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Re: Themeing G3
by Jakob Hilden-2
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Hey Stephen,
thank you for your input. I agree that doing even more user research would be valuable, but for the sake of productivity I think we should get this started now, so that G3 doesn't stay a hypothetical idea. As with so much "the perfect is the enemy of the good". Also note that the two student teams at the University of Michigan and other Gallery team members have spend a lot of time talking to users at all levels to figure out what their needs are. So it's not like we haven't done any user research. Let my just lay out how I think we will approach themeing for G3 and you tell us what you think. I agree that customizing the presentation of Gallery for a themer (see below for definition/persona of "themer") should be made as simple as possible! At this point we are only dealing with technical foundations of the presentation system. We decided to go for PHP instead of Smarty templates, because they are widely used (as Bharat already pointed out), there is A LOT of documentation about any aspect of PHP, and a lot of people have at least some experience with that language. (see a small anecdote from my personal experience on that issue below) Another goal that we are working on at this moment is to make the presentation system as modular as possible. So that you can just copy and paste certain components of the UI (modules, blocks, etc.) around in different templates with no problem. Then we are working on very lean and semantic HTML code. So that people should be able to directly see what element of the UI matches what markup in the HTML. Finally we are structuring the CSS in a way that should allow people to easily find the style that they want to change and at what level they want to change it. Again, these are only the technical foundations. We will try to make them as flexible as possible, so that we can make the themeing experience on top of them more usable. This layer will then allow to better support common tasks like: changing colors (see other email thread), images or whatever. Here is also where the documentation comes into play. And, as Bharat already mentioned we could really use any help with that. So, please get on board and write the documentation that you would like to see! On another note: We should NOT worry about customization through the admin interface for now! I think it was a big mistake in Gallery2 to allow all these fine grained customizations through the admin interface. Giving the user the 10 options, 3 modes and 2 directions to sort by is just overkill. We should design the templates to be as flexible as possible and definitely consider where and how “customization automation” could be integrated. But we should not start building those automated customization features, before we don't have a clue what the most important things and the best ways for user to customize are. They will tell us what they need and we should not overcomplicate things before we know what is needed. Who is the typical Gallery Themer (quick 'n dirty persona) Tim Themer works as a photographer/designer for a design firm. He is involved with a lot of web stuff, but he is definitely not a programmer. He knows some HTML & CSS and also a little bit of PHP or JS. He has created a handful of small website for friends etc. and even integrated a simple PHP guestbook once. He is very much a trial and error person that just changes things in the code and looks in the browser what happened. I would argue, that the number of Gallery installers that fall at least somewhat in this category is very significant. So we should be able to make G3 work for more then 50% of the installers and more then 70% of the users, without building any “automated customization” complexity into the templates and the rest of the code. After we have satisfied the needs of this themer with decent technical expertise we should have enough user input to be able to change exactly those things (and only those), that would make customization possible to less technical people. Wow, what a long email. I hope nobody fell asleep. If you have any feedback I would be glad to hear it. --Jakob Anecdote: I took a university course three years ago, that involved themeing for G2. I was the only among 20 student + 1 CS professor + 2 tech savvy CS teaching assistants, that even knew what Smarty was at all. I'm 100% sure that it would have been much easier for us in that case, if the templates were just written in simple PHP + HTML. I think, at least 5-6 people would have been able to figure it out in the latter case. Bharat Mediratta wrote: > Stephen Cupp wrote: >> Who is G3 aimed at? Those people that know how to theme in WP and >> Drupal will want to run G3 embedded and just want the basic HTML so it >> doesn't break their WP or Drupal theme. >> >> It is my view that decisions like this are made by the developers who >> didn't wrap their heads around what the users needs are. Unless you are >> subscribed to this list you have no idea what's going on. Maybe I >> missed it, but have the developers asked the rest of the community what >> they want. I haven't seen any polls or forum topics or a survey. When >> I look through the Theme Development Forum I see questions like "Carbon >> Theme: changing logo" or "Carbon Theme: how to change the logo link?". >> Are these the people who are going to think PHP is better then Smarty? >> Now I'm not trying to be harsh because sometimes I fall into this >> trap too. Those that know PHP will think a pure PHP themeing system is >> the best. Those who don't know PHP is another story. > > Stephen, I'm not going to take offense that you're basically saying that > I don't understand our user base. I don't think that a poll is an > appropriate way to figure out a solution for something like this. We > made a measured decision based on a variety of criteria. > > 1) It's 1 less technology to learn. We expect that themers will know > some PHP, or have to learn it. Even with Smarty templates, they still > needed to know a *little* PHP. And if they don't know either Smarty or > PHP then they need to learn one thing either way. It just needs to be > well documented and easy (which is achievable in either case). > > 2) PHP templates are fast and commonly used. Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, > PHP-Nuke, and others follow this paradigm. This demonstrates that > there's a large and thriving base of people who know how to use PHP to > create themes. Taking a survey is not the way to make a clear decision. > We're doing this for technical reasons and we believe that it'll be at > least as easy to understand to the themer as Smarty is. > > 3) I have personally spent a huge amount of time trying to create a good > metaphor for template layers like Smarty on top of our existing system > and I've found that this additional layer is slow and confusing. It > requires a compilation phase, generates new PHP files off in an > unexpected location, leads to permission errors that cause rendering to > fail, requires the reader to go off and read and understand the Smarty > documentation to do anything more complicated than variable > interpolation, and has confusing error messages. > > 4) Smarty's choice of tag delimiters interfere with two of the most > common and basic operations that themers want: using curly braces in CSS > and Javascript. > > So PHP is faster, smaller, better known. > >> I'm also skeptical about the documentation for this new themeing system. >> As I've said here numerous times I feel that is G2's biggest weak >> point. Bharat told me he didn't like to write documentation and no >> amount of wishing is going to change that. He also said he wanted to >> write G3 in a way so there is not a need for much documentation. > > Ok, I hear what you're saying. But hear this: a new theming system is > coming. If you'd like the documentation to be better this time around, > how about you take charge of the theming documentation effort and we > work together on it? I'll answer every single one of your questions for > you in as much detail as you can handle, you are in charge of getting it > down in a form that people understand. You'll also be in charge of > following through on it and not taking off in the middle of the project. > Step up and get involved and you can make a difference here. Otherwise, > while I appreciate your skepticism, it's not going to change the outcome. > > -Bharat > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge > Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes > Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world > http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ > __[ g a l l e r y - d e v e l ]_________________________ > > [ list info/archive --> http://gallery.sf.net/lists.php ] > [ gallery info/FAQ/download --> http://gallery.sf.net ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ __[ g a l l e r y - d e v e l ]_________________________ [ list info/archive --> http://gallery.sf.net/lists.php ] [ gallery info/FAQ/download --> http://gallery.sf.net ] |
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Re: Themeing G3
by Brandon Sussman-2
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I rise to speak in favor of a (lighter weight) templating capability as part
of theming. On Tuesday 28 October 2008 11:47:27 Bharat Mediratta and others wrote: > Those that know PHP I think I am a member of that group. > will think a pure PHP themeing system is > the best. What does pure mean? No files that do not begin '<?php'? - I want some support in the form of code that some good templating theorist wizard has developed. tbs ( http://tinybutstrong.com/ ) templating is perfect for me - it is very lightweight and does a great deal of the heavy lifting for me in my work and it is small enough to suck in and modify if needed. Frankly, it is pretty close to pure PHP for me. http://tinybutstrong.com/article_3rd_kind.html is an interesting short read - BTW the 1st kind is pure PHP and the second is exemplified by <drumroll duration="annoying" />SMARTY</drumroll>. I am not expert but I find SMARTY inappropriately hard to deal with. I don't see it's value. SMARTY code is so complex that I do not feel that anything much has been abstracted, which is the reason to use templating. I also suspect that the MVC model might have something to inform this conversation and that a separate heavyweight templating engine courrupts this where a small (or tiny :) ) template class might not. With well done template files (generating appropriate semantics, etc.), a templating class can make skinning (I use interchangeably with templating but please do not start a war over that - I don't quibble) available to the 'less technical' but I fear that themers need to know something of CSS, HTML, PHP etc. We are talking about an interface layer here and you cannot interface two things that you don't know. Seriously - I think it is worthwhile looking at tbs or reinventing the tbs wheel within G3 if that supports the notion of pure PHP better :) -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- | WRWeb Services | http://WRWeb.net | | 1482 Pleasant St. | (603)648-2251 | | Webster, NH, 03303-7613 | 19TBJ8040800540 | ----------------------------------------------------------------- | Web Sites Designed and Supported |Think Locally, Buy Locally! | ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ __[ g a l l e r y - d e v e l ]_________________________ [ list info/archive --> http://gallery.sf.net/lists.php ] [ gallery info/FAQ/download --> http://gallery.sf.net ] |
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Re: Themeing G3
by Tim Almdal
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Brandon, IMO, if you want to use a templating engine for what you create fill your boots.
