I had 5 to 9 pages readily designed in HTML and I found it quite annoying not being able to see what I am styling.
So I made a Generator. It’s a simple one, just a PHP script, it opens up an HTML file and finds guides like such:
<!-- forum_table_heading -->
code here
<!-- forum_table_heading -->It copies the contents within those lines into the following file
forum_index/forum_table_heading.html
Removes the original code and replaced it with:
{include:forum_table_heading}All you really need is an HTML file where you place all the different page elements in one page underneath each other and set them up for the generator to create the files and do the replaces.
So why do I post this here:
Well I’ll be very honest. I have a habit of letting projects perish when I myself do not need them.
I also am one of those guys who is looking to back out of programming itself and actually make a functional site, Expression Engine is giving me that opportunity and so I give this tool to the community and in the hope they improve it for all of us.
I will work on it myself. But at the moment my biggest focus is finishing my newly set-up Expression Engine websites.
Examples?
Ehh yes, my own newly established website blaxus.net has it integrated. I’m still working on it so sorry if it’s only working half the time.
The main function of the Generator is to Generate a working Full Overall design. Because all the sub things that are easily changed like normal expression engine template editing. But I couldn’t visually get all the elements in the right places with so much HTML scattered along different files.
This generates a great starting point for your forum theme. Any editing from there on out is pretty much, copy paste with minor tweaking.
Problems?
A few, I could see this script make a forum theme 100% but I am not an OOP developer. So anything more advanced than this generator is beyond me.
What works:
- html_header
- html_footer
- forum_table_footer
- forum_table_heading
- forum_table_rows
- visitor_stats
- topics
I am actually sure you could make a few others work as well but these are the only ones I have tested and used.
Not Working / Being Problematic:
- forum_homepage
- main_forum_list
These two are hard to put in the proper tags, they include, html_header and html_footer and forum_homepages or main_forum_list meaning they are very easy to manually edit and make them work.
But it’s just from the HTML Generator point of view very hard to get them to have the correct view. Or maybe I just don’t know the techniques to do so.
So that’s it for now, I hope those who were looking for an easy way to integrate your theme for the forums or those who wish to save time doing so are helped.
Download is in the attachment.
Anyone who feels the need to improve my current generator or remake it in a different language.. please .. I am all for it!
Oh, and one last note, this is made for the Latest EE 2 Forum Module! I do not know how this affects the forum module for EE 1.x