Textpattern themes: a plan

bici · 2018-01-09 16:51:02

Curious: is there any roadmap wish list that would include a preference to output all files to a flat directory? i.e. not having to rely on rah_flat plugin ? It seems that with Themes this preference would be another useful feature.

Bloke · 2018-01-09 17:02:01

We could probably extend it so that it outputs the current theme path instead of just the theme name (although that’s available anyway).

<txp:site_url type="theme_path" />

Or something like that? It’d probably need a special condition to handle it, but then it’s high time we allowed it to output the path to files and images too, so the effort wouldn’t be entirely wasted.

philwareham · 2018-01-09 17:05:19

OK, that sounds viable. Let’s do that :)

Bloke · 2018-01-09 17:57:00

bici wrote #308591:

is there any roadmap wish list that would include a preference to output all files to a flat directory? i.e. not having to rely on rah_flat plugin ?

You shouldn’t have to rely on rah_flat anyway from 4.7.0 onwards, unless you’re wanting to import prefs and Sections too. No plans to introduce an auto-output in core. From what I hear of rah_flat (other than it’s good) is that it can be quite devastating if the production status is flipped and you forget something. Wouldn’t want to do that in core!

Plugins will be able to do so easily though. All a plugin really needs is a bunch of hooks to also call the ‘export’ routine whenever you do some UI action. A handful of lines of code, I expect. Otherwise, you’ll just have to remember to click ‘export’ every now and again to dump the DB to the file system.

(unless by ‘flat directory’ you mean not in a pages/forms/styles directory structure. In which case, no plans for this at all).

Last edited by Bloke (2018-01-09 17:57:21)

giampablo · 2018-01-09 18:28:46

I am with Michael and Phil here, no need for over-complex solutions.
For instance, a bundled theme distribution could include two folders:

Assets, containing a sub-folder for js files, one for proper css files, an img folder, a font folder etc. The folder should be uploaded in the root as it is.
Themes, containing my-theme-name, with pages, forms and style. My-theme-name should be uploaded to Themes directory, as it is.

After importing, all skin pages will already have the correct file/path i.e.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="<txp:site_url />assets/css/main.css" />
<script src="<txp:site_url />assets/js/jquery.min.js"></script>

Finally, in the bundle, a read-me file with instructions…

I tested everything on my NAS device playing with Brahm’s (and Michael) Clean Blog for Textpattern upgrading to Textpattern-4.7.0-dev and to Bootstrap 4.0. I changed some tags, too.
You can see the theme in action here

Just my 2 eurocents…

Bloke · 2018-01-09 18:38:17

giampablo wrote #308595:

For instance, a bundled theme distribution could include two folders

Themes should be self-contained wherever possible as that allows simpler import/export BUT there’s no reason you can’t have a “base” theme that contains assets like js/images/fonts/etc and then each “true” theme (as far as Txp is concerned) contains pages/forms/styles directories. This is the minimum structure:

themes
   -> theme1
      -> pages
         -> default.txp
         -> error_default.txp
      -> forms
         -> article
            default.txp
            article_list.txp
         -> misc
            some-stuff.txp
         -> files
            files.txp
         ...
      -> styles
         default.css
   -> theme2
      -> pages
         -> default.txp
         -> error_default.txp
         -> blog.txp
      -> forms
         ...

For this reason, we can’t have any “fixed” paths in the code as you don’t know what the themes folder is called (as it could be changed by the client). The name of the theme is also changable. Allthough a theme itself can hard-code links to assets inside it, a client may relabel the theme name, so it’d always be best practice to use a tag that outputs “my theme name” instead of relying on hard coded values. That’s what I’d like to get out of a tag.

bici · 2018-01-09 19:15:01

giampablo wrote #308595:

You can see the theme in action here

Prematurata alla supercazzola o scherziamo!

giampablo · 2018-01-09 19:35:16

bici wrote #308597:

Prematurata alla supercazzola o scherziamo!

Come fosse antani con scappellamento a destra costantinato ammaliti.
… Do NOT use google to translate absolute nonsense!

bici · 2018-01-09 19:37:36

giampablo wrote #308599:

Come fosse antani con scappellamento a destra costantinato ammaliti.
… Do NOT use google to translate absolute nonsense!

e da il film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thb8Ov_bW_o

e che caz!

Last edited by bici (2018-01-09 19:38:12)

Bloke · 2018-01-10 00:35:11

Bloke wrote #308592:

We could probably extend it so that it outputs the current theme path instead of just the theme name (although that’s available anyway).

Okay, low-key approach for now. Extended functionality in the page_url tag to go along with the new relative path themes pref:

<txp:page_url type="images_path" />
<txp:page_url type="themes_path" />
<txp:page_url type="skin_path" />
<txp:page_url type="skin" />

Outputs:

https://example.org/images
https://example.org/themes
https://example.org/themes/some-theme-name
some-theme-name

Yeah, yeah I know it’s ugly to use skin but this tag unfortunately exposes our internals a bit and since we’re using ‘skin’ internally to differentiate from the already-taken ‘theme’ for admin-themes, we’ll have to live with it. If it bothers people, we can add an exception to the tag so that it translates ‘skin’ into ‘theme’ so the nicer name can be used.

phiw13 · 2018-01-10 02:53:14

Bloke wrote #308604:

Okay, low-key approach for now. Extended functionality in the page_url tag to go along with the new relative path themes pref:

<txp:page_url type="images_path" />...

Simple, clean approach – and it works well in a very quick test. Theme authors can now include all kind of resources in their theme.

Yeah, yeah I know it’s ugly to use skin but this tag unfortunately exposes our internals a bit and since we’re using ‘skin’ internally to differentiate from the already-taken ‘theme’ for admin-themes, we’ll have to live with it. If it bothers people, we can add an exception to the tag so that it translates ‘skin’ into ‘theme’ so the nicer name can be used.

Hmm, skin is a bit weird, but it doesn’t bother me much, but maybe that is just because I’ve been looking at that word too often while testing TXP 4.7 dev.

phiw13 · 2018-01-10 03:04:15

Bloke wrote #308604:

Okay, low-key approach for now. Extended functionality in the page_url tag to go along with the new relative path themes pref:

One question on this: When looking at the Preference panel > Admin I see we now have two entries: Themes base path with (default) value: /Users/user/Sites/_txp472/themes and skin_dir with value themes.

Does that mean I could have different locations on the file system ? Or is the first entry now obsolete pending removal?

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#157 2018-01-09 16:51:02

Re: Textpattern themes: a plan

#158 2018-01-09 17:02:01

Re: Textpattern themes: a plan

#159 2018-01-09 17:05:19

Re: Textpattern themes: a plan

#160 2018-01-09 17:57:00

Re: Textpattern themes: a plan

bici wrote #308591:

#161 2018-01-09 18:28:46

Re: Textpattern themes: a plan

#162 2018-01-09 18:38:17

Re: Textpattern themes: a plan

giampablo wrote #308595:

#163 2018-01-09 19:15:01

Re: Textpattern themes: a plan

giampablo wrote #308595:

#164 2018-01-09 19:35:16

Re: Textpattern themes: a plan

bici wrote #308597:

#165 2018-01-09 19:37:36

Re: Textpattern themes: a plan

giampablo wrote #308599:

#166 2018-01-10 00:35:11

Re: Textpattern themes: a plan

Bloke wrote #308592:

#167 2018-01-10 02:53:14

Re: Textpattern themes: a plan

Bloke wrote #308604:

#168 2018-01-10 03:04:15

Re: Textpattern themes: a plan

Bloke wrote #308604:

Board footer