Googling for "kohana tbs template integration" or "kohana smarty template integration" will give you lots of hits that can help you integrate it into your installation or create a -contrib module that others can use. I'm in full agreement with decision to use native php templates as I also felt that it raised the bar for people that want to make minor changes to templates. Tim ----- Original Message ----- From: Brandon Sussman <Brandon@...> Date: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 10:30 am Subject: Re: [Gallery-devel] Themeing G3 To: gallery-devel@... > I rise to speak in favor of a (lighter weight) templating > capability as part > of theming. > > On Tuesday 28 October 2008 11:47:27 Bharat Mediratta and others wrote: > > Those that know PHP > I think I am a member of that group. > > will think a pure PHP themeing system is > > the best. > What does pure mean? No files that do not begin '<?php'? - I > want some support > in the form of code that some good templating theorist wizard > has developed. > > tbs ( http://tinybutstrong.com/ ) templating is perfect for me - > it is very > lightweight and does a great deal of the heavy lifting for me in > my work and > it is small enough to suck in and modify if needed. > Frankly, it is pretty > close to pure PHP for me. > http://tinybutstrong.com/article_3rd_kind.html is > an interesting short read - BTW the 1st kind is pure PHP and the > second is > exemplified by <drumroll duration="annoying" > />SMARTY</drumroll>. > I am not expert but I find SMARTY inappropriately hard to deal > with. I don't > see it's value. SMARTY code is so complex that I do not > feel that anything > much has been abstracted, which is the reason to use > templating. I also > suspect that the MVC model might have something to inform this > conversation > and that a separate heavyweight templating engine courrupts this > where a > small (or tiny :) ) template class might not. > > With well done template files (generating appropriate semantics, > etc.), a > templating class can make skinning (I use interchangeably with > templating but > please do not start a war over that - I don't quibble) available > to the 'less > technical' but I fear that themers need to know something of > CSS, HTML, PHP > etc. We are talking about an interface layer here and you > cannot interface > two things that you don't know. > > Seriously - I think it is worthwhile looking at tbs or > reinventing the tbs > wheel within G3 if that supports the notion of pure PHP better :) > > -- > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > | WRWeb > Services | http://WRWeb.net | > | 1482 Pleasant > St. | (603)648-2251 | > | Webster, NH, 03303- > 7613 | 19TBJ8040800540 | > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > | Web Sites Designed and Supported |Think Locally, Buy Locally! | > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move > Developer's challenge > Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win > great prizes > Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere > in the world > http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ > __[ g a l l e r y - d e v e l ]_________________________ > > [ list info/archive --> http://gallery.sf.net/lists.php ] > [ gallery info/FAQ/download --> http://gallery.sf.net ] > Website: http://www.timalmdal.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ __[ g a l l e r y - d e v e l ]_________________________ [ list info/archive --> http://gallery.sf.net/lists.php ] [ gallery info/FAQ/download --> http://gallery.sf.net ] |
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Re: Themeing G3
by Bharat Mediratta
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Brandon Sussman wrote:
> tbs ( http://tinybutstrong.com/ ) templating is perfect for me - it is very > lightweight and does a great deal of the heavy lifting for me in my work and > it is small enough to suck in and modify if needed. Frankly, it is pretty > close to pure PHP for me. http://tinybutstrong.com/article_3rd_kind.html is > an interesting short read - BTW the 1st kind is pure PHP and the second is > exemplified by <drumroll duration="annoying" />SMARTY</drumroll>. (I'm smiling as I write this, don't read this as an attack cause its not-- I'm just a little pressed for time so I'm being a little short.) Let's turn this conversation around. We're currently using PHP to write our app, correct? So PHP is our default baseline for any operation that will happen within Gallery3. This means that by default, our templates are going to be generated by PHP. So if we want to use something else, it should be clearly *better* than PHP. I started writing a comparison of basic operations between PHP, Smarty and TBS as an exercise. But what I found is that: a) I don't know TBS b) their docs are going to take me a while to read and understand c) I don't care enough to learn a whole new language to tweak a theme Does this sound familiar? I bet I'm pretty accurately simulating a themer. I set about this with good intentions, looked over the docs, read the examples and tried to figure it out. But in the end, after a minute or two I gave up because I just don't care enough to go learn a whole new technology. Why is there an effort to educate our themers here? They know PHP already. They can take code that's in their templates and cut/paste it directly into any other PHP code and be happy. Better, they can take *any other* PHP code that they find on the web and cut and paste it into a template. We need the simplest, lightest possible solution that lets people make changes to their themes with the minimal possible education. I like the 3rd_kind tbs article. It appeals to my sense as a computer scientist, where I like things that are in a normal form and have logical abstractions. But while this has all kinds of neat implications, it is *not* intuitive. The article is self defeating if you expect it to be intuitive. Anybody in their right mind can look at the example from the 1st kind: <?title('Example Page')?