OpenCart Community

I guess the question is .. why?

So you have

Smarty: PHP:
Smarty: PHP: To me it looks like just a different syntax with no real value.
Maybe there is more but it just looks more or less the same in all examples I've seen.

Still sitting on the fence regarding this.

But it really does seem that having the "ability" would be a good move. That way those who do and those who don't will be happy.

I guess the advantages of Smarty are:

1) being language agnostic
2) familiarity by many programmers

Of course, 1) is not so much relevant here, because OpenCart is only available in PHP. But 2) might be a good reason for some template designers to embrace OpenCart. So yes, it will help OpenCart to become even more widely adopted.

JNeuhoff wrote:I guess the advantages of Smarty are:

1) being language agnostic
2) familiarity by many programmers

Of course, 1) is not so much relevant here, because OpenCart is only available in PHP. But 2) might be a good reason for some template designers to embrace OpenCart. So yes, it will help OpenCart to become even more widely adopted.

of course it could drive people away too, I know there are several developers here who chose opencart over presta mostly because presta used smarty.

JNs reasoning is the first good reason I've heard on this topic

But I agree with xsecrets and sapparo that it would only be good as an additional optional method. But then we will start having mixed templates but thats the compromise

Have to say I like using specialized template languages more than using PHP in templates. I have never understood the argument that says "PHP is already a templating language". Even if we grant that PHP is a templating language, it's not a very good templating language because it is too verbose. The best template language I've used is Django's.

webcomm wrote:Have to say I like using specialized template languages more than using PHP in templates. I have never understood the argument that says "PHP is already a templating language". Even if we grant that PHP is a templating language, it's not a very good templating language because it is too verbose. The best template language I've used is Django's.

I've never understood the argument that php is too verbose. have you actually looked at smarty the one everyone wants to use? To me it's much more verbose and confusing than php itself.

Consoles vs PC, xbox vs ps, iOS vs Android, smarty vs php... If you want it, create the integration for it and use it. If we want it it, we'll add it. At the moment, we don't want it.

ave you actually looked at smarty the one everyone wants to use?

I've never used smarty specifically. Just saying the idea of a (non-PHP) templating language is not a bad one, in my experience.

webcomm wrote:The best template language I've used is Django's.

webcomm wrote:I've never used smarty specifically. Just saying the idea of a (non-PHP) templating language is not a bad one, in my experience.

Unfortunately, you don't say why.

From what I've read so far, I seriously hope we don't adopt Smarty. I'm already learning PHP, so why should I learn another language simply because "everyone else is doing it"? Unless Smarty was to give us a real good reason to switch to it, my vote is 'no'.

Earlier in this thread I mention PHPTAL. It looks like only one other person agrees with me — sort of. PHPTAL is the only one I've run across that would actually benefit OC developers; allowing them to develop visually in Dreamweaver. Apart from that, I personally don't see any reason to change what we have.

Unfortunately, you don't say why.

I've spent many 100s of hours working with systems that use PHP as the templating language and many 100s of hours working with systems that use a different templating language. I feel like I'm a bit more productive with the latter, since a specialized templating language tends to make templates more readable, in my experience.

It's just a matter of personal preference. It's not the kind of thing that would strongly influence whether I use a particular framework or not. It's not among the most important considerations.