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Understanding the Display Engine
updated by rck, 2004-11-15

Actually, one of the more powerful things in phpWebSite is the Display engine. A content management like phpWS does just that: It manages your content. I'll show you, how.

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Colours and Formatting

Defining all the sites
colours and formatting

Um, what to write about that? Well, we're talking about colours -- or lack there of. You wouldn't want to use 5 different colours (or even more) for content on your site. Neither more than 3 different font/size/attribute combinations. Both don't look very professional. If you got used to formatting everything all the time with word (bold here, arial 12pt there), well: get rid of that habit.

Your benefit will be a professional looking site, that can be easily modified and tweaked to your hearts desire.

Where to find it

In your theme.tpl, add a link to a css file. Call it colours.css for example and put in all the colours and formating for h1, h2, p, em, strong, a, etc, etc. I also like to do a second file which I usually call standard.css to include all the phpwebsite propritary stuff like .header, .smalltext, etc.

While developing templates, I can for example make those legacy-formatting have a red border so I can find them and get rid of them easily. No presentation code in content, neither invent your own codes ("heading"), where there already are html-standard codes ("h1", "h2", etc.) or they simply aren't useful ("smalltext").

Why separate colours and formatting from the rest?

Why the heck do I separate layout from colours and formatting? Am I being pedantic or what?

Not exactly. In fact, it's a time saver. Just copy the colours and formating of a theme to a new directory, add a new layout and off you go, basically. While defining textsizes is very important for a consistent look, it's pretty much the same steps all the time.

Your colours will stay the same for a certain theme as well, no matter what platform you are on or what device is used. They should at least, you wouldn't want to endager your corporate identity.
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  • Great article!

    Posted on 2004-11-13 05:11:11 By aDarkling[2]

    Very Informative!

    Possibly too informative, though. It might be better to break this down 3 articles, like:

    Understanding the Display Engine
    Effective CSS with phpWebsite
    Writing good HTML for phpWebsite

    because there's so much to cover, like the /images directory, how templating tags work, necessary tags for theme.tpl, what theme.php is, etc..

    I'd like to see examples of what the theme.tpl looks like, like when you suggested using 2 .css files, there should be an example of how they are used.

    I like the analogy you used for Box Styles.
    "default_pop.tpl" has been obsolete since (I think) 0.9.1, but noone ever got around to deleting it.

    I haven't played around with templates in months, but as for module templates from the theme being loaded the second time they are used, you may want to try turning the cache off. I think the templates may either be stored in the cache or in session memory.

    Good job!
    I look forward to seeing where this goes!

    [Reply ]

    • Article Breakup

      Posted on 2004-11-13 12:24:13 By rck[110]

      Very Informative!

      Possibly too informative, though. It might be better to break this down 3 articles, like:

      Understanding the Display Engine
      Effective CSS with phpWebsite
      Writing good HTML for phpWebsite

      In fact, this was meant to be a overview article about all aspects of the display engine of phpWebSite. I've already tried to point out the things on writing good HTML in my Semantic Web article, which didn't have the impact I had thought.

      I too see the need for guidance of good CSS and HTML generally, as well as taylored for phpWebSite and think about articles on that all the time. As soon as I know, how I can sum that up nicely, I will do it. Suggestions are always welcome of course

      [Reply ]

    • Examples

      Posted on 2004-11-13 12:26:24 By rck[110]

      I'd like to see examples of what the theme.tpl looks like, like when you suggested using 2 .css files, there should be an example of how they are used.

      Did you check out the Autumn theme already? It's a pretty good example of what I'm writing about. When you open it's theme.tpl, you'll see three css links (standard.css, colours.css and layout_screen.css) that are exactly doing what I describe in that article. That theme could be easily extended with, say, layout_handheld.css, layout_audible.css, whatever.

      As soon as I have an idea of the outline, I will go into that in more detail in it's own article. Until then: Feel free to discuss it right here!

      [Reply ]

    • Templates load only the second time

      Posted on 2004-11-13 12:30:15 By rck[110]

      changed On 2004-11-13 17:33:23 Edited By rck (reason: luck vs. look)

      I haven't played around with templates in months, but as for module templates from the theme being loaded the second time they are used, you may want to try turning the cache off. I think the templates may either be stored in the cache or in session memory.

      I've already turned off caching in the phpWebSite config. While it helps overall performance, it doesn't change this issue, as far as I can tell. Even if I do shift-reload pages in my browser (which in fact shouldn't be neccessary with the right http-headers), I still get the templates only the second time

      It must be some kind of caching issue, but I don't know where to look. Maybe appstate or someone else can gain some insight on this topic? I've read about people that have the same issue already, so I guess it should be reproducable.

      [Reply ]

    • Re: Great article!

      Posted on 2004-11-13 12:31:44 By rck[110]

      Very Informative!

      I like the analogy you used for Box Styles.

      Good job!
      I look forward to seeing where this goes!
      Thank you! It wouldn't be possible without your Article Manager... ;)

      [Reply ]

  • A Brave Step

    Posted on 2004-11-14 02:01:17 By Anonymous

    Good article, and probably the pilot of many more specific explanations. Well done and clears up a confusing area.

    quote
    I've already tried to point out the things on writing good HTML in my Semantic Web article, which didn't have the impact I had thought.
    unquote

    My opinion? There are many places pointing out good HTML etc but after unpacking phpws we tend to be more into getting the look together... if phpwebsite display/theming/customisation tutorials follow good practise we the flock will fall into line! You have the power - convert us!

    [Reply ]

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