Thread

aka… dumb questions from newbies... hey all.
Just beginning chapter 4 all about EE, and the first thing that pops out at me is:
The book installs the theme Logical Blocks for the tutorials, then it states…
Be aware that you won’t be able to change the theme after installation.
Is this true, themes need to be in place before ever running the installation?

This sounds kind of scary and less flexible, I thought it was as simple as selecting a new theme from a drop down to switch themes, more like a theme switcher type fo function or skinning maybe more accurate.

Secondly not sure how many people here who are experienced users would have read this chapter in this book, does anyone have any problems with the recommended advices from the book? Maybe say if you do things completely differently than Simon Collison does, or can recommend other resources for tutorials.
thanks, eeTy 😉

Nope changing the themes is not like with some other CMSs. You do have to have the Theme in place during installation. Otherwise switching is really really difficult 😉 It usually means you have to copy and paste your code into the index file.

It would be a nice to have to be able to change themes ala Joomla or Wordpress but it really is not that complicated.

And the best tutorial is the User Guide.

M.

This has been discussed quite frequently over the years - try searching here in the forums.  IIRC even Rick Ellis weighed in on one conversation.

Essentially in order to allow you to switch themes on the frontend EE would have to be much less flexible in terms of back-end configuration.

Thanks for some answers, I don’t think I’m really interested in users being able to switch themes on the frontend, I thought maybe on the backend it would be possible.
Being very familiar with stylesheets, there are switchers to use there. Maybe I’m having trouble with the concept of what a theme consists of.
To follow the directions from the book I guess I’ll have to reinstall my ee test setup to include the Logical Blocks template.
It will probably be worth my while.
IT’s as good a roadmap as any.
Any other thoughts on the book’s chapter 4 devoted to EE then?

tz,

I think what people have been trying to get at is that EE is so incredibly flexible that a theme switcher in the backend or otherwise that is built into the software just doesn’t make any sense.  With EE the structure of the HTML and the data is basically entirely up to you.  There is no way a theme switcher could take that into account. 

This is very different from something like WordPress, Joomlia, Drupal, where the basic layout and structure of the HTML and data is already determined for you.  Those scripts can afford to have a theme switcher because they can be reasonably sure that the basic structure of one or another site is going to be the same.  With EE that is an assumption that can not be made.

It’s basically a trade off. 

With EE you can structure and style your site literally however you want.  However, with that flexibility you lose some automation.  EE isn’t going to be able to take someone else’s CSS from another EE site and just make it work with your site because it has no way to know how your site structure and HTML is going to compare from one site to another since that structure is up to the individual and is not determined by EE.

Am I making sense?  😊

Jamie

I’m confused a bit…when you say “backend” do you mean a backend switch for *you* to choose the look of the public website, or do you mean a new theme for the EE Control Panel?

The latter is possible now (to the point where individual users can choose their own CP theme if you’ve loaded more than one),  the former is do-able but would require programming.

I can’t comment on the book - I’ve never seen it.  But I imagine it has to be somewhat out of date by this point at least in the area of EE featureset.

I think it’s the use of the word theme that threw me. It does make sense, that how could there be a universal theme, or in this case CSS set of styles, when each site would be unique in structure.
Maybe when I digest what is in the Logical Blocks example, I’ll have a little better idea what is included.

After designing the site, I can see in a year or so maybe redesigning the site with a new look, that would probably involve an upgrade in the eeCore or better also.
Do other CMS systems have a basic structure such as wordpress themes, there are just a ton of those out there.
What does a wordpress theme consist of that EE does differently anything?

I guess I’m saying (coming from a guy with no wordpress experience either) a wordpress theme could be easily ported to EE then huh?
I’m looking to create original designs, but just trying to get my brain around ee.

The book was published in Feb 2006, so maybe I’ll check the change logs then.
Thanks.

tz,

You can replicate a Word Press them in EE quite easily.  As I said above though WordPress themes assume you are using the default HTML and Data structure.  In EE there is no default HTML and no default Data structure.  That is the difference.  That is why a “theme” in EE is not the same as a theme in WordPress.

Jamie

Addition:

You have to think of a “theme” in EE as a starting point.  Basically its just some HTML/CSS and an accompanying Data container for you to start with.  But from then on everything is up to you.

I think the whole deal is a catch 22. But if new users stick it out, once they understand how this works they love it.

You can take ANY website and in very little time port it to ee. Because as is said above you aren’t locked to anything. You can put your elements anywhere in the page you want. If you really wanted to you could cut and paste a theme from any other website, replace the paragraphs with the {weblog:entries} and have it working in a few minutes.

It’s a learning curve, and I can see how new users would not be sure how to proceed, however the more I use this system the more I’d hate it if the structure changed.

also, a theme includes your graphics etc. If you built a CSS file with all your graphics being pointed to from it and none in te site, you could change your site look with a simple link. But you’d have to really be careful about any hard coded HTML elements being in the template.