Quote:
Directories: You should add the vertical thinking into GT template system.
Creating directories inside the template directories can help group the templates, but only when you have enough templates to require splitting them up like that. We think that splitting up templates as you have outlined below may make things easier for the more advanced users, but makes things a lot harder for the average user. The thought of having to edit 300 smaller files seems like more work than editing 100 larger files. Note that for the base template set, we have to keep things simple and easy to understand, so we can't do anything too complicated for the templates that get released with our products.
GT::Template has supported inheritance for years. The next version will also support multiple inheritance (one template set that inherits from multiple template sets).
Quote:
Template set config
Quote:
Since the globals.txt, language.txt, config.txt are perl evaluated (globals.txt especially), therefore this can be a potential security hole, IF we allow our cooperative partners to access these files. Therefore content of _config directories should be NOT editable by the partners. Need more thinking on risks of this.
This does not have anything to do with GT::Template and does not belong in GT::Template. This should be controlled by whatever's allowing these 'partners' to edit the files, not GT::Template. This 'feature' sounds like something customised to your installation.
Quote:
Quote:
It would at least triple the template count (from 57 to 150+) - it's already pretty confusing as is. With other programs like Gossamer Mail, we're talking about going from 88 templates to over 250!
The directory grouping feature will solve this problem. The result template set is, grouped by directories is easily understandable. Result template set is not confusing, IMO, no matter how many templates is used (if grouped correctly into dirs).
I believe, even thousands of files could be clearly grouped this way, without being confusing for the template editor.
We don't think so. Creating more files overwhelms people, especially when we're talking about 150+ templates. Creating sub directories may help a bit, but in our opinion wouldn't do much for the too-many-templates issue. Users already have a bit of a problem understanding the inheritance and local/compiled concepts, so making things even more complex is not an option.
The whole problem is what things can we do to make working with the templates easier for everyone. We believe this means keeping things simple. There are some downsides to keeping things simple, such as duplicate html, but it allows anyone to just jump in and easily edit the templates. For the more advanced users, GT::Template does support things like inheritance and dynamic includes, so you
can split things up if you want.
GT::Template doesn't do all the things you outlined, but adding them would mean adding a lot more complexity to GT::Template and due to the complexity of those features, we don't see many people using them.
Gossamer Threads Development Team
