[FusionWeb] Time to test the theme?

[RYX]

Am Montag, den 22.10.2007, 22:19 -0400 schrieb Will Farrington:
> On Mon, 2007-10-22 at 13:28 +0200, RYX wrote:
> > > The first is to set up 'Fake' vBulliten, MoinMoinWiki, Planet, Apache
> > > web apps on either Rico's server or Guillaume's server (I'm sure it
> > > has room :P). This way, we can see how the theme will really work in
> > > practice, and how these particular applications will handle themes and
> > > whether there be any weirdness in displaying the theme or laying out
> > > the theme.
> > For WP and MoinMoin I support this idea. VB is another thing because it
> > is a proprietary application and I don't own a license for it. I don't
> > feel very comfortable with installing it on my (local)host for that
> > reason.
> > 
> > I'd use the web-interface of VB, but it is far from optimal to create
> > the theme with it. It causes a lot of overhead and wastes time (at least
> > if compared to the good old way of editing the theme's files in the
> > filesystem and hitting refresh to test them).
> > 
> > Maybe Will can care for VB because he is more used to the system and
> > (assumably) already owns a license? Of course I could help where needed.
> 
> 1. There are no "Theme files" for vBulletin. Theme data is stored in the
> MySQL database and written out to a cache. There is no loss in
> performance since everything is done from cache as opposed to serving up
> raw files.
That's what I was referring to - I'd describe it as a huge disadvantage.
I see no sane reason for storing the whole stuff in the DB only, except
the "proprietary nature" of VB (because VB-themes are meant to be sold
and need to be easily distributable for that reason). It is completely
counterproductive for any theme-designer. Themes made of raw files could
be cached as well. Phpbb3 allows storing themes in the db and/OR the
filesystem. That allows to switch to db-based themes once everything is
finished while keeping the ease-of-creation during the design process. I
expected a "commercial" product that sells for nearly 200 bucks to offer
such a feature, too ...

> 2. Creating any "fake" vB is absolutely unnecessary. You can work on the
> new theme on vB privately (only admins have access) until it's done
> (this allows you to test the new theme thoroughly as well). Then when
> it's ready, you just change the default theme and all is done.
I know. That's what I meant with working in the web-interface. It is
totally overcomplicated (if compared with non-proprietary solutions) and
it's a real PITA to edit code in HTML-textareas (e.g. no highlighting,
no tabs, ...). Also one has to hunt down each tiny snippet (and there
are hundreds of them) for editing parts of the theme.

> 3. If working in the web interface is that troublesome for you, the
> basic theme can also be exported to one large xml file and you could
> edit that to suit your tastes (still broken apart into modules), and
> then simply import that xml file.
I noticed that while browsing the web-interface, but I don't think that
blindly working in some proprietary XML-format and uploading the whole
stuff whenever I want to test/see it is much less complicated than
editing things in those textareas. Creating a forum-theme involves an
exorbitant number of page refreshes and visual tests. The only
acceptable solution would be if one could view the XML-files offline to
remove the need for uploading it over and over again.

But since the chance for switching to phpbb3 is pretty small (even
though they are already at rc), I guess the web-interface will be the
only way to get this done.

@Will: My question didn't really expect much more than a simple: "Yes, I
can help." or "No, I can't help." ... but thanks for summing up the
points. If I get it right you don't plan to be of any practical help, do
you? I just thought, after you promoted VB so heavily and it is all so
easy and familiar for you, why don't you fire up that web-interface and
get going with the theme? If you need anything, you could just give me a
note. If something is outside the scope of your abilities I could
help/aid/support you where needed (e.g. graphics, ...). It would be a
real time-saver if we all could start working on this as a team.

best regards

Rico

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