Templates Systematization Similar to Modules

mastermindsro posted 9th of August 2009 in Community Voice. 9 comments.

I think everybody knows the way modules for Hookie works now.. and I bet everybody is happy the way they organized modules in folders and the install/uninstall system in administration..

Installing modules and playing with them is very easy now.. but are the templates in the same situation? Can we administrate templates from the control panel? Can we install and uninstall them with grace? No we have to still use the FTP to do the things most other scripts do for many years now - The install and uninstall/modifying template settings and style from the administration..

Everybody knows that a great script is nothing without a great range of free and commercial templates.. How can we make Hookie a great success without easing things out for new users..Why should we make 99% of the things right and let that 1% ruin the rest? What I propose is that templates should be organised just as modules (folder structure) and admins should also have the possibility to uninstall templates just like the modules.

I also propose If it's possible to allow the installation of modules and templates by uploading them in the original zip right into the admin control panel.. Take Joomla as example..

What is your opinion about this? Please speak free and tell me what you think..

 
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Technoman
Your right mastermind and about being able to change templates is very important in this kinda of software, what happend to the promises from Dolphin that there would be 2 Templates Free set aside for the users here awile back ?
CALTRADE
I have never heard the word "sistematization" but I do love the way the modules work - especially the way they can then relate to membership levels. I could never figure out how to install templates on D6- it was terribly complex. I think having them in the control panel sounds like a great idea.
mastermindsro
Yes well I should install some spell checking :)
houstonlively
I haven't counted all the template files, but it looks like about 200 images, and at least 150 different files... probably more. That's a bunch of work just to create one different template.
Andrew Boon
Well... I have to agree on this one. Seamless template installation would be neat and is something we should definitely work on. It's too late now (midnight), but I'll talk to guys 2morrow to figure out when (not IF) we can do that.
mastermindsro
Wow that's GREAT news, it will count very much for the community! Thank you Andrew!
DeeEmm
My 02c for templates...

> Get rid of the import statements in the CSS files - they are not a good idea - Not only are they an additional overhead (File open / close transactions are memory intensive - much more so than the few bytes of data contained within the files), but handling templates in the manner that you recommend (ie only including the items that you require) is a VERY BAD IDEA...

CSS inheritance is unpredictable at best - overwriting selected statements as you are suggesting see more will be processed in different ways by different browsers. Some will give you the expected results - some will not.

There is no need to try to be clever with how you process templates - just stick to the normal way of doing things.

Less overheads = Faster loading

Standard template methodology = cross browser compatibility

> Get rid of UNI + Base - merge them into one folder so that creating a new template is as simple as copy + pasting one folder. (This will also have added advantage of addressing above issue too)

> Reduce the number of CSS files. Again - file open close transactions are more memory intensive than the data that they contain. There is no need to do this - no need to associate each template file with a CSS file - just put all of the CSS into one file - or perhaps split it into two or more if this makes more sense (admin / forum / site / user etc)...

CSS files have comments - use them to separate different sections.

> Get rid of inline style and inline php - it is bad coding at best. This is 2009 not 1999.

The way that you have templates laid out at the moment is simply overcomplicated.

Remember the KISS principle. ;)

DM.
mastermindsro
I know the golden rule of website speed.. "Minimize HTTP Requests" .. and you get faster loading of the page..
We need to reduce the number of files loading in each page as DeeEmm said by melting them into one or as few as possible.. I've raised this problem a few months ago just after the first public alpha (alpha 13 I think) was released, boonex team did a great job reducing the size and the ammount of the external files..
We really need to do something with this and continue improving see more loading speed..
DeeEmm
I think the Devs are forgetting that it's the client that processes the CSS files - not the server.

Best policy is to only get the client to retrieve two / three files at most - HTML + CSS + JS function file is all that is really needed.

Additionally put the JS calls at the END of the HTML file NOT the head. The functions are generally all called post runtime, so there's no need to hold everything else up by loading them upfront.

DM.
 
 
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