The style [ template, theme, imageset ] topic

[SHS`]

I'm sure you will get something out.

Annoyed at why one even bothers with such a project.

[Lord Odin]

I agree with AngusThermopile about the signature divider. Perhaps throwing $sig_divider = '----<br />'; into the templates CFG file would allow people to easily change the divider for signature by editing the one file, instead of the many that used it in 2.0.x. I believe posting.php, viewtopic.php, and priv_msg.php used it, and then after the change it effected all templates, and not all benefitted from it. Perhaps another idea is to use a TPL file to hold some sig info (with perhaps the CFG also having the other idea, and a variable in the CFG telling phpBB to use either that divider or the TPL file), such as, for example:

<hr class="sigdivider" />
<div align="center">
{USER_SIG}
</div>

Now, yes, the TPL file would in 99.9% percent of the cases be extremely small in filesize and perhaps be overkill, so giving the option for the variable in the CFG file or the use of a TPL file would allow people to not need such a small file which isn't of much practical use. However the option of a TPL would allow that .1% to make better use of their creative minds, when a simple <hr /> or ---- just doesn't suffice.

I also like to keep as much HTML out of the core as possible. That includes img tags. I'd like to throw around the idea of adding into the template vars the current image pathway. Alongside of forum_row.POST_IMG, for instance, also have forum_row.POST_IMG_PATH, so that, if desired, I can just use that in the template for a bit of a redefined image tag for that particular template (or templates if need be). I know something like this can easily be added in as an after-thought, modded into the board, but some people have fairly good or better HTML know-how but very limited, if any, PHP wisdom, and I think it beneficial to those people to not need deal with what they don't know. If they can look up documentation and see that the path is available, and how to use it, I believe they could grasp that idea alot quicker than how to manually fix the board to suit their tastes. An easy way to edit the smilie IMG tag would be nice to. Perhaps have this in the board config, or add in a class="postsmilie" so that it can be manipulated through CSS, or even throwing the base of the tag into constants.php at the bottom so it can be used in an sprintf() (<img src="%" class="smilie" border="0" /> or something)

[sj26]

ok, I'm giving another 2c (making it 4c) but what the hey

the SIG thing could be easily resolved with a {POST_TEXT} and {POST_SIG} field. that way, put whatever you want between them (wasn't this around in 2.0.x?) In fact, have a look at CVS. {postrow.SIGNATURE} is seperate.

secondly, another feature I remembered trying to write in to my customised template system was a good way to debug templates. Now seeing as templates are cached by default, it would be nice if administrators could 'debug' templates as they write them. this could be done with a simple permission. The debugging would only happen once, and would save a lot of "Why am I getting a PHP error about these funny-looking curly brackets?"...

Just another 2c... (I'm trying for a whole 10c coin! )