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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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Content

Content makes the world go round
content

If a company's house burns down, it usually doesn't matter at all. The computers are insured, so is the rest of the house. But: if a company is struck by a virus and all the data is modified over time, without notice, thus rendering all the backups useless as well, the company is doomed.

I'm talking about content. The thing a CMS is about. The thing your company is about. Take away a companies knowledge about it's customers, about it's business processes, and it's over. They can close, their shares go down to minus and everything is damned.

That's why databases are that important. And that's why we should take special care about the content of our website.

By the way, I've compiled a good practice guide on how to write content for Article Manager, that should give you some ideas about writing content.

Where to find it

Giving you an interface to your content is your modules' job. The module by itself stores and recalls it from your database which you set up together with your first installation of phpWebSite. Every module administers it's own tables in the database and controls it's content that way.

The tables of a module contain the prefix mod_modulename_, where modulename is replaced with your modules name. If you've defined a table prefix, it will be put before mod_

What to do

Be very greedy with your markup. Only use p and a couple of ems (emphasis -- not neccesserily italics) for your content. That's about it.

If you have unordered lists, use the ul / li tags, for ordered lists ol / li.

Usually, it's no good idea to include images directly in your text. Use the provided interface of your module for that. Article Manager, for example, allows a picture with each section

Write in a go. No depending on phpWebSites' linebreaks: they suck right now. Using paragraphs (the p tag) will solve a couple of problems that you didn't even think of yet.

What not to do

If it's about text: don't (imagine a lot of exclaimation marks here), I repeat don't (I'd write it again, then that would get you bored) use any presentational markup.

Presentational markup (did I mention you should avoid it?) includes, but isn't limited to:

  • inline style (adding style= to a tag, eg p style="border:1px solid red")
  • bold, italics, font, center, left, right, justify, embed tags. For emphasis, use the em tag. I'm doin' so all the time on my site and it's working out pretty well. For headings use h tags or the support of the module in use.
  • divs -- that's what the boxstyle and module templates are for. some modules provide paragraph-templates, that would be the place for divs
  • hard line breaks (br). please double check, wether phpwebsite didn't include any itself and delete if it did. For pragraphs, use only the p tag. Without any addition
All of these things will make rendering a consistent site with a common look and feel a lot harder for your browser. And that's what a content management system is all about.

You might have noticed by now that using tools like htmlArea won't do your site any good. Then, it's all up to you. Do what you will, it's your site!
                     
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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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