Here comes my reply to ddtddt.

I like the idea to move the "theme" directory from "template/yoga" for example. I would even say that we should move it at the root of Piwigo, not inside "template". What should we do with grum dark II, should it be renammed? I think this is the only case with the same theme name in 2 distincts templates (gally and yoga). In my opinion, it's wrong to think the same theme can be used in 2 distinct templates. Not with the current architecture of a template.

At piwigo.org/ext level, separate themes and templates, why not. In my previous post, I propose another way to do it: a theme may include its template. And a template can only be distributed with 1 theme, its basic theme. Your proposition is obviously cleaner BUT at piwigo.org/ext level, it means a new category with 3 or 4 items inside and only 3 or 4 people looking into (saimon, grum and flop25). Installing a template is not useful by itself.

The rule 1 theme in 1 extension is more or less mandatory whatever the architecture we choose. This is the end of theme packs like [extension by Swan] Boréalis (6 themes), [extension by flop25] Pack_blue ( for floPure) (3 themes) or [extension by flop25] Pack D1 ( for floPure ) (2 themes).

plg wrote:

I've had a private discussion with ddtddt related to this topic. Here comes his email (this was written by ddtddt, not me):

Ok.
But for an easier lisibility, I keep the "plg" quote... ;)

plg wrote:

1) Prerequisites

Users don't need to know about templates. They are just interested in themes.

I'm not completely agree.
A user take a look on the http://template.piwigo.net/ and fall in love with a specific template/theme. The user thinks "Hey ! This is exactly what I want".
But this is because the user don't know the difference between a template and a theme that we have to made is live easier, by "hiding" him the template/theme mechanism through an interface in the admin part, allowing to choose the good template/theme.

plg wrote:

2) piwigo.org/ext the place where we share Piwigo extensions

On piwigo.org/ext, we should separate "themes" and "templates"

In a perfect world, yes.
In my world, it can be.
If you take a look on the Gally template, you can see that each theme have a config file. The config file is used by the template.

And if I made some updates on the Gally template, you are sure that you need to update the Gally's themes. (I'm not able to explain why in english, and I'm not sure this topic is the the good place to talk about that)
In this case it seems it will be harder for a user to maintain is gallery if themes and templates are separated.


Another solution is to made a template-theme, where template & theme are fusionned
- Gally-grum-dark
- Gally-graphite
- Gally-lapis-lazuli
But I think it's not a good way :
- if I want to update the template for all my theme, I have to update 3 templates...
- making a new theme probably will be harder for newbies

plg wrote:

3) Architecture inside Piwigo

Inside Piwigo, we should move the "theme" directory into "template" (a theme may work on several templates)

Code:

template
  |_ yoga
  |_ template2
  |_ template3
  |_ themes
      |_ sylvia
      |_ clear
      |_ ...

In the themeconf.inc.php file (or another one) we should add data to identify the them

A theme can't work with several templates in all case.
Just try to apply the Gally themes on an another template. Or try to apply a Yoga theme with Gally. Nothing will works.



I don't have enough time to give solutions and translate them in english (wow, 1h30 to write this... english is not easy to speak.... ^^;)

We keep the actual tree :

template
  |_ yoga
    |_ themes
        |_ sylvia
        |_ clear
  |_ template2
    |_ themes
        |_ theme 1
        |_ theme 2
        |_ theme 3
  |_ template3
      |_ ...

In PEM, we can have :
- template+themes package s
- themes packages (a theme can be associated with one or more templates)

In the admin part, we have a list, ordered by template name/theme name
The admin choose wich theme have to be downloaded => if the theme is inside a package, all the package is loaded.

After, only selected template/theme selected can be used, even if a template/theme exists in the template directory.

If the user loads template/theme manually, he have to select them in the admin part to activate them.

@saimon : I like you.

plg, any remarks about wordpress ? :-)

nicolas wrote:

@saimon : I like you.

I also do.

nicolas wrote:

plg, any remarks about wordpress ? :-)

OK... but only because you're asking :-D

Just one word about Dotclear : I stayed for 1 or 2 minutes before finding the "Theme manager" because I was only looking at the left menu and the "Blog aspect" is only on administration dashboard. Confusing. Another word : Dotclear doesn't directly connects to their theme repository, they really should if they find time for coding this, that's so much more comfortable for users.

What about Wordpress?

1 clic on the Administration>Appearance menu link, and you're in the Theme Manager.
Next to Theme Manager title, you have a button Add New
Then you have a guided search form to find the theme matching your need.

I don't know the internal mechanism for themes in Wordpress. All I see is that they have a huge database of themes. This means that their solution is easy enough.

saimon wrote:

yes (if I understand well): http://fr.dotclear.org/documentation/2. … nheritance

No in fact (I read twice).

All themes derives from "default".
"themeA1" derives from "themeA"

Here is the situation, we have:

themes/default/tpl/home.html
themes/themeA/tpl/home.html

and no themes/themeA1/tpl/home.html => themeA1 will use themeA/tpl/home.tpl

Now imagine that themeA derives from theme0 and you have a themes/theme0/tpl/tags.tpl (and not tags.html in themeA and themeA1). In themeA1, you will use... themes/default/tpl/tags.html and not themes/theme0/tpl/tags.html. It's OK if you need to read this 3 or 4 times before understanding.

Conclusion: there is only 2 levels of inheritance, including "default". But I think it's ok 99% of the time, we don't need more.

saimon wrote:

(interesting lecture for you as you are working on piwigo's admin panel ;-))

Ok, I'll read it. You're right, I'm in the middle of administration panel improvements.


Anyway, the dotclear way of managing themes and templates is really nice. Thanks a lot for showing the direction mister saimon :-)

Once P@t Proof Of Concept (with Dotclear-like theme architecture) is validaed, or not, I will code the theme manager. (step by step)

The theme manager is functionnal. There are some bugs remaining, but you can already play with it.

* I have added [extension by Piwigo Team] p0w0 and [extension by Piwigo Team] wipi for test purpose, you can install themes for piwigo.org
* ability to activate, deactivate, set as default, delete in the new "installed themes" screen

Currently, when you set a theme as default, all users with the previous default theme will be updated to the new theme.

If you deactivate the default theme, Piwigo choose another active theme at random.

Dependencies are not managed yet, ie you can install a child template and even activate it, even if the parent is not installed. That's in the TODO list.

I've set a fixed height to 300px for each list of themes (active, inactive, new). If you have more than 1 line, it makes the display ugly. That needs a fix (help appreciated on this point :-).

P@t wrote:

plg wrote:

Currently, when you set a theme as default, all users with the previous default theme will be updated to the new theme.

This is weird, I don't like that. Only guest's theme must change...

Let's talk about this specific issue on [Forum, topic 15624] changing the default theme and propagating the setting to all users :-)