> <?greeting()?> <h1>Heading 1</h1> <p> Page content </p> <h1>Heading 2</h1> <p> Yada Yada </p> <h1>Heading 3</h1> <p> Page content </p> <?footer()?> and know what it does. But let's take a look at the TBS example: Example of natural template (in wysiwyg): Names Phones [users.name;block=tr] [users.phone] [users.name;block=tr] [users.phone] What exactly does that do? If I read the description it says things like "[b;block=tr] defines a zone named "b" and limited by the <tr> </tr> that surrounds it.". Ok, so this is the same as: <tr>[users.name]</tr> Except that if [users.name] is empty, then the <tr/> goes away. This is a nice shortcut. But while it's longer, anybody with PHP is going to have a much lower learning curve to pick up this: <? if ($users.name) ?> <tr> <?= $users.name ?> </tr> <? endif; ?> Because the HTML (the important thing in this whole equation) is very obvious to the themer. Remember that there are two categories here: 1) professional software developers (core team, you, me, folks on -devel) who can learn and use any templating engine and be good at it. These people have time/energy/interest to go off and learn technology. 2) themers with limited time who just want to make simple (and then increasingly more complex) changes to the appearance of their site. in Gallery2 we aimed for #1 and screwed #2. In Gallery3 I'm hoping to hit #2 without screwing #1. -Bharat ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ __[ g a l l e r y - d e v e l ]_________________________ [ list info/archive --> http://gallery.sf.net/lists.php ] [ gallery info/FAQ/download --> http://gallery.sf.net ] |
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Re: Themeing G3
by Brandon Sussman-3
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On Tuesday 28 October 2008 17:30:43 Bharat Mediratta wrote:
--- a lot of stuff that makes perfect sense --- > Remember that there are two categories here: > > 1) professional software developers (core team, you, me, folks on > -devel) who can learn and use any templating engine and be good at it. > These people have time/energy/interest to go off and learn technology. > > 2) themers with limited time who just want to make simple (and then > increasingly more complex) changes to the appearance of their site. > > in Gallery2 we aimed for #1 and screwed #2. In Gallery3 I'm hoping to > hit #2 without screwing #1. > serves #2 and simplifies the codebase is clearly a win. Eliminating that SMARTY mess is such a win for #1 that I am going to quit while we are ahead. If you required templates in COBOL I'd like it better than SMARTY :) Sorry for extending a discussion that should have been over 3 email cycles ago :D -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |/\/\ /\/\ /\/\ Webster Ridge Farm | http://WebsterRidge.com | |\oo/ \--/ \--/ Brandon and Mary Sussman | (603)648-2595 | |=\/= =\/= =\/= 1482 Pleasant St. | N 43.32558 W 71.70835 | | Sleep Well... Webster, NH, 03303-7613 | 19TBJ8040800540 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |Lamb, Poultry, Eggs, Quilts and Web Sites-Think Locally, Buy Locally! | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ __[ g a l l e r y - d e v e l ]_________________________ [ list info/archive --> http://gallery.sf.net/lists.php ] [ gallery info/FAQ/download --> http://gallery.sf.net ] |
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Re: Documentation - was Re: Themeing G3
by Gaynor McCartney
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Great,
Count me in as one of the team. Gaynor ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bharat Mediratta" <bharat@...> To: "Gaynor McCartney" <gaynormcc@...> Cc: <gallery-devel@...>; "Chad Kieffer" <chad@...>; "Stephen Cupp" <lvthunder@...> Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 4:48 AM Subject: Re: [Gallery-devel] Documentation - was Re: Themeing G3 > Gaynor McCartney wrote: >> I still think a writers team could be a good idea. We would need to >> consult >> with the core team to check we understood things and that what we wrote >> was >> correct etc, but although that would be work for the core team at that >> stage, it would free them later when the writers could watch the forums, >> and >> refer people to the relevant place in documentation. > > I would be very happy to see a writer's team. I will be happy to > explain G3 concepts in detail to anybody who wants to understand and > document them. > > -Bharat > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's > challenge > Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great > prizes > Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the > world > http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ > __[ g a l l e r y - d e v e l ]_________________________ > > [ list info/archive --> http://gallery.sf.net/lists.php ] > [ gallery info/FAQ/download --> http://gallery.sf.net ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ __[ g a l l e r y - d e v e l ]_________________________ [ list info/archive --> http://gallery.sf.net/lists.php ] [ gallery info/FAQ/download --> http://gallery.sf.net ] |
