Thread

I was wondering if there is a plugin, module, extension, custom build, anything that allows for the simple process of importing something that is so easily exported.

Is this maybe something that is planned for EE v2.0? Or is there a way to do this today?

[warning, ranting follows]

I’m VERY new (only used for a month now) to EE, but I’ve used a few other systems such as Drupal, WordPress, and DotNetNuke (the headache that I have to deal with at work). The one thing I like about them, to a point, as well as many others is their Template systems. You can easily package a template (skin) up and give it to another person to download and use.

But with EE, you have to create a new “Template Group”, create all of the files (along with their corresponding types), then copy & paste the content into each of those separate template files you created. After that you may have to open each of those files and change the “my_weblog” variable to point to the correct set of content to display.

I guess this little rant spurred from a post in the News & Blog section of EE website, someone saying that EE has Site Themes for v1.x, but no one seems to want to use them.

Many of our users don’t realize that we offer a number of site themes for ExpressionEngine 1.x, but for the most part, you do, and none of these themes appeal to you because you either do a lot of client work with ExpressionEngine, or use it to maintain your own fully branded internet property.  These themes lend themselves more to blogging, really, and again, most of you are designer superheroes and would never use a stock theme anyway.

Firstly I see a total of 28 “site themes” available on this site and they are basic designs. Nothing that I would use myself, not because I have something against stock themes, but because they don’t exactly thrill me.

Now the EE.com Theme is AWESOME, but you don’t have it or anything equivalent on your Sites Theme section. Why would we use these, if you also wouldn’t use any of them? How many of these Site Themes are First Party Themes?

[end rant]

With that said, I’m sure I’ll be proven wrong when EE v2.0 comes out OR someone will reply with a simple solution around all of my ranting. To tell you the truth, I hope you do, since I personal think EE is a great system.

I would suggest reading not only the full blog post you’re quoting from, but the discussion thread for it as well, where I address some of these issues (particularly, this post) with another user who, like you, is in the minority of wanting to build a site from a predesigned theme.

“the minority wanting to build a site from a predesigned theme.”

Derek, I have seen this said quite a few times over the years by EllisLab insiders, but it has never really made much sense to me.

It could just as easily be a case of ‘the minority wanting to build a site from one of our existing  predesigned themes.’

Personally, I suspect that might be more the case.

I also think that having a template importing ability is a good idea. Not only for predesigned themes either—it would make backing up custom designs easier too.

So, a +1 from me for the idea.

(Of course, the next thing that will happen is that I will see that EE2 has this functionality on board and I’ll wonder why I wrote this post…).

I think you may have missed the point of that blog entry. 😉  It describes the new mechanism in 2.0 for template creation and sharing sets, so you can expect to see that in the future.

I think you may have missed the point of that blog entry. 😉  It describes the new mechanism in 2.0 for template creation and sharing sets, so you can expect to see that in the future.

Ah, you see, I delurk to say something sensible, and it turns out to be not very sensible at all.

This new method of creating and sharing template “themes” should bring some benefit for you, as it will be easier for people to make and distribute EE-specific templates.

That will be the statement about EE2 that I missed reading properly the first time around.

Carry on, then. As you were. 😊

:-D

I just knew you were going to reply and tell me to lay off the crack pipe too 😊

Guess this is what happens when you start ranting at 3AM and to tired to make any sense….

Unfortunately the first paragraph is what got me going, of course, since you talk about people not wanting to use predesigned themes. To a point I can agree with this, but right now people don’t really have a choice. I know there are plenty of WordPress, Drupal, and DotNetNuke templates/skins that I would be happy to use.

I did understand the point of your post, it was talking about super cool features that were going to be released in a future release of EE. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough, or read enough posts, but has a date/timeframe been set for v2.0 (at least one you are allowed to provide to the public)?

Of course this could all turn around when people get their hands on EE 2.0 and start providing templates to the masses either as commercial templates or free/opensource ones.

