Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] Template system (Smarty)

[Karsten D. <k.d...@fi...>]

On Thu, Mar 29, 2001 at 08:38:48PM +0200, Alain Fontaine wrote:

> * 10 themes equals 10 directories, each having 15 files
> or:
> * 10 themes equals ONE directory, having 15 slightly more complex files

I would say: The FIRST!

> The first possibility means 150 entities to manage, the second means 15
> entities. It's clear that both from a developer's point of view, AND from
> the user's point of view, the second possibility is the way to go. In any
> way, we will end up with an "easier to manage" factor equalling
> approximately the number of themes. The more themes we have, the more the
> second solution will become easier to manage/update.

Well, basically a theme is a theme because it defines it's own layout,
colours, whatever. What if I created a theme with a new template for left
blocks. This template needed some images. And the corresponding stylesheet
doesn't need borders around the blocks. If I were to put my files into THE
theme directory, there sure would something get messed up.

And what about theme_xyz.tar.gz? How would you know that you can safely
unpack this? You wouldn't...

So I would say: Dynamic stylesheets are a must, even it it is only for
setting the font-size depending on the user agent (one could probably use
some regex to put a  placeholder in a stylesheet produced by some third
party CSS editor automatically). One directory per theme is a must. To keep
things simple ("Hey, these files belong to the xyz theme. Cool") and
manageable. You wouldn't want to change the colors for all themes anyway,
eh? How would they be different afterwards?

Just MHO,
Karsten
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fishfarm - Karsten Dambekalns
Echternstr. 73 - 38100 Braunschweig

Tel. +49 531 1232902  mailto:k.d...@fi...
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