I just took a look at what it would take to port my mods to work with 1.3.3.. and I couldn't agree more with JN. Repetitive code is just bad design in any language.. thats page 1 of Coding 101. Having a common base and using modules to "plugin" to it was not only intuitive, it was the norm. I've not seen any other systems use this new method.JNeuhoff wrote:I am not quite sure I understand the underlying reasons for your template change.
I noticed that on all your top-level templates, e.g.
product/category.tpl, product/product.tpl, etc. your repeat the same common DIVs, such as
If I were to change this layout structure to something else, yet still wanted to use all the sub-templates for e.g. the boxes etc., I'd now end up editing multiple *.tpl file instead of just one common layout.tpl as it used to be the case. I quite often change the main layout.tpl to make it better integrate into existing websites, it's not always doable by merely changing stylesheets. See for example this Opencart store with a different 2-column layout. I would no longer be able to do such a thing in this latest Opencart 1.3.3 unless I changed all the top-level *.tpl files.Code: Select all
<?php echo $header; ?><?php echo $column_left; ?><?php echo $column_right; ?> <div id="content"> ...... </div> <?php echo $footer; ?>
Popular ones like SMF forums, ZenCart, osC, WebsiteBaker, Drupal all use the old method of having a "base layout". I think only Wordpress does something similar to this new method. Which is fine for wordpress, but what benefit is it to OpenCart? 5 times the work for the ability to "hardcode" something which is page 2 of Coding 101.
I'm gonna have to go thumbs down on this one. I'll wait for 1.3.4 with hopes that you back this "feature" out.