with jSeblod CCK 1.5.
Thanks again.
Best Regards.

Hi All,

I also have to agree. I think the CCK is a masterpiece and looks very powerful. The trouble is I am unable to harness it's power because I just can't understand what is going on. I can create sections and categories, use the forms (site and admin side) but I just cannot figure out how to create a display like that shown in the recipe example. It is clearly a blog layout which I think is customised for CCK. I wanted to display a properly formatted and customised list view but I just can't figure it out.

As Dorbar suggests, a comprehensive user manual in French would be a great start. From there it could be translated into English or any other language if the demand was great enough.

This is an excellent product but if people are unable to use it then it counts for nothing.

Hope you address this ASAP so I can get back to using CCK.

Cheers,
Col

I had stopped messing with jSeblod because it just made me feel stupid, so it's a huge relief to see that I'm not the only one who can't understand how it works -- so maybe I'm not stupid after all!

I downloaded the content packs to try and fiddle around with them, and gain some understanding; I particularly like the "stars" (rating) field of the recipe pack, it would be an EXCELLENT inclusion in a book-review content pack; all the other "rating" things I find in the Joomla Extensions Directory are about rating users (which seems like a high-school thing to me, and high school was 30 yrs ago! -- most adults have sufficient self-regard to not worry about such trivialities).

Anyway, I still haven't had any luck figuring out how to use the CCK, but I'm definitely still interested. And I hope I was not offensive in my remarks about the English of the documentation; I'm well aware that no language will translate perfectly, literally, to another, and that French and English are both very complex languages which might defy the translation efforts of the most determined linguist.

So, I'm still hanging around on the outskirts of this program and this forum; one day maybe I will be able to figure it out sufficiently to actually put it to use.

Thx,
Andria

Hi AndriaD,
You are right, we work hard on it. And you will see Monday our efforts. Some great people join the project (American, Sweden...) !
Best Regards.

Bes,

I very much look forward to the unveiling. Is that this Monday, the 9th of November?

Col

Hi Bes

I would be interested in helping you out with a documentation. I have some experience in making books and documentations.

I can't wait until Monday


Cheers, D.

Hi dorbar,
Thanks a lot for your post. Can you please send a email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . It will be great that you join documentation team.
Best Regards.

Hi Cols2910,
Sorry, it will be for Monday 16, see on jSeblod home.
But this is really to do good.
Best Regards.

Hey no worries Bes. I understand the need to do a great job and I have every faith you will.

Good luck
Col