[phpBT-dev] New templates

[John W. <joh...@wi...>]

Hi all,

I've been testing out the latest CVS code including the new smarty
templates.  They certainly make the php code files a lot simpler which
is, I think, Ben's main aim of the change.

A couple of weeks ago, I started to build a new template for my install
at work.  With the pre-Smarty code, this was straight forward:  Design 
a new wrap.html in any html wysiwyg editor than put in the correct
tags for {content} etc,.  I didn't make any changed to the "content" 
files (user.html, newaccout.html) etc,,.

Having looked at the new templates system, I was wondering if it would
be possible to still use an overall design template file (ie wrap.html)
with the new Smarty "content" files.

I think I've found how to do this by making only very small changes
to whats currently in cvs.  The basic approach was to:
 * change the {content} tag in wrap.html to {include file=$content}
 * change the $t->display('index.html') line at the end of index.php
   to $t->display('wrap.html');
 * preceed the $t->display(..) line with 
   $t->assign('body','index.html'); (or 'user.html' etc,,)
 * change index.html by removing the header and footer includes but
   leaving all the other smarty code in place;
 * copy back smarty display logic code from header.html and 
   footer.html to wrap.html;

The wrap.html basically becomes the overall "layout" template
file whilst the others provide all the detail & display logic.
Significantly distinct templates can be generated simply by
modifying the wrap file, without having to change the others.

Is this worth looking at?  It seems to be a "middle way" to get
the benefits of the old simple templates with the power of the
Smarty template class.  If so, I'll post my modified files here
somewhere for closer inspection.