Thread

Hello all,

My company has chosen EE as the platform for our new web initiative, but I am stuck at installation (no technical problems, just a dilemma). I have a concern regarding “themes” versus “templates”. I have searched, but come up with nothing. The two terms seem to be used interchangeably, leading to my confusion. During installation, it is made known that EE does not allow for one-click theme switching, but it obviously has a very good template system. My concern is this: if I do not develop my own theme prior to installation, will I run into trouble later on? I.E., can one use the default theme upon installation and use custom templates later on without much hassle? And what is the difference between themes and templates as they relate to EE?

Thanks in advance for all your help!

You sure can. Whenever I install EE, the first thing I do is to delete all existing content and start again.

If you check out the excellent tutorial I embed in my sig, that will make the whole thing much clearer for you, as it did for me 😊

My concern is this: if I do not develop my own theme prior to installation, will I run into trouble later on?

No. I always go with the default, and take it from there.

I.E., can one use the default theme upon installation and use custom templates later on without much hassle?

Absolutely. Themes are used for things like the wiki, the forum or the meber pages. Templates are used for your regular pages, and a theme can pre-load you with a set of templates, so to speak, but you can change everyhing later. I know I do 😊

Thanks for your help guys. I hoped that was the case. On with installation!

Every time I read such post I can’t help to think it would be a good thing to be able to create a standard template for ee yourself. One that creates the weblogs categories and everything that is involved creating a EE website. Just install the “package” and your set. This would come in handy when moving sites from one installation to another. Or just for sharing.

To be honest, I think the EE template mechanism is too simple for that. You can create your own themes, of course, but they really aren’t that powerful (restricted to to one templat group named “site”, eg.)

Hmm, but you are saying it’s possible? I didn’t know. What I really meant was a theme by the way. So you can create a site with ee. Then “compile” it as a theme or something. So on another installation you can install that package and every setting and weblog, category is set.

Sanity, yes I, too, was talking about themes. As I’ve said, they are not powerful enough to achieve that, so a MySQL dump might be your best option.

Hmm, no. I know it’s not possible 😊, I make a feature request of this. Maybe it’s a good idea.