[phpesp-dev] Themes & Templates

[James E. F. <jf...@ac...>]

Hello All,
  Now that Kon has graciously created three new templates
for phpESP, the time has come to think about making phpESP
themeable. Everyone using web stuff seems to want Themes
now. I feel stability and features are more important than
Themes, but I think phpESP is at a point where it is
logical to consider themeability.

  First let me summarize the results of the GUI survey[1].
The majority (60%) was for the third design (the one that
sort of looks like a TV). I prefer that design as well. I
think that this should become the default Theme. A few
people suggested that the greens be replaced with blues in
this theme. I am sure that would be a trivial task, and of
course we can use them both as Themes.

[1] http://phpesp.sf.net/demo/survey.php?name=design&results=1

  Now, having said that -- we need to discuss
implementation. I personally have not written, nor even
read, any PHP code that supports themes. I believe that it
is in our best interest to use some existing template/theme
framework for PHP rather than writing one. Kon suggested
FastTemplate[2], and after a quick search with Google, I
found Smarty Template Engine[3].

[2] http://www.thewebmasters.net/php/FastTemplate.phtml
[3] http://www.phpinsider.com/php/code/Smarty/

  I have not looked at the licenses on these packages, but
they must be compatible with the BSD license to be used
with phpESP. I think that with Smarty we can use Smarty for
development, and not distribute any Smarty code (since it
generates PHP code). I think that this is the best option,
especially because of its speed. I am open to suggestions
though, since I have not used templates/themes in PHP
before.

Please comment if you have any opinion or experience on the
subject.

-James