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Re: Themeing G3
by Gaynor McCartney
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Hi Jakob,
Long e-mail ? I didn;t notice that. It was so interesting. :) I think you have Tim Themer right on the button. I see myself in a lot of him. I find the code for something that is close to what I want, and fiddle with the bits I want to change, doing it exactly as you describe in the "Trial and error" part. It is nice to see I am part of a large group. :) Gaynor ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jakob Hilden" <jhild@...> To: "Bharat Mediratta" <bharat@...> Cc: <gallery-devel@...>; "Chad Kieffer" <chad@...>; "Stephen Cupp" <lvthunder@...> Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 5:31 AM Subject: Re: [Gallery-devel] Themeing G3 Hey Stephen, thank you for your input. I agree that doing even more user research would be valuable, but for the sake of productivity I think we should get this started now, so that G3 doesn't stay a hypothetical idea. As with so much "the perfect is the enemy of the good". Also note that the two student teams at the University of Michigan and other Gallery team members have spend a lot of time talking to users at all levels to figure out what their needs are. So it's not like we haven't done any user research. Let my just lay out how I think we will approach themeing for G3 and you tell us what you think. I agree that customizing the presentation of Gallery for a themer (see below for definition/persona of "themer") should be made as simple as possible! At this point we are only dealing with technical foundations of the presentation system. We decided to go for PHP instead of Smarty templates, because they are widely used (as Bharat already pointed out), there is A LOT of documentation about any aspect of PHP, and a lot of people have at least some experience with that language. (see a small anecdote from my personal experience on that issue below) Another goal that we are working on at this moment is to make the presentation system as modular as possible. So that you can just copy and paste certain components of the UI (modules, blocks, etc.) around in different templates with no problem. Then we are working on very lean and semantic HTML code. So that people should be able to directly see what element of the UI matches what markup in the HTML. Finally we are structuring the CSS in a way that should allow people to easily find the style that they want to change and at what level they want to change it. Again, these are only the technical foundations. We will try to make them as flexible as possible, so that we can make the themeing experience on top of them more usable. This layer will then allow to better support common tasks like: changing colors (see other email thread), images or whatever. Here is also where the documentation comes into play. And, as Bharat already mentioned we could really use any help with that. So, please get on board and write the documentation that you would like to see! On another note: We should NOT worry about customization through the admin interface for now! I think it was a big mistake in Gallery2 to allow all these fine grained customizations through the admin interface. Giving the user the 10 options, 3 modes and 2 directions to sort by is just overkill. We should design the templates to be as flexible as possible and definitely consider where and how “customization automation” could be integrated. But we should not start building those automated customization features, before we don't have a clue what the most important things and the best ways for user to customize are. They will tell us what they need and we should not overcomplicate things before we know what is needed. Who is the typical Gallery Themer (quick 'n dirty persona) Tim Themer works as a photographer/designer for a design firm. He is involved with a lot of web stuff, but he is definitely not a programmer. He knows some HTML & CSS and also a little bit of PHP or JS. He has created a handful of small website for friends etc. and even integrated a simple PHP guestbook once. He is very much a trial and error person that just changes things in the code and looks in the browser what happened. I would argue, that the number of Gallery installers that fall at least somewhat in this category is very significant. So we should be able to make G3 work for more then 50% of the installers and more then 70% of the users, without building any “automated customization” complexity into the templates and the rest of the code. After we have satisfied the needs of this themer with decent technical expertise we should have enough user input to be able to change exactly those things (and only those), that would make customization possible to less technical people. Wow, what a long email. I