OpenCart Community

Posted: **Thu Sep 23, 2010 2:01 am**

My vote goes to Maansy's 4b.

To offer one or more themes/templates is a tricky issue. If there will be more themes in the installation package then those should be totally different so the admin/shop owner can select the one fitting best for his/her needs. But at the moment the basic theme works as a charm in most of the small shop cases - bigger ones require custom themes (which are also fantastic).

Maybe the best solution would be offering one default theme and 1-5 free themes through the contributions?

One considerable thing could be integrating theme contributions in some way to admin backend so the admin/shop owner could select and install themes without the knowledge of css/php. But this is again just an idea out of nowhere

Posted: **Thu Sep 23, 2010 2:04 am**

@Norman -> I've played with MODx for a couple of years and I agree that templates are easy to implement

Anyway, I forgot to say that the new look Daniel/Q are working on look great

Posted: **Thu Sep 23, 2010 2:42 am**

celestial wrote:What happend if i need more categories on the principal home tab menu

you need to split them up into sub ctegories. it will be mega menu style. so there will be 3 levels of categories showing when you haover over the menu.

Posted: **Thu Sep 23, 2010 3:04 am**

Daniel wrote: its going to have a system that will allow you to get rid of the columns and the main content page will spred out.

That's a good idea. Would that be on all pages, or could it be selected for some pages - eg info pages or checkout?

-- I like all the templates; I particularly like the list view and choice of views (another very neat idea). I LOVE the large prices, bright 'standout' buttons and the suggestion of texture here and there.

My 2p worth would be to keep the colour scheme neutral. At the risk of sounding like a home stager, it is easier to put your own brand colours and identity onto a template that does not have too much colour. Unless you don't have a brand identity, in which case there's plenty to inspire in the extensions/themes section

But I'd be happy with any of these templates.

Posted: **Thu Sep 23, 2010 6:28 pm**

Ditto the second one.

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 5:39 am**

Hey, (first post)
Thought I'd add my bit to this one. Templates look great, but what I'm most interested in is the schemantics and HTML that is used in the templates.

I'm yet to build my first store as waiting for text product options etc to become core... Anyway what has drawn me most to open cart is that even though the template files are a little bloated with divs, tables and the odd inline style, I can edit the template file (which I'm currenly doing to html5) to exactly how I want and the simple php tags can be moved around easily without breaking anything. I'm a front end designer so I don't really understand php - but insist on having control over the output of HTML and CSS (plus any other jquery plugins).

An example of this is the input fields in the templates are marked up great!
<input type="text" id="email" name="email" value="<?php echo email ?>" > is something like this at the moment and I can quickly change it to HTML5
<input type="email" id="email" name="email" value="<?php echo email ?>" required>

Seems a bit simple and why you ask but this type of control is what I like, as some other carts might just use <?php echo emailform ?> meaning I have to alter the core files which is not good for updates.

So... My thoughts are that I'm going to be creating my own templates so love the ease of editing them how they are now and hope that isn't going to change.

Thanks Oliver

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 5:48 am**

oliverker wrote:Hey, (first post)
Thought I'd add my bit to this one. Templates look great, but what I'm most interested in is the schemantics and HTML that is used in the templates.

I'm yet to build my first store as waiting for text product options etc to become core... Anyway what has drawn me most to open cart is that even though the template files are a little bloated with divs, tables and the odd inline style, I can edit the template file (which I'm currenly doing to html5) to exactly how I want and the simple php tags can be moved around easily without breaking anything. I'm a front end designer so I don't really understand php - but insist on having control over the output of HTML and CSS (plus any other jquery plugins).

An example of this is the input fields in the templates are marked up great!
<input type="text" id="email" name="email" value="<?php echo email ?>" > is something like this at the moment and I can quickly change it to HTML5
<input type="email" id="email" name="email" value="<?php echo email ?>" required>

Seems a bit simple and why you ask but this type of control is what I like, as some other carts might just use <?php echo emailform ?> meaning I have to alter the core files which is not good for updates.

So... My thoughts are that I'm going to be creating my own templates so love the ease of editing them how they are now and hope that isn't going to change.

