Post by Qphoria » Tue Apr 02, 2013 1:32 am

JAY6390 wrote:To me, the implications of a replace all are just too much for those that code correctly. I agree we need to remove position="all" as of the next version (or at least mark it as deprecated as of version X)
Agreed. Position="all" gives too much power for bad scripters to break other people's mods.

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Post by JNeuhoff » Thu Apr 25, 2013 9:55 pm

We are still receiving support requests from Shoppica users for our OpenCart addons, e.g. Export/Import tool and others. Please note we do NOT support Shoppica in any way. If a web theme manages to break the OpenCart admin backend, then it is simply not worth giving it any consideration, and the user should use a more OpenCart standard compliant web theme in order to have his 3rd party addons correctly work on his site.

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Post by macmike78 » Mon Apr 29, 2013 11:51 pm

Thanks for the great topic Qphoria! I'm new to opencart - doing web work for a friend of mine. Problem is, I'm scared to buy any templates now. I am definitely a function over form kind of guy!

Can you point me to templates that you do "back"? Whether or not you provide support for them - I just want to know who's doing them right & who's doing them wrong. Which theme developers & extension programmer can I trust to not leave me hanging if I run into a conflict between my theme & extension?

You guys @ opencart did your job and provided us all with a turn key solution - which is awesome BTW!!! I don't expect you guys to fix everyone's sloppiness - but I'd like to think all themes/extensions on the opencart website are approved and backed by someone. Someone's got to step up to the plate when an extension and theme conflict and not just point the finger at the other guy/girl.

Also, I'm assuming vqmod doesn't mean crap when it comes down to functionality between themes & extensions correct? Even though everyone says "no core files will be replaced" - doesn't necessarily mean that it will work with all 3rd party extensions right?

Thanks Qphoria & opencart!

P.S. Oh yeah! All this talk about doing it "right" but I still can't access the designer guide documentation. No doubt someone's working hard on it but it's killing me already! LOL

Are all the template competition themes based on the default opencart theme (ie: all extensions should work with them)?

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Post by cblack412 » Mon May 06, 2013 1:52 am

Using StyleBot might help :)

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Post by mkp007 » Fri May 10, 2013 1:36 am

macmike78 wrote:Can you point me to templates that you do "back"? Whether or not you provide support for them - I just want to know who's doing them right & who's doing them wrong. Which theme developers & extension programmer can I trust to not leave me hanging if I run into a conflict between my theme & extension?
If you highlight templates that follow a structure that you think is best practice, and make them more visible, then others will follow. I would like to see those templates now because I'm trying to figure out if opencart is right for my business. I don't want to pick a template that is unnecessarily confusing.

regards,
mark

Vorticy, Inc.
Opencart 1.5.6.4, MySQL 5.1.73-5, PHP 5.3.3-46, Plesk v12.0.18, OS CentOS 6


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Post by Johnathan » Fri May 10, 2013 11:49 pm

I'm constantly on the lookout for well-coded themes, and I haven't really been able to find many. Any that I do find I'll add to the OpenCartX.com themes area. Currently the only one available is the Luv Jewellers Premium theme:

http://www.opencartx.com/themes/luv-jew ... n-8-colors

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Post by cblack412 » Sat May 18, 2013 9:00 am

The html is not grid/framework friendly. I had to do quite a bit of rearranging html. Its going to be impossible to implement 960/bootstrap with the way the html is now.

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Post by JNeuhoff » Wed Jun 12, 2013 2:07 am

Johnathan wrote:I'm constantly on the lookout for well-coded themes, and I haven't really been able to find many.
I keep getting reports of web themes breaking various Opencart extensions/addons almost every day, so lets hope we can identify a list of clean and well-coded themes.

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Post by intersect » Wed Jun 12, 2013 3:44 am

JNeuhoff wrote:
Johnathan wrote:I'm constantly on the lookout for well-coded themes, and I haven't really been able to find many.
I keep getting reports of web themes breaking various Opencart extensions/addons almost every day, so lets hope we can identify a list of clean and well-coded themes.
I don't really think the the problem resides at the themes. Well-coded and clean themes probably will use little code from the default theme. Why? It's a really old theme that doesn't use HTML5 nor CSS3. The way the default theme is built doesn't follow today's good practice in front-end coding. There's a lot of tables, line brakres and other troublesome stuff in it and it still supports even IE6 (all the big guys like Google and so on only supports IE9+ for a lot of reasons), breaking a lot of good practices and using a lot of hacks.

Sorry but it may sound a bit rude, but no extension should rely on template code. It will just bring a lot of problems and will restrict the use to a small group of people who uses the default template. vQmods or any other mod that substitute code from the template is prone to be troublesome and it's not the template's fault.

The main problem here is the lack of a proper extension system or the lack of use of it. If there wasn't a attached system that modifies Opencart outside it's framework, those problems would be minimal. Zen Garden as cited is a great example of CSS good use but is not a real life use. A e-commerce is far more complex than what's build there. Even a simple blog can be more complex. Besides it, it has to have a well thought and up do date HTML code.

