Non-Responsive Website

[smclaug]

I run the following website for a local church with a Cloudbase template: https://www.maumeevp.org/ It has worked beautifully, we love how easy it is to customize. Today I was loading some articles to the main page. After completing this task I went to the website to confirm everything was looking good however the background for the articles has disappeared (it used to be white) and after the first row everything shifts right. What's really weird is that this shows up fine on a mobile device. Other than adding articles I have not done anything to the site. If i select any of the "read more" tabs to go to an article it display perfectly.

In an effort to fix this issue I have done the following:
cleared the website cache
confirmed I am using the most recent PHP
modified the template styles (however it did not seem responsive)
confirmed that I have the most recent version of Joomla and Gantry
reinstalled the Cloudbase 3 template
reinstalled Joomla 3
I am at a loss for how to fix this when the template is not responsive. I have even tried changing the number of columns from 3 to 1 in the article configuration to see if Joomla is responsive and those changes don't work either.

I am not very tech savvy. I do have a backup of the website but it's from January. I have a copy of the current database but I am concerned that if I reinstall everything from the backup I will lose all the changes that have been made since then including components that have been added.

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Sara

[smclaug]

I can't seem to delete this post, no need for anyone to respond.

[sozzled]

A few casual "first thoughts" observations:

1) It's unlikely that PHP is at the heart of what is basically a CSS matter. Despite the obvious connection between PHP and problems, the kinds of problems that we see are usually more severe and impact on the basic functionality (and maintainability) of a website rather than the "user experience". For what it's worth:

Therefore, I would conclude that PHP is not involved however I can't be certain. If we want some certainty around the problem the it would be useful to see the Forum Post Assistant report (because any other comments we may make are purely speculative.


2) This is not a support forum for Cloudbase3 (or any other third-party template). I don't know anything about this template (and there's a strong likelihood that other active members of this community don't know about it, either). The first place to go is to the developer and see what they can do about the matter.

My guess is that there is a missing "end-tag" in HTML that's resulting in a kind of nesting behaviour (i.e. "articles ... after the first row [are shifted] right").

3)

... the background for the articles has disappeared (it used to be white) ...

In a technical sense, this isn't a case of responsiveness. This is a CSS matter. Perhaps the background was changed to white but it depends how which CSS file was used to change the background. Again a guess, but it's probable that the CSS files that originally shipped with the template were altered and, after re-installing the template—in effect, replacing the "originally shipped" files—those changes were lost. As we have written countless times on this forum: never modify original files! There are other ways to make changes without directly editing files created by a developer.

If you don't get any satisfaction from the developer of the template, it's a fairly straightforward task to change to a different template. The choice of what template you use is yours; there are millions of templates you can choose from and I'm sure it won't take you more than a day or two to find something that not only looks better but actually works. Good luck.

[sozzled]

Noted that the issue seems to have been resolved. It would be nice to know if any of the observations I made previously had any bearing on the resolution. Thanks.

UPDATE: On revisiting the site, the issue(s) have not been resolved. Something strange is occurring, a case of first you don't see the problem and then you do and then you don't.

[smclaug]

The issue is with the template. It had a limited number of articles allowed on the front page and when the number of articles exceeded the allowance it threw the entire system into a funk. I’m not sure why it seemed as if everything else was not responsive but modifying this issue corrected the problem. Thank you for taking the time to respond and provide assistance.

[sozzled]

The template [has] a limited number of articles allowed on the front page and when the number of articles exceeded the allowance it threw the entire system into a funk.

Hmm ... this doesn't sound like a good recommendation to continue to use that template, does it? Anyway, it's your site; it's your choice and, ultimately, it's your decision concerning what to do next. I'm unaware of any template that imposes limits on how many articles may be displayed. Again, that's a question you may want to ask the author of that template.