Hi all,

This is one feature I think would benefit E-Blah immensely..

I would like to recommend something, and this comes after my own experience with theming Ozihumour, and after reading a mod by Opfer? (Which conflicts with a mod made by Nat) where there were so many changes, it literally re-wrote 6 .pl files. Ozihumour theme affects about 15 .pl files.... That's why it will never become available... far too many changes to the operating files.

I shudder at the thought of how much work would need to be done again to keep the theme, if E-Blah was updated tomorrow.

And that is what is wrong with E-Blah, the themes are in the .pl files, and there are far too many mods being made to what should be kept as strictly the 'engine' .pl files.

I recommend that:

1. All of the theme html code be removed from the .pl files, be given 'tags' and made into a single theme file, and then address the tags from within the .pl file by using url's or $variables..

Reason: This will keep the .pl files clean of all surplus code and they should never have to modified to include anything that is not strictly an E-Blah 'engine' upgrade.

2. Themes would never be 'Lost' with an E-Blah upgrade to the engine.

3. This should make any theme available as a 'package' in two or three parts:
   a. The theme file itself.
   b. The associated .CSS file.
   c. Any associated graphics.

4. All themes can be made to be w3 compliant, and can take advantage of any changes to the html code, which is happening all of the time. (The latest I believe is to use the tags "thead".. Loads the header first, "tfoot" loads the footer next, and then "tbody" which fills in the middle bits...the list goes on)  

And so am I....

This is how it is being done these days and it can be expanded at a later date to include .xml themes. But! not while the theme is locked into the .pl files.


Time for breakfast......................


Edit:

Rats!! I meant to add that the theme files would now be individual templates..

Just imagine the ability to change the theme not just slightly, but to be able to have a whole new concept / layout for each and every one of them.

*sigh*  I was just about to go test out a little with making a "theme" file like this for BoardIndex.pl.  I thought about it the other day, but it was late.

The chance is slim that it'll happen, though, as I try to keep E-Blah as fast as possible, and I really don't like opening more files than I need to (that's been something I've worked on for the next Platinum 9.5 release).

Dunno,

With the speed of modems and computers these days, if it would affect the speed of Eblah that much at all. Servers are upgrading to 686 etc..

Not using a Db sever certainly adds to eblah's speed.

Quoted from Ozidave

Not using a Db sever certainly adds to eblah's speed.

Yes and no there.  

Now the issue I've found isn't with speed, but with just organization.  If you wanted to move something around, you'd have a heck of a time doing it.  

Yeah, I'm afraid I've got to scrap the idea.  

It works, but the problem was that if you wanted to move stuff around, it would still be preset in BoardIndex.pl as to when that area was executed, and then it'd ... just never know.  I see more bad come with it than good, personally.    The idea is good, but overall I just believe it will make things VERY confusing for both me, and the modders.  There would be issues when I wanted to move stuff around ... the best thing to do is to pick a version, mod it, and be done with it.    New releases aren't as common as they were two years ago when there was a new release every week or two ... they've tapered off to about three to four each year.  I've only recently been editing really vigerously.

I'm not going to hone-in on this, but it is a hard one to think through when one has to consider the less talented who rely on someone else to do the work and changes for them.

If, as in my case there have been so many changes to the default files, then mods have to be modded to suit... (I generally add them to the files manually anyway.) So it's only the standard template that can be effectively modded by the using the auto installer.

Also a lot of mods wouldn't be required, as they could be turned into templates that include those different features.

Small mods / additions to templates by the modders could become plug-ins and hooks created to 'pick them up'. But even that would become redundant, as one could just make a new template and release it as a modded template.

The real problem for consistency is with the .CSS file. It's too small to do very much with as EBlah does not have enough classes in the first place, and to mod the default template with more classes, only goes to break it further.

What it probably needs is the existing .css file changed and a lot more classes added to the default template.

Much more scope for modifying the background, foreground, headers, footers, forum bits and columns etc without breaking the standard template... once it has been changed to include the new classes...

Deciding on what to change and what to call them is what needs to be decided, and it can all still be held together as it is at this moment, by adding the the 'new' classes in-line with the existing ones, (or 'behind' what they were previously called) in the .css file.

Anyway, that's my idea of what would make E-Blah more exciting and a lot easier to skin.  

The thing is, is that you can add new classes to .css and your .html without changing the core code.
Here is an example of what can be done.

http://www.warlock.4you.za.org/forum/Blah.pl?,theme=velvet

Username: tester
Password: tester

This has mouseover effects on buttons etc, the only core file I had to change was English.lng where I had to change

Quoted Text

'profile'   => qq~<img src="$buttons/profile.gif" border="0" alt="Member Center">~,

to:

Quoted Text

'profile'   => qq~<img src="$buttons/profile.gif" srcover="$buttons/profile_on.gif" border="0" alt="Member Center">~,

to enable the mouseover on buttons, all the rest is done in the .css, .html and a little javascript.