I think that the reason that a "native vQmod" is being built by the oc team is to have a good extension system and stop all this mess that non-native systems bring.

So yes there're good coded themes out there, the only problem is that they will "break compatibility" with some extensions that relies on template mods.

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Post by JNeuhoff » Wed Jun 12, 2013 4:32 am

Sorry but it may sound a bit rude, but no extension should rely on template code. It will just bring a lot of problems and will restrict the use to a small group of people who uses the default template. vQmods or any other mod that substitute code from the template is prone to be troublesome and it's not the template's fault.
That's a bit of a simplistic view. How do you suggest an Opencart addon (be it a VQmod XML or one using the Override Engine) deals with the scenario where the addon provides new additional functionality, with new fields on frontend pages that don't exist in the default? The addon has to add these new fields somehow to the template file.

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Post by intersect » Wed Jun 12, 2013 5:20 am

JNeuhoff wrote:
Sorry but it may sound a bit rude, but no extension should rely on template code. It will just bring a lot of problems and will restrict the use to a small group of people who uses the default template. vQmods or any other mod that substitute code from the template is prone to be troublesome and it's not the template's fault.
That's a bit of a simplistic view. How do you suggest an Opencart addon (be it a VQmod XML or one using the Override Engine) deals with the scenario where the addon provides new additional functionality, with new fields on frontend pages that don't exist in the default? The addon has to add these new fields somehow to the template file.
Like I said, it's a lack of a proper extension system. If the framework had plugins, modules, components and etc it would not require additional patches. Take Joomla for instance, it has a compete extension system. Anyone can add features without ever touch any core or template files (directly or through patches). The template itself works "apart" from the rest of the framework, all that it needs is a index with some what you want it to show (like the component part that is like the content div in oc, module positions and so on).
It really works great and unless it's a messy extension, there isn't any problem related with template incompatibility.
Yeah, the template system should be improved too, it's too restrictive and at the same time, gives too much freedom.

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Post by rph » Wed Jun 12, 2013 6:25 am

intersect wrote:I don't really think the the problem resides at the themes. Well-coded and clean themes probably will use little code from the default theme. Why? It's a really old theme that doesn't use HTML5 nor CSS3.
There are reasons to be somewhat conservative with technology in ecommerce but that's not really the main issue. Experienced developers are going to anticipate template changes and will code in such a way as to maximize inter-template compatibility. vQmod as a modification system and the variety of OpenCart versions and themes in general encourages developers to make smart changes from small code fragments.

The problem comes from template changes that can't be anticipated and shouldn't have been made in the first place: rewriting the PHP in short tags or alternative syntax, removing elements and putting them in includes, changing IDs, and so on. It's needless and does nothing but cause headaches for developers. It feels in a lot of ways that designers aren't used to sharing the sandbox in the way developers are and it's creating problems.

-Ryan


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Post by mdgriffin » Mon Jun 24, 2013 2:05 am

I am a new comer to opencart, so what I am about to say may not be fully informed.

But for what it is worth I agree with intersect in that the problem lies with the current method of creating mods. If is too tightly coupled with a particular html structure then it is fragile and bound to break.

CSS can only be taken so far before a change in the HTML structure is necessary to create the desired affect. There are also things like OOCSS and BEM that theme developers may want to take advantage of, but are unable to do if they stick with the default themes classes and ids.

I think what we really needs is more hooks or content areas for mod developers to be able to hook onto without relying on a html structure.

Ultimately we OpenCart should be agnostic about what html structure a theme uses.

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Post by intersect » Tue Jul 02, 2013 12:00 am

mdgriffin wrote:I am a new comer to opencart, so what I am about to say may not be fully informed.

But for what it is worth I agree with intersect in that the problem lies with the current method of creating mods. If is too tightly coupled with a particular html structure then it is fragile and bound to break.

CSS can only be taken so far before a change in the HTML structure is necessary to create the desired affect. There are also things like OOCSS and BEM that theme developers may want to take advantage of, but are unable to do if they stick with the default themes classes and ids.

I think what we really needs is more hooks or content areas for mod developers to be able to hook onto without relying on a html structure.

Ultimately we OpenCart should be agnostic about what html structure a theme uses.
You said everything I wanted to say ;D
All we need is a more solid template structure and a proper plugin/module/component system. This way we can have things like "opencart theme good practices" or "plugin good practices" something extremely needed in any open system and so we can stop fighting each others. I just hopes that the 2.0 version brings at least a little of it.

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Post by Klimskady » Tue Jul 16, 2013 6:17 am

JNeuhoff wrote:We are still receiving support requests from Shoppica users for our OpenCart addons, e.g. Export/Import tool and others. Please note we do NOT support Shoppica in any way. If a web theme manages to break the OpenCart admin backend, then it is simply not worth giving it any consideration, and the user should use a more OpenCart standard compliant web theme in order to have his 3rd party addons correctly work on his site.
I have returned to working on my website, I have updated everything, OpenCart, Shoppica2, other extensions and your great free extension, Export/Import tool and have just tested the export and import and it works flawlessly. Thank you for such a brilliant tool, It should be part of the core OpenCart system.

