Sounds like a good analysis to me, so lets stick with Smarty.

On 4/3/06, Mugur Rus wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I investigated both Smarty and PHPTemplate as potential candidates for our
> new PHP template engine and IMHO we should continue with Smarty. Here are my
> reasons for not using PHPTemplate engine:
>
> 1. There is no way to define our own tags
>
> 2. Quote: "If you don't know PHP, then PHPTemplate can still be a good
> choice because only small bits of code are involved. They can just be
> copy/pasted into your template."
>
> This means that the web designer will have a hard time detecting syntax
> errors. Also, don't know how good is the error reporting but I suspect is
> way behind Campsite.
>
> 3. Needs Drupal to be installed
>
> 4. We would have to borrow the Drupal terms, like 'node'
>
> 5. Poor documentation
>
> Please let me know what you think or if you think I was wrong in some way.
>
> Mugur
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates.
>
>

i agree with sava: let's stick with smarty. and i haven't researched
phptemplate but worked with smarty quite a bit now. and it's a beauty.

At 10:55 04.04.2006, you wrote:
>Sounds like a good analysis to me, so lets stick with Smarty.
>
>On 4/3/06, Mugur Rus wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I investigated both Smarty and PHPTemplate as potential candidates for our
> > new PHP template engine and IMHO we should continue with Smarty. Here
> are my
> > reasons for not using PHPTemplate engine:
> >
> > 1. There is no way to define our own tags
> >
> > 2. Quote: "If you don't know PHP, then PHPTemplate can still be a good
> > choice because only small bits of code are involved. They can just be
> > copy/pasted into your template."
> >
> > This means that the web designer will have a hard time detecting syntax
> > errors. Also, don't know how good is the error reporting but I suspect is
> > way behind Campsite.
> >
> > 3. Needs Drupal to be installed
> >
> > 4. We would have to borrow the Drupal terms, like 'node'
> >
> > 5. Poor documentation
> >
> > Please let me know what you think or if you think I was wrong in some way.
> >
> > Mugur
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call
> rates.
> >
> >


Micz Flor - micz@mi.cz

content and media development http://mi.cz
--------------------------------------------------------
http://www.campware.org -- http://www.suemi.de
http://www.redaktionundalltag.de
--------------------------------------------------------

At 16:27 09.04.2006, you wrote:
>Is the smarty decision already final? Well it's already distributed with
>the latest version

without being too deeply involved in the template engine discussion myself,
i would be interested to hear what you would recommend and why.

the idea to drop the current campsite engine also has to do with the fact
that it is being compiled on the server during the installation process.
therefore the installation procedure requires more rights for the person
installing it than your usual drag and drop php installation.

however, most of the campsite templating should remain 'intact', i.e. the
templates should still work even with the new templating engine. smarty
seemed to provide a good frame within which this can be achieved by
programming smarty compatible 'plug ins'.

the campsite lingo is custom made for the campsite DB and functionality. so
it will definately need to stay. of course, on a general level, any
templating engine is always in danger to do too much. i.e. PHP starting as
a templating engine. and then becoming something else altogether - and now
there are templating engines built in PHP, i.e. similarity of templating
inside a templating concept that became too complex

related to smarty that means that campsite could:

a) provide a basic frame of templating lingo but still...

b) smarty would be the framework within which people can expand the
templating logic, for example base decisions on specific values in field of
the article type, i.e. a similar use of a field in the article like a flag,
expanding the *onfrontpage* and *onsection* for example.

so using smarty as the base, then writing the campsite template logic into
it, the API for further template features would already be written so to
speak, because that's how smarty is being used in campsite, i.e. any
campsite function for smarty is like a working example on how to do it.

ideally, this would not touch the smarty API so that it would be one big
load of development off the campsite dev group. right now all new features
need to be incorporated into the templating engine by mugur who is doing a
great job keeping up to date with the request. but with smarty and its API
it would allow to become more felxible and open and even have additional
plugins that might or might not make it into the sources - but will be
available on the site.

given these objectives, what other templating engines would be an option?


Micz Flor
____________________________________
[Konzept und Entwicklung]
Redaktion und Alltag - Flor Lay GbR
____________________________________
Pasteurstrasse 8
10407 Berlin
t: +49.30.44044999
f: +49.30.42085272
e: flor@redaktionundalltag.de
____________________________________
http://www.fluter.de
http://www.redaktionundalltag.de

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