X-Cart forums

[balinor]

I just spent the day yesterday overhauling the entire template system and CSS file. Managed to cut down the CSS to one file at 500 lines, and deleted/combined about 30 superfluous templates. I actually broke out the button CSS into its own file, and that one alone is 500 lines. Absurd.

Unfortunately I feel this version has taken a step backwards as far as ease of template editing goes. The multi-folder system (core templates plus the skin templates) makes it extremely cumbersome to edit, and of course there is duplication still which makes it frustrating.

Still a buggy release as well, I had issues adding Authorize.net, had some internal server errors when enabling real-time shipping.

As far as the templates go, they are STILL using depreciated tags in the code (FONT - can you believe it?) and empty span tags due to poor if statement coding. The multi-column product structure is awful - they used tables but didn't keep the individual products in their own cells, so you can't easily add boxes or borders around them, the cart layout is awful and confusing. The use of fixed heights in the CSS and relative/absolute positioning makes it annoying, you can't just add content and let it auto-expand, you constantly have to adjust heights and floats. That was one of the first things I rewrote. The home template has 10 nested <div> tags for the overall layout. Seriously?

Still a LONG way to go with this version I'm afraid, and a LOT of rewriting for me to do before I can use it for a live site.

[amy2203]

It really should be released with a fairly clean and basic template that can be easily adapted using mainly css.

Joomla templates are a single html page!

I can't beleive it would cost QT that much to get a template designed by a pro. Including a source image file would be good too, pre-sliced.

There are lots of template clubs etc for other systems, I'm surprised there's not an Xcart one really,

[xplorer]

Originally Posted by amy2203

It really should be released with a fairly clean and basic template that can be easily adapted using mainly css.

Joomla templates are a single html page!

I can't beleive it would cost QT that much to get a template designed by a pro. Including a source image file would be good too, pre-sliced.

There are lots of template clubs etc for other systems, I'm surprised there's not an Xcart one really,

Although I agree with some of the points mentioned by balinor (I don't know why FONT tags are still there), I doubt that a magic template that can be easily adapted using css only will ever exist. Our web designers are pro. And they will quickly find several glitches in almost any "fairly clean and basic template" you give them Something is impossible with CSS at all (for example, a universal vertical align or lining up Buy Now buttons in product lists with multi-line product names), something requires awkward nested tags in order to work in all supported browsers (yep, ~7% are still using IE6), something (multi-folder templates) is done in order to make upgrades easier. These are the points that many web designers miss in their criticism, and that we may not miss when developing a "universal" template.

If balinor wishes, we could discuss his improvements in a separate thread (or via personal messages/email/ICQ/the helpdesk system) and use his knowledge when developing LC3/XC5 templates. But please let this discussion be out of this thread because it doesn't match the subject of this thread.

[amy2203]

Originally Posted by xplorer

Although I agree with some of the points mentioned by balinor (I don't know why FONT tags are still there), I doubt that a magic template that can be easily adapted using css only will ever exist. Our web designers are pro. And they will quickly find several glitches in almost any "fairly clean and basic template" you give them Something is impossible with CSS at all (for example, a universal vertical align or lining up Buy Now buttons in product lists with multi-line product names), something requires awkward nested tags in order to work in all supported browsers (yep, ~7% are still using IE6), something (multi-folder templates) is done in order to make upgrades easier. These are the points that many web designers miss in their criticism, and that we may not miss when developing a "universal" template.

Please move this to any alternative thread when there is one.

I did say 'mainly' CSS, not only, and I'm sorry but you cannot say how professional your designers are when there are still font tags being used.

templates cannot be upgraded once modified anyway so how is splitting them into multi folders etc help? One of the biggest hurdles to upgrading is having to redo all of the templates, and if we're talking about upgrading from 4.4 up, isn't that going to be to v5 which may need to work with Drupal templates which may be a huge difference?