I can see what you would like to achieve and also understand where Justin is coming from in regard to board speed.

I would like to add that I am no expert when it comes to programming, like yourself Dave, I play and learn as I go along.

Hi Martin  

I signed in, left a message and then viewed the source code and it's anything other than what the novice would be capable of producing. No Offence, but that's not the sort of changes I had in mind. As it needed a core change,

Quoted Text

This has mouseover effects on buttons etc, the only core file I had to change was English.lng where I had to change

and a lot of java script.

I'm talking about the ability to change the standard templates that come with a  standard E-Blah install.

To take theming to the point of what I've just seen would need someone of some expertise, and even I wouldn't know where to begin with that one.

Eblah would not be compromised for speed because the original no-graphics theme should be maintained; then it's up to the user to include any graphical changes which of course would slow down the loading times.

Mod's, are another consideration... Here's another News-Slider that has taken a lot of free javascript, modifying... cutting and pasting to get it to work, and could quite easily be made into a 'hook', you either want it or you don't, and at the moment it's using an entirely different theme (.xml) because I made it for something else (if you view the source). The .js file has been 'dropped' into the cgi-bin/forum just for convenience at this stage.

http://ozihumour.com/perl/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl

There will always be the upper echelon of mods to code and themes etc, I'm only interested in giving the lower echelon (to which I belong) the same opportunity to modify their own themes using standard EBlah templates given there are enough variables to do so in the first instance.

Edit:

I meant to add that mods could be simple hooks.

Shoutbox could be $martinsshoutbox = whatever.index
OziSlider = whatever the same, and the loading code wouldn't have to be in the .pl files. Just the hook. Else the hook could be placed into the template, then it's up to the individual to add it or not, if it's going to affect loading speed.  

Got out of my depth here.......

Just pulled my head out of the bucket of sand I've had it in for the last month.  

Anyone miss me.........  ???

Hmmm?

Quoted from admin

Hmmm?

Hmmm? yourself  

Heyyyyyyyyyyyy!! Justin Osbourne,

Does 9.3 come with the "split" index tables in BoardIndex.pl??

As I have recommended to someone to use Eblah in preference to some other buggy forum software that they are having problems with..  

Ok! I know it's only a 'theming thing'...... But it means a lot to some other people, and that's what they are used to seeing..... Yep or Nup?

I'm not sure if P9.3 has split tables.  I believe it does though.

Quoted from Warlock

The thing is, is that you can add new classes to .css and your .html without changing the core code.
Here is an example of what can be done.

http://www.warlock.4you.za.org/forum/Blah.pl?,theme=velvet


This has mouseover effects on buttons etc, the only core file I had to change was English.lng where I had to change to:

to enable the mouseover on buttons, all the rest is done in the .css, .html and a little javascript.

I would like to add that I am no expert when it comes to programming, like yourself Dave, I play and learn as I go along.

Yep! you also didn't say you 'took' it from here...... Along with a lot of other things on this forum that come from elsewhere without acknowledgement to the "Original" authors or source.

Then go to: ezHyperShadow

Original ezHyperShadow theme by boo ©2004 http://www.ez-life.net

I no longer believe that Eblah is being compiled under the GPL - GNU protocol, and I find the fanciful whims of one person as to what is allowed or what will be allowed, a trifle overbearing.

GPL......... Pigs Ar*e! SourceForge has taken this matter to task once before.... Maybe it needs a shake-up once again.??

Quoted from Ozidave

I no longer believe that Eblah is being compiled under the GPL - GNU protocol, and I find the fanciful whims of one person as to what is allowed or what will be allowed, a trifle overbearing.

Huh?  fanciful whims? From who Justin?  Unless I am mistaken, the person that developes something should get to decide if a feature is included or not.

Quoted from Ozidave

Yep! you also didn't say you 'took' it from here...... Along with a lot of other things on this forum that come from elsewhere without acknowledgement to the "Original" authors or source.

Then go to: ezHyperShadow

Original ezHyperShadow theme by boo ©2004 http://www.ez-life.net

I no longer believe that Eblah is being compiled under the GPL - GNU protocol, and I find the fanciful whims of one person as to what is allowed or what will be allowed, a trifle overbearing.

GPL......... Pigs Ar*e! SourceForge has taken this matter to task once before.... Maybe it needs a shake-up once again.??

Really not sure what your talking about.  E-Blah has never taken stuff from other authors without permission.  Period.  If Martin did then that's his problem.  It does not involve E-Blah.