Consolidating templates

[Arty]

In phpBB 3 same code is used in many places, making it very complex to customize style. For example, post template is used in viewtopic_body, posting_preview, posting_review, ucp_pm_viewmessage.

I suggest to consolidate similar templates into single template file:

• Posts: template "posts". It should be used for posts, private messages, post preview, post view in mcp, etc... anything where post is shown.
• Forums list: template "forums". It should be used for forum index, subforums list in forum view, moderator control panel, bookmarks in ucp, search results and other parts of forum where forums list is shown.
• Topics list: template "topics". It should be used for topics list when viewing forum, mcp, bookmarks, search results, etc. It should also be used for private messages list.

All of those templates will have loops to display all items, so it would be easier to add global header and footer for whole block.

Such concept should also make it easier to create php code because it can be assigned to a single class. Something like phpbb_post::display()

[imkingdavid]

That's a good idea. Reducing code duplication is usually a good thing to do. Of course, it can be limiting because it makes it somewhat more difficult to customize, for instance, PM pages to be slightly different from topic view pages.

[MichaelC]

It can be limiting because it makes it somewhat more difficult to customize, for instance, PM pages to be slightly different from topic view pages.

+1 to this bit of your post.

Its a good idea but doing this would remove some of the things which make phpBB so easy to customise whatever you want.

[Arty]

I think its the other way around: having too many different templates makes it difficult to customize phpBB. If style author would want to have a unique post layout, he'd have to edit 10+ templates, which produce almost the same thing, but with few tweaks. Then mods have to add code to several templates, which all could have been customized by style author, making mod installation a nightmare to forum owners.

If instead of those 10+ templates there is only 1, everyone would have to apply changes to only that one template.

Conditional statements aren't going away, there can still be different layouts of same item for different parts of forum. So you can have different layouts for private message, post, news article (for some mod), calendar event (also for some mod) or whatever else could be displaying data like post, while allowing style author to customize all of them by editing one template file.

[DavidIQ]

I know you've been dealing with installing Titania as of late so maybe you've noticed how the style is set up for it. It starts with the default folder and anything that needs to be customized is copied into the custom template directory (in our case "prosilver"). I think this approach might be best for this proposal pretty much taking template inheritance to the next level and even simplifying it.

[imkingdavid]

We could do something like Twig's block system, where you can set a default template block and overwrite it as needed.

[Arty]

Template inheritance is great, but it solves a completely different problem. It doesn't solve problem of having same content in many template files. It doesn't even help when I want to customize small part of template because I still have to copy whole template before applying changes. It only helps to create styles that are minor modifications of default style, which is completely opposite to goal of this suggestion. Goal of this suggestion is to make it easier to completely redesign layout.

Here is a better example of what I'm proposing.

Example: post layout. Private message is basically a post, without forum assigned to it and with recipient data. Post preview is also a post. Topic review is a list of posts. Search results page is ether list of topics or list of posts. All of them have different templates that have the same purpose: to display a post. So why not use one template for it? A post is a post. There is no need to have several templates that serve the same purpose.

We could do something like Twig's block system, where you can set a default template block and overwrite it as needed.

I think that's close to what I'm suggesting. I'll check it

[Arty]

We could do something like Twig's block system, where you can set a default template block and overwrite it as needed.

It does serve that purpose, but not by itself. What I'm suggesting is mix of blocks and includes. Like this (don't mind errors in code, I'm not familiar with twig enough to write correct code yet):

Topic page:

Code: Select all

{% extends "main.html" %}
{% block content %}
    {% block posts_header %}
         topic title, mcp link, etc
     {% endblock %}
    {% block posts %}
         {% include "posts.html" }
    {% endblock %}
    {% block posts_footer %}
          quick reply, buttons, etc
    {% endblock %}
{% endblock %}


Private message (I'd go even further by including viewpm.html instead of showing blocks, but for this example I won't make it that complex):

Code: Select all

{% extends "ucp.html" %} <!-- (ucp.html extends main + ucp header / footer) -->
{% block content %}
    {% block post_header %}
         post title
     {% endblock %}
    {% block post %}
         {% include "post.html" }
    {% endblock %}
    {% block post_footer %}
          quick reply, buttons, etc
    {% endblock %}
{% endblock %}


then posts.html:

Code: Select all

{% block post_start %}
<div class="posts-list">
{% blockend %}
{% for post in posts %}
    {% include "post.html" %}
{% endfor %}
{% block post_end %}
</div>
{% blockend %}


and post.html:

Code: Select all

{% block post_wrapper_start %}
<div class="post" {% if post.id %} id="{{ post.id }}"{% endif %}>
{% endblock %}
{% block post_poster_profile %}
     poster profile here
{% endblock %}
{% block post_content %}
    post content here, with nested blocks for bbcode, attachments, etc
{% endblock %}
{% block post_wrapper_end %}
</div>
{% endblock %}


Topic includes posts.html that loops through post.html to display posts
Private message includes post.html to display message.

In the end both functions use the same file: post.html, which displays post content. I'm suggesting to do the same for all block that can be reused: have only one global template for it.

[callumacrae]

Does Twig implement the Django template language in PHP?

I <3 the Django template language syntax

[Arty]

I know you've been dealing with installing Titania as of late so maybe you've noticed how the style is set up for it. It starts with the default folder and anything that needs to be customized is copied into the custom template directory (in our case "prosilver"). I think this approach might be best for this proposal pretty much taking template inheritance to the next level and even simplifying it.

Actually, Titania does close to what I'm suggesting. Lots of includes, nice directory structure. Didn't look close enough at template files before, so I didn't notice.