hope nobody fell asleep. If you have any feedback I would be glad to hear it. --Jakob Anecdote: I took a university course three years ago, that involved themeing for G2. I was the only among 20 student + 1 CS professor + 2 tech savvy CS teaching assistants, that even knew what Smarty was at all. I'm 100% sure that it would have been much easier for us in that case, if the templates were just written in simple PHP + HTML. I think, at least 5-6 people would have been able to figure it out in the latter case. Bharat Mediratta wrote: > Stephen Cupp wrote: >> Who is G3 aimed at? Those people that know how to theme in WP and >> Drupal will want to run G3 embedded and just want the basic HTML so it >> doesn't break their WP or Drupal theme. >> >> It is my view that decisions like this are made by the developers who >> didn't wrap their heads around what the users needs are. Unless you are >> subscribed to this list you have no idea what's going on. Maybe I >> missed it, but have the developers asked the rest of the community what >> they want. I haven't seen any polls or forum topics or a survey. When >> I look through the Theme Development Forum I see questions like "Carbon >> Theme: changing logo" or "Carbon Theme: how to change the logo link?". >> Are these the people who are going to think PHP is better then Smarty? >> Now I'm not trying to be harsh because sometimes I fall into this >> trap too. Those that know PHP will think a pure PHP themeing system is >> the best. Those who don't know PHP is another story. > > Stephen, I'm not going to take offense that you're basically saying that > I don't understand our user base. I don't think that a poll is an > appropriate way to figure out a solution for something like this. We > made a measured decision based on a variety of criteria. > > 1) It's 1 less technology to learn. We expect that themers will know > some PHP, or have to learn it. Even with Smarty templates, they still > needed to know a *little* PHP. And if they don't know either Smarty or > PHP then they need to learn one thing either way. It just needs to be > well documented and easy (which is achievable in either case). > > 2) PHP templates are fast and commonly used. Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, > PHP-Nuke, and others follow this paradigm. This demonstrates that > there's a large and thriving base of people who know how to use PHP to > create themes. Taking a survey is not the way to make a clear decision. > We're doing this for technical reasons and we believe that it'll be at > least as easy to understand to the themer as Smarty is. > > 3) I have personally spent a huge amount of time trying to create a good > metaphor for template layers like Smarty on top of our existing system > and I've found that this additional layer is slow and confusing. It > requires a compilation phase, generates new PHP files off in an > unexpected location, leads to permission errors that cause rendering to > fail, requires the reader to go off and read and understand the Smarty > documentation to do anything more complicated than variable > interpolation, and has confusing error messages. > > 4) Smarty's choice of tag delimiters interfere with two of the most > common and basic operations that themers want: using curly braces in CSS > and Javascript. > > So PHP is faster, smaller, better known. > >> I'm also skeptical about the documentation for this new themeing system. >> As I've said here numerous times I feel that is G2's biggest weak >> point. Bharat told me he didn't like to write documentation and no >> amount of wishing is going to change that. He also said he wanted to >> write G3 in a way so there is not a need for much documentation. > > Ok, I hear what you're saying. But hear this: a new theming system is > coming. If you'd like the documentation to be better this time around, > how about you take charge of the theming documentation effort and we > work together on it? I'll answer every single one of your questions for > you in as much detail as you can handle, you are in charge of getting it > down in a form that people understand. You'll also be in charge of > following through on it and not taking off in the middle of the project. > Step up and get involved and you can make a difference here. Otherwise, > while I appreciate your skepticism, it's not going to change the outcome. > > -Bharat > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's > challenge > Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great > prizes > Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the > world > http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ > __[ g a l l e r y - d e v e l ]_________________________ > > [ list info/archive --> http://gallery.sf.net/lists.php ] > [ gallery info/FAQ/download --> http://gallery.sf.net ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ __[ g a l l e r y - d e v e l ]_________________________ [ list info/archive --> http://gallery.sf.net/lists.php ] [ gallery info/FAQ/download --> http://gallery.sf.net ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ __[ g a l l e r y - d e v e l ]_________________________ [ list info/archive --> http://gallery.sf.net/lists.php ] [ gallery info/FAQ/download --> http://gallery.sf.net ] |
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