Re: Tutorial on Theme Building

Asad,

Love the work thus far.

Definiately something that would have helped me out a lot when I first
started a month back.

I've sent the response to your hotmail account and the yahoo account
complained so am not sure you've recieved the comments. Posting it on the
list for when you can get to it.

You've written down a number of the nit-picky details that is scribbled on
various pieces of paper around the room here, great to have them in a single
location.

Context Comments:

4. So What is a Theme

Page 2: Paragraph 2: Line 2: Classic_Xaraya ==> Xaraya_Classic
Page 2: Paragraph 2: Line 3: would ==> will (? Likewise other use of
past/present tense?)
Page 2: Bullet #1: Style to style (lowercase 's')

5. Xaraya Directory Structure

Great Tree

Suggested addition for tree?

Html -> themes -> pages -> <master templates>.xt
Html -> themes -> blocks -> default.xt [ block-group-name.xt ] ...

You give an example template for blocks, would it add to the documentation
if you also did the same for pages (?) I think we need the default.xt in
there anyway.

e.g.
Html -> themes -> pages -> default.xt [ <master templates>.xt ] ...

Your Last Paragraph:
"You will read at several other places, if you haven't already, that it is
suggested to create a new template in your theme, rather than modifying a
default one. What that means is that rather than fooling around with any of
the .xd templates that came with the Xaraya installation, you can simply
override them in your own theme by creating a corresponding .xt file in your
theme. That way you don't lose the original .xd template."

Suggested add-on:

The simplest method for creating your own override template is to copy the
existing .xd templates into your theme, and rename it to .xt.

For example: to override ... Copy the template *.xd to its corresponding
folder in your theme <theme-name>/modules/<module-name>/...xt

6. Creating your own theme

Paragraph 1: Line 3: Classic_Xaraya => Xaraya_Classic

6.1
Would it help to expand this part ?

* Copy the directory Xaraya_Classic into a new directory Xaraya_Classic_2
* Edit the file Xaraya_Classic_2/xartheme.php and concentrate on at least
the following
   $themeinfo['name'] = 'Xaraya_Classic';
   $themeinfo['id'] = '###';
   $themeinfo['directory'] = 'Xaraya_Classic';
   - 'name' is what will display in your administration screen e.g.
"Xaraya_Classic_2"
   - 'directory' is the directory that the file will be in, e.g.
"Xaraya_Classic_2"
   - 'id' is a unique identifier for the theme on your system.
      * pick a number not used in your other themes (if you intend to
distribute than register your theme with Xaraya.com)

Reference to http://localhost ...

You could use http://www.example.com or http://www.example.net These are
reserved domain names RFC2606 for use in documentation.

6.4 mytheme/pages

Statement on admin.xt.

I believe the real admin.xt is pulled whenever a module is called with
greater than read privilege. For example, when you submit a new article,
regardless of whether you are an administrator or not, my admin.xt is always
called up.
Like you, I eventually killed the admin.xt so I don't have to maintain to
different page files.

You might just mention that it simplifies initial design to concentrate on
one 'master' template?

Page 6 - Your Text:
-------------------
The first interesting line is
<!--Load the header blockgroup-->
<xar:blockgroup name="header" id="header" />
which appears within the head tags of the file. All this file does is simply
load the blockgroup named header. You can find this file (header.xt) in
<mytheme>/blocks folder.
--------------------

I think it is more accurate(?) to say that this command(?) tells the
BlockLayout Engine to load the blockgroup id'd as 'header' into the current
location and to use the template 'header.xt' if it exists in the current
theme or 'header.xd' if it exists in the module, otherwise use default.xt
etc.

Page 7:
------------------
<xar:module id="modulespace" main="true" /> This line tells the BlockLayout
engine to load modules in the module space.
------------------
This one I'm still trying to figure out, and at the moment I'm getting the
thinking/vibes that this means that the BL Engine will load the content of
the 'current' module within the space.

For example: when the user clicks on Articles | FrontPage then the module is
now Articles and it's modulespace is FrontPage which is why all the articles
for the frontpage now display in this space.

Page 9:
You have a reference under your user-main.xt that says:
    html/themes/modules/base/user-main.xt

Needs to have something like
   html/themes/theme-name/modules/base/user-main.xt)

I love the idea of doing this piece of documentation.
If you would like, I can put something together for you that allows gives an
example of how someone can have a dynamic frontpage (similar to how Postnuke
allows center blocks that display only on the frontpage, when you click on
content the center blocks disappear.)

Essentially something like:
<div id="xar-user-main">
<xar:blockgroup name="frontPage" id="frontPage" />
<xar:blockgroup name="frontNews" id="frontNews" /> </div>

For a customer site I developed the above user-main.xt which allows the
customer to modify their front page by changing blocks instead of hitting on
the template files directly.

The blockgroup frontPage has 1 or more blocks largely html The blockgroup
frontNews has 1 or more blocks largely article/topitems etc.

Maybe you can make use of it.

Great work and great contribution.

Ciao,

Sam T.
"Asad Khan" <uoft_cstutor-/[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]
> You're most welcome. I will email you a zip file of all the related stuff
> soon.
>
> Regards,
>
> Asad
>
>