X-Cart forums

[chendry]

Greetings, all

I've been working with the default "skin1" set of templates, and so far, it's been something of a frustrating experience. The templates are out of control --- nothing is indented properly, and so they are very hard to follow.

Have any of you given any thought to producing a "bare-bones" template that's better suited for customization? I think "skel1" can be improved by using proper indentation, and by fixing up some of the CSS. Do any of you have other ideas?

Do old templates typically break with new x-cart releases? I'm just looking for some insight before i get too tangled up it this.

- chad[/b][/u][/i]

[shan]

Youll get the hang of the templates system, its realy quite good once you find you way around. How they look to you depends on what you are using to edit them.

The css has been updated since version 3.1.x and is now a bit better allthough some of the naming is a bit confusing and it could be done better i think. Again after working with it for a while youll see whats what

[chendry]

Well, class names like TableTop aren't very descriptive, and class names like OrangeLine seem a bit contrary to the spirit of CSS.

As far as "How they look to you depends on what you are using to edit them." goes, i don't think any editor could make this make any sense:

{if $active_modules.Subscriptions ne "" and $products[product].catalogprice}
{include file="modules/Subscriptions/subscription_info_inlist.tpl"}
{else}
{if $products[product].price ne 0}
{if $products[product].discount ne 0}
<font class=MarketPrice>{$lng.lbl_market_price}: <s>
{math equation="price/(1-(discount/100))" price=$products[product].price discount=$products[product].discount format="%d.00" assign=unformatted}{include file="currency.tpl" value=$unformatted}
</s></font>

{/if}
<font class=TableCenterProductTitleOrange>{$lng.lbl_our_price}: {include file="currency.tpl" value=$products[product].price}</font><font class=MarketPrice>{include file="customer/main/alter_currency_value.tpl" alter_currency_value=$products[product].price}</font>{if $products[product].discount ne 0}, save {$products[product].discount}%{/if}{if $config.General.use_vat eq "Y"}, including VAT {$products[product].vat}%{/if}

The lack of whitespace in that makes it hard to follow. It should look roughly like this:

{if $active_modules.Subscriptions ne "" and $products[product].catalogprice}
  {include file="modules/Subscriptions/subscription_info_inlist.tpl"}
{else}
  {if $products[product].price ne 0}
    {if $products[product].discount ne 0}
      <font class=MarketPrice>{$lng.lbl_market_price}: 
        <s>
           {math equation="price/(1-(discount/100))" price=$products[product].price
                    discount=$products[product].discount format="%d.00"
                    assign=unformatted}
           {include file="currency.tpl" value=$unformatted}
        </s>
      </font>
      

    {/if}
    <font class=TableCenterProductTitleOrange>
      {$lng.lbl_our_price}:
      {include file="currency.tpl" value=$products[product].price}
    </font>
    <font class=MarketPrice>
      {include file="customer/main/alter_currency_value.tpl"
                  alter_currency_value=$products[product].price}
    </font>
    {if $products[product].discount ne 0}, save {$products[product].discount}%{/if}
    {if $config.General.use_vat eq "Y"}, including VAT {$products[product].vat}%{/if}

I may have made a mistake or two in there, but you get the idea. Also, in the above example, a couple Smarty {strip} tags would get rid of any excess whitespace that would screw up the browser.

But, I guess, most of that is cosmetic and not terribly important on my end. What is a show-stopper here, however, is that several templates are shared between the administration and the customer interfaces. It's more-or-less impossible with the existing set of templates to give the administration interface a separate look-and-feel from the customer interface. Maybe I am wrong here? Do you have any tips?

Would any of you benefit from templates that make it easy to nail down the LAF of your administration interface, and vary the customer LAF independently? I think this would be the best way because some customer LAFs make for lousy administration LAFs. Also, what about ISPs and whatnot who want to brand their administration LAF?

What do you all think about this?

- chad

[shan]

I agree that it seems an odd thing to share single/home.tpl with the admin and the customer.

It would make much more sence for there to be an admin/home.tpl

you also have to take into account that developers are russina so some names dont use the best of descriptions

[chendry]

Yeah, fair enough --- they know way more english than I know Russian so I better shut up

I've been studying all of the templates and trying to document them lately, and I don't think it would be too terribly difficult to completely rewrite them to suite my needs. But i'm worried about biting off more than I can chew as far maintaining them with new X-Cart releases.

I think that for now I'll just keep studying the templates and watch how they change between releases for a bit.

- chad