Thanks Oliver

I don't see that changing Daniel is rather particular about trying to keep all the html in the view folder and seperated from the logic so that it conforms to the mvc standard I don't see that changing any time soon.

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 5:52 am**

Well, you say that but it's not strictly true, sure it is for the main part of the views, but the modules like the categories are just <?php echo $category; ?> which i don't like personally, it should just be an array of values, and then the menu built in the view using php

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 6:21 am**

According to http://www.html5test.com/ my IE8 scores 27 points out of a possible 300 for HTML5 support so I don't think I will be changing tags any time soon.

Edit: Interestingly, IE9 Beta only scores 96 whereas Chrome scores 217 - I hope that isn't a sign of things to come.

The left and right columns are completely static. It would be nice if sideboxes could be configured to show in context to the current page and logged-on status and ideally, if the count is zero, for the central area to float into the space (hence giving a dynamic or optional two/three column layout).

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 11:32 am**

JAY6390 wrote:Well, you say that but it's not strictly true, sure it is for the main part of the views, but the modules like the categories are just <?php echo $category; ?> which i don't like personally, it should just be an array of values, and then the menu built in the view using php

true he kind of lost his way in a few of the modules for some reason(not really sure why), but for the most part the separation is pretty good.

mystifier wrote:the central area to float into the space (hence giving a dynamic two/three column layout)

I think that's pretty much what Daniel's already said earlier in the post that the columns will actually collapse cleanly this time around.

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 12:13 pm**

Yea, the category menu is the oddball. The code is generated within the controller instead of the view for whatever reason.

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 5:14 pm**

Pretty sure the recursion is the reason that it's been done like that, as you don't want to have that in the view

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 5:18 pm**

mystifier wrote:According to http://www.html5test.com/ my IE8 scores 27 points out of a possible 300 for HTML5 support so I don't think I will be changing tags any time soon.

Afraid thats the wrong attitude towards new tech, and you won't be implementing HTML5 until 2015? HTML5 can be implemented today and it works in ALL browsers. IE8 doesn't score well on alot of things but it doesn't stop people using it.

We should be designing down and not up. I mean design for the latest browsers and if somethings don't work then make sure it degrades gracefully so that people using IE8, 7 and dare I say IE6 are still getting a pleasant experience, but not the best!

You wouldn't even notice if html5 is implemented unless you sat IE and something like chrome side by side. It is the small touches that keep people coming back for example if you fill in a html5 form on an iphone and you specify that you are asking for a phone number <input type="tel" > then the keyboard automatically changes to a number pad, and the same with email and url the keyboard changes to suit the input type. Makes it a pleasant and easy transaction...

Not even mentioned microformats http://microformats.org/wiki/hproduct ...

Which leads me on to mobile templates. Any plans? I have done some mobile work my self http://txpmobile.com and would volunteer a little time to help out.

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 8:06 pm**

all the templates look great, can't wait to see 1.5.0 implemented, thanks

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 10:10 pm**

JAY6390 wrote:Pretty sure the recursion is the reason that it's been done like that, as you don't want to have that in the view

Couldn't the recursion be done in an array tho and then that array brought to the view and looped out there?

Posted: **Sat Sep 25, 2010 12:44 am**

Well recursing an array would require a function, since the array can be an infinite amount deep, so it would make sense to keep the function out of the template

Posted: **Sat Sep 25, 2010 1:23 am**

JAY6390 wrote:Well recursing an array would require a function, since the array can be an infinite amount deep, so it would make sense to keep the function out of the template

Don't talk back!

Posted: **Sat Sep 25, 2010 2:41 am**

JAY6390 wrote:Well recursing an array would require a function, since the array can be an infinite amount deep, so it would make sense to keep the function out of the template

I'm a little lost aren't you the one who started this whole thing by complaining that the html was in the controller for the category box?

Posted: **Sat Sep 25, 2010 3:10 am**

Well I was just pointing out that it's not 100% separated as an MVC architecture

To get the menu output requires recursion if it has sub cats, which means you'll always be mixing the C with the V

Posted: **Sat Sep 25, 2010 3:18 am**

“All right, later dudes. F you in your A’s, don’t wear a C, and J all over your B’s.” - Charlie Kelly (Always Sunny)

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