[...] – Part 2 – Installation Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 3 – Admin Settings Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 4 – Layout Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 5 – osDate Themes Create Your Own Online [...]
Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 4 – Layout
*** UPDATED AUGUST 4, 2009: The screenshots are BACK! Found them on my computer 
***
This is part of the osDate 7 part blog series. Scroll down to the bottom of this post for links to the other parts.
The hardest part of learning a new system is understanding its layout and which files to edit to change something on a page. Lucky for you I’ve made screenshots to help you figure out which tpl files to edit to change certain parts of the site. This visual guide should make it a whole lot easier to modify your layout.
The default osDate template files are stored in templates/default/. If you want to use other themes, the templates folder is where you want to move your files to. To activate a specific theme, go into Admin > Site’s Global Settings > Site theme / skin. The screenshots below are taken of the default osDate template.
FRONT PAGE SCREENSHOT - click the image to enlarge
LOGGED IN SCREENSHOT – click the image to enlarge
PROFILE SCREENSHOT – click the image to enlarge
When you’re not sure which tpl file to edit, here’s a tip. Open up the PHP file of the page that you’re on. Scroll down to the very bottom where it says:
$t->assign( ‘rendered_page’, $t->fetch( ‘xxxxxx.tpl’ ) );
The x’s of course will be different depending on the file. This is the file that you need to edit.
Onto Part 5 for themes: Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 5 – osDate Themes
osDate 7 Part Series:
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11 comments - add yours
Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate - Part 1 - Introduction — Cynthia Perla
November 14, 2008
Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate - Part 6 - Sites That Use osDate — Cynthia Perla
November 17, 2008
[...] – Part 2 – Installation Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 3 – Admin Settings Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 4 – Layout Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 5 – osDate Themes Create Your Own Online [...]
Dennis
November 24, 2008
I am new to this site and just started about 2 months ago. So far I only have had one person join all the other 1200 accounts are all just staged ones that are generated. I need help with bringing people there and I really have ran out of time and resources and money now. Can you help me please! I want people to join FREE first then later if they like it then stay and become a full member. I would be happy to hear some ideas of how to get people to this site I tried everything I could think of. I did SEO stuff already I just do not know anyone and have about 0 time to promote this site.
Cynthia
December 20, 2008
@ Dennis – Sorry for the slow response. Been very busy lately. Hope you subscribed to comments so you will get this follow-up.
I’ve written on the forum about this topic about getting new members and attracting traffic. Here are some suggestions:
- You NEED to have a niche. Trying to be a general dating site will put you into competition with companies and other sites that have a much larger marketing budget, or time to do SEO. You may think “free” is enough, but actually it’s hard to convince people to join even if your service is free. Some niches out there – dating for specific ethnicities (asian for example), dating for men under 5′8, dating for BBW’s, dating for intelligent people, dating for people who are educated, dating for people who love reading, dating for people who live in a specific city. There are so many more other there. Pick one! Once you have a niche, it’s much easier to find members.
- You should also remove the “active within” line. When I look on your site, I see members who are all active within 1 month. It makes people assume your site is DEAD, and they are less likely to join. And same goes for the “members online.” Seeing that it’s always at 0 is also not very appealing to new members. If you’re going to keep using the generator, be consistent. It says there are 0 new members this week. That looks bad.
- If you plan to target a specific city as your niche, you should advertise on Facebook for free. Sign up with the Visa Business Network (search for their Facebook page), and they’ll send you a $150 in free advertising credit. They should still have the offer, but double check anyways as it’s really a great deal. You can target people by age and network, which is really useful. Just make sure that you select people who have “single” in their profile, and are looking for “dating.” Be prepared to have your ad rejected though if you don’t follow their guidelines. http://www.facebook.com/ad_guidelines.php. Pictures greatly increase your CTR, but they won’t necessarily accept ones that seem appropriate to you. It’s subjective, but keep trying.
Also, what are your goals for the site? Are you looking to make money off it? Why are you working on it if you have 0 time to promote it?
Online dating is a time intensive business. One of the reasons why I moved on is because the customer acquisition cost is too high, plus online dating no longer interested me. If you are passionate about online dating, a good way is to start a blog and post dating advice that is interesting and fresh.
A blog hosted on Wordpress will get easily picked up by search engines, and you can join many communities (like mybloglog where you can create your own dating community and have people join it).
Hope this helps and good luck to you!
Cynthia
Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate - Part 3 - Admin Settings — Cynthia Perla
January 30, 2009
[...] section, you’re on to changing the “look” of your site. That’s in Part 4. Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 4 – Layout osDate 7 Part Series: Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 1 – Introduction [...]
antony canham
May 19, 2009
hi there,
just wondered whether you know how I can add another category to the site eg: you have men, women, groups, I wish to add escorts as a category so that the date can add this if they are an escort.
carlos
May 23, 2009
Hi Cynthia
Great tutorial, But images are missing
Cynthia
May 27, 2009
@ antony: Unfortunately it has been a while since I’ve used osdate, so I don’t exactly remember anymore (also why I wrote it down in a tutorial because I’d forget). My first guess is that it’s just simply renaming or adding a term in the language php file .
You should definitely post your question in the forum: http://forum.tufat.com/forumdisplay.php?s=0d67706f988b2b671c07796ce68642b2&f=54
@Carlos: Thanks for pointing it out. When my webhost restored my blog, everything was all out of place. I’m involved in other things right now, as I mentioned on the front page, so I don’t have time to look into it right now.
If I recover the images, I’ll leave a note on the front page about it
Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate - Part 2 - Installation — Cynthia Perla
August 5, 2009
[...] – Part 2 – Installation Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 3 – Admin Settings Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 4 – Layout Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 5 – osDate Themes Create Your Own Online [...]
Bazz
August 10, 2009
How do you remove the “active within” line on new profiles?
Shabazz
August 10, 2009
How do you unstall or disable PHP121 IM and install V3 Chat?