[balinor]

I was not in any way suggesting the programmers/designers are not professional - Amy I think that was a bit harsh. It is easy to miss things when you attempt to do a QA review on your own stuff, especially stuff you have been staring at for months/years. Back in my Architecture days, we hired an outside firm to run a complete QA review on all of our projects. A fresh set of eyes pick up a lot of things (like beams running through stairways or in this case FONT tags) that may be missed by the developers/designers themselves. Not only would an external QA review improve the code base of X-Cart, but it would make the beta testing phase much more efficient. When you pay someone to review something, you get a whole lot better results than when you rely on volunteers or in-house people IMHO.

Feel free to break this thread out if you want, but these are all things I have suggested countless times in the past to no avail so I'm really not prepared to waste any more of my time on it.

[cflsystems]

Well QT definatelly needs them. When 4.4.0 was released I though maybe I'll just sit down and make it DTD Strict, just the way it should be, and cleanup the css files. After looking at it for a while and browse the files I gave up (for now) - it is a nightmare. Depricated code everywhere, php setting styles, inline styling, floats and positioning all over the place for no reason....

[xplorer]

Originally Posted by amy2203

and if we're talking about upgrading from 4.4 up, isn't that going to be to v5 which may need to work with Drupal templates which may be a huge difference?

Don't forget about upgrading between 4.4.x versions and between new versions of third-party modules and themes.

Originally Posted by amy2203

templates cannot be upgraded once modified anyway so how is splitting them into multi folders etc help? One of the biggest hurdles to upgrading is having to redo all of the templates

The cascading multi-folder system allows you to overwrite only the files you want to be modified. The system will "inherit" the rest of files from the default template.

For example, we decide to release several templates having exactly the same layout but slightly different colors/images. Instead of releasing and maintaining each template in its own package, we just develop a "main" template and release it with several small sub-templates.

Now:
a) if we find a bug, we fix it in the main template only; that makes things much easier;
b) if a custom skin was made as a "sub-theme", fixing the bug is a very easy task: you just overwrite all files of the main template with new ones

With a small tweak third-party web designers can switch an X-Cart store to a custom "main" template and release their skins as a main template plus several sub-templates.

[xplorer]

Originally Posted by balinor

Feel free to break this thread out if you want, but these are all things I have suggested countless times in the past to no avail so I'm really not prepared to waste any more of my time on it.

We would appreciate if you send us the 4.4 template your modified. And we will be happy if you let us know your comments on the LC3 template (when it is ready) before we release it (in exchange to X-Cart licenses ).

[Sparks]

Some of the feedback form people like Ballinor I believe to be invaluable. From the coders side I can see how feedback on forums can be taken to be non constructive especially, as the comments say, when you have been staring at a design and code for a long time.

I gotta say that I came across a template site for 4.4.x templates and was nicely CSS based but some tables, font tags etc still crept in.

universal vertical align...

I know the pain of that myself though i do believe there comes a time when you have to go if 6% of people are using IE6 dump them. I'd bet most of them are corporate environments where if you break that down into those hitting xcarts and then purchases, the impact of not supporting them would be minimal.

One of our programmers was telling me about the number of branches we have for our mods coding wise, having to support all the different versions of x-cart and add into the mix browser support.

I'd like to see a thread on css improvements if possible?

[SoapLady]

I've been working on 3 4.4 stores, one of which is live. Yes, there are some bugs, but it is generally working very well.

I have found the css to be a bit cumbersome with all the different folders and files, but not unbearably so. I do wish, however, that the"sub css files" (like for the modules) were named something other than "main.css". It makes it much harder to track down WHICH "main.css" is the one that requires editing. Firebug is a great help ... but not so much when all the css files have the same names.

The biggest place I've run into trouble is where the css and display is changed by jquery. I have yet to figure out where the background color for the div holding the flyout menus comes from.

All in all, though, I'm happier with 4.4, both in functionality and layout than I was with previous versions ... and I've used nearly all of them over the years.

Marie