Re: Themes usability and maintenance (Was: [drupal-devel] Integrating Drupal with phpBB)

Kobus Myburgh wrote:
> (get rid of all the themes and?) bring out only one theme
> (XTemplate?) with different CSS styling to suit different needs.
Well, I'd hate to see all themes disappear except xtemplate, but it 
would seem reasonable that only one serious theme should remain in the 
core, with perhaps an enhanced Sample theme too. As you suggest, you'd 
need to ship several different stylesheets with xtemplate.

> pros:
> * Quicker to come up with "new designs"
Well, these are new 'looks'. New skins if you like, the skeleton remains 
the same. CSS allows you to make major, but none the less purely 
superfical changes.
To get a truly different design requires getting into the php and 
xtemplate.

> * Need only to know a bit of CSS to come up with a great theme
No, a great *style*, a great *skin*, a great *look*, call it what you 
will, coming up with great themes will still need php, logic and xhtml 
changes.

> * Standardizing on set technologies for core themes (i.e. only
> XHTML/CSS/WHATEVER as opposed to a lot of diverging techs)
I'm not sure quite what you mean. The core, surely, is php/xhtml/css, if 
people like using different template engines they will. But currently 
there's what? Xtemplate and smarty? Hardly a major divergence.

> * Easier to set up a showcase for Drupal's theming capabilities
It's true that xtemplate could do with a few different stylesheets, 
preferably selectable using a menu rather than typing in a url, and that 
these need to be shipped with the core.

Following that thread about template engines 
<http://drupal.org/book/view/871>, it seems to me that xtemplate just 
gets in the way. Without it you need to know php/xhtml/css to make truly 
original themes, with it you also need to know xtemplate - it's a 
barrier. I'm drifting off the point, sorry.

You'll never get a single theme that suits the needs of everyone. You 
could categorize people into two groups:

Group 1: those that want an easy to use option, with lots of settings in 
the theme admin, including several different stylesheets to choose from.

Group 2: those that want a platform for the creation of their own unique 
themes, including the ability to radically alter page structure as well 
as the look.

Thus as I see it you need two core themes, one for each of these groups, 
the Group two theme doesn't have to look like much but would need to be 
heavily documented and commented. The current sample theme is poor in 
this regard.

Xtemplate does form the basis of a theme that might work for group one, 
but it'll need people with the skillset of group 2 to take it there - 
unfortunately the need to learn xtemplate probably discourages a lot of 
people from contributing that otherwise might.

Adrian

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