I know that there are developers that dislike Shoppica, it is their opinion but the above you posted should not be tied to the developers of Shoppica because if it works for one person who follows the instructions it shows there is no problem with "Breaking the OpenCart admin backend"

I can assure you it will be something the person had done when installing, I too make silly mistakes occasionally and I have been updating my Opencart website for two years.


User error is at fault here, not something to add to the vitriol being thrown at the Shoppica theme by a few.

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Post by Klimskady » Tue Jul 16, 2013 6:37 am

And my last post on the subject of Shoppica is that, Personally for me, It was the best available at the time I wanted to create my store. Yes, more are now available but they are also attacked for the changes made so I would be in the same boat with one of them as I already am ;D.

But as Shoppica was one of the first big new themes designed at that time it does have more developers used to it and able to change the often quite simple changes that as a professional developer would take less than 5 minutes to do but would take a whole day if not longer for the 'code disadvantaged' amongst us (I not as bad as I was!) And for the ones willing to do that, (and I have a fair few) I thank them, I may be one of the very lucky ones as I have several paid extensions that all work with Shoppica, I supplied each developer with the needed files to check and they sent me the altered file and still continue to do so today and I value them greatly and always look to their new extensions for any added extras that may help my site as I trust their work, the fact they are adaptable and most importantly they helped me.

Now looking at these developers, not only have they each learnt what changes are needed and helped a customer they now have the ability to state that their extension works for Shoppica and that may just make them extra sales on that rather than a complete black line statement saying "I won't alter my extension for your theme", which would not only lose my sale and potentially others, but also makes me kind of glad I don't buy these developers extensions.. After all if you don't even try for a willing paying customer why even bother buy your extensions? (And before anyone jumps down my neck, I mean small adjustments in code that as I mentioned about as a developer you will know so wouldn't take long, huge great changes is not what I am talking about, but even something big could be charged to the customer so where is the loss?)

Just my opinion as a consumer of OpenCart Extensions.

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Post by daniel2008 » Wed Jul 17, 2013 8:29 am

Hi,

I'm totally agreed with Q's issues on this topic.

Actually I've tried to find a so-called 'well-coded theme' but how?
As every theme designer claims his themes good, compatible
and well support and updating for future OC version,
are there any technical methods for non professionals to tell them?
For the free version, I can try one by one. But for the commercial
version, how can I know it is well-coded or not?

Any suggestions for me? Thanks,

Daniel

http://www.smartebuy.com.au/ http://www.myleathers.com.au/ http://www.cctv4oz.com.au/ http://www.origreen.com.au/


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Post by pedro1993 » Wed Jul 17, 2013 8:33 am

Look at the code and compare it to well-known templates, or the original template. Also, check out Shoppica. It is a great looking theme, but the way it is built is horrible. Also, try look at the reviews and history of the developer. Check if they are active on the forum and see if they know what they are talking about.
daniel2008 wrote:Hi,

I'm totally agreed with Q's issues on this topic.

Actually I've tried to find a so-called 'well-coded theme' but how?
As every theme designer claims his themes good, compatible
and well support and updating for future OC version,
are there any technical methods for non professionals to tell them?
For the free version, I can try one by one. But for the commercial
version, how can I know it is well-coded or not?

Any suggestions for me? Thanks,

Daniel

For OpenCart & PHP/MySQL support feel free to PM me :)
Click here for my extentions
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Post by daniel2008 » Wed Jul 17, 2013 8:50 am

Hi pedro1993,

Thank you for your suggestions.

However,
Q raised the thread because of lots of Shoppica hassle issues.
To my understanding some of its beautiful features are not suitable for OC.

Also which are those well-known templates?
I bought a theme from a designer but he was disappeared for supports OC1.5+.
That's why I ask for helps here from the view of a non-professional.
The first thing first is choosing a right theme - a real well-coded one
through a set of standards.

Daniel

http://www.smartebuy.com.au/ http://www.myleathers.com.au/ http://www.cctv4oz.com.au/ http://www.origreen.com.au/


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Post by intersect » Wed Jul 17, 2013 8:25 pm

daniel2008 wrote:Hi pedro1993,

Thank you for your suggestions.

However,
Q raised the thread because of lots of Shoppica hassle issues.
To my understanding some of its beautiful features are not suitable for OC.

Also which are those well-known templates?
I bought a theme from a designer but he was disappeared for supports OC1.5+.
That's why I ask for helps here from the view of a non-professional.
The first thing first is choosing a right theme - a real well-coded one
through a set of standards.

Daniel
I'm sorry to say it, but if want to have full compatibility you'll have to stick to default theme or a skinned version of it. It's very hard to code a good looking and feature full theme keeping the default's structure and if you don't keep it, you'll have problems with some extensions.
So, the way oc works today or you chose a great looking theme and with issues with some extensions or you chose a pretty basic theme and has little problems with the extensions.
What's more important to you?

http://www.intersect.com.br


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