The only information thus far published with regard to 2.0’s release date can be found here: http://expressionengine.com/ee2_sneak_preview/

hmm… Summer of 2008… so it seems I will get to eat my words very shortly. I can’t wait 😊

btw, the new control panel looks very nice. Hopefully in v2.0 Module developers will have access to the new “Create”, “Modify”, and “View” columns I see in the beginning of the video. Since it seems weird to tell a user to go thru all these layers to access their Photo Galleries.

Thanks for the replies

Your users will be able to (and in fact can do so now in 1.x) create custom navigation tabs to go directly to various sections of the Control Panel.  The Quick Links area in the sidebar of 2.0 is a secondary place where this can occur.  Further, you can make Accessories for your clients with navigation tailored to their workflow.

I truly like the template/theme features in CMS apps such as WordPress and Joomla. Yes, it would be great to have something similar in EE, but if you’ve used EE for a site or two, you’ll know what it’s a major challenge. Using WP and Joomla as the example (though it works with other CMS apps) their template/themes are based upon a standard structure. To create a template/theme in the first place implies some knowledge of PHP, the CMS structure, and, of course XHTML and CSS.

To modify or customize one of the canned template/themes requires some rather wholesale changes to the underlying structure. It’s easy to get, install a template/theme, easy to tweak here and there, but not so easy to make any substantive changes or create a more customized site interface.

EE, on the other hand, does NOT come with a pre-defined structure for a canned template/theme to sit upon. The EE user creates that structure, then wraps the site (design, layout) interface around it. In that regard, EE is most like a framework which allows a custom skin. The framework is easier to build than it is to modify the structure of WP or Joomla, et al.

I must say I think it crippled EE to not have this ability. When people try to decide which to go for, the fact that you have library of templates for WP, MP, Joomla, Drupal etc. etc. will be a factor.

I for one have adapted quite a few of the free/open source designs available out there to wrap them with the EE templates. I would have happily packaged and shared them wrapped around the standard EE code (even though I have made changes I would have taken the 1 hour it takes to revert back just to share with the community).

Can’t wait for that feature in 2.0 - although rather worried at how much work the migration will be for people like me who have customised templates into modular bites and also to pick content across multiple blogs and categories etc.

Can’t wait for that feature in 2.0 - although rather worried at how much work the migration will be for people like me who have customised templates into modular bites and also to pick content across multiple blogs and categories etc.

Why would this increase your migration time, iphigenie?  Are you using custom PHP-driven toolsets instead of natively implemented features?

No, I stayed away from custom PHP, I think I would write a plugin/module/thingie that i use from my templates before I used custom php - except for a quick and dirty test. But actually my sites is simple (just a personal blog, but it has been migrated and upgraded since 98 so its a mess - I want shared field sets, that would make some ideas I have sooo easy).

I just use different template names and loads of includes,and I has simply no idea at what changes might have been made to how templates work in order to support all the improvements in v2. Perhaps there will be none 😊

I remember having to do a lot of work to move from pmachine to ee - mostly because I was trying to do related entries before they existed built in. But that was in 2004 iirc, or even earlier… I know at the time I reverted to pmachine+custom(perl) code instead of buying ee, and waited about 2 years. This is my hobby personal site and I didnt want to delve in php code at the time, as I was doing too much of that in my day job.

I dont think I will wait that long to upgrade this time, and anyways I am doing almost no php coding nowadays so it might be fun instead of too-much-like-work.

Mostly it was a purely abstract worry since I dont know what changes have been done.

I will be happy to be able to share templates 😊

Well, let me put your mind at ease.  If you’re using standard ExpressionEngine template features, you will require exactly zero work to migrate your templates to work with 2.0.  Only add-ons will need to be updated before being able to work with 2.0, and developers of add-ons will have an early preview period prior to the release so they can work with us on making the necessary conversions.