Thread

Hi all,

I’m going to be coding the HTML/CSS for a SocialEngine site and I’m just wondering if anyone here has used it and, if so, what the skinning experience was like.

Hi, Eric. SocialEngine uses smarty templates. I’ve worked on two sites for a client. He’s pretty happy with it.

I haven’t used Smarty; most of the sites I work on are EE-based, WordPress, or straight html. How would you describe the experience of working with Smarty?

Painful.

A video sharing system I am skinning uses Smarty (PHP + tpl) templates.  Ditto: Painful and not intuitive.

Thanks, good to know. EE has spoiled me; I don’t want to deal with the frustration of using something unintuitive and painful.

It’s harder to use than EE for sure.. but I managed to find out how things work. I also had my client work directly with someone who writes plugins for the product. So I don’t have to deal with it.

This really depends on what you are working on. Smarty is just a templating system.  Smarty itself doesn’t make things difficult, the entire system has a part to play in it.  For example, EE has a great templating system but it is really EE as a whole which makes things easy. 

The answer in this case depends on exactly what you are expected to do.  The point of Smarty is to allow a designer to create and style a dynamic layout without having to resort to raw PHP (EE does this as well.)  If a developer has already put everything in place and the templates simply need skinned, then you will have a relatively easy job.  If you are expected to do some possible heavy lifting with the system then you might have a hard time.

ExpressionEngine is not so different.  As easy as ExpressionEngine is to use, there is still a learning curve for new developers.  As flexible as the templating system is, there are some tasks which can get very messy and EE will just seem to get into the way.  So, if you have to do dev work with a new system, then you will have to learn it and work against its limitations.

The easiest way for a designer to work with an EE site would be to either hand off a design for someone else to build from or to implement the design after the site has already been built (basic layout, no styling.)  If this is what you are doing, then it should be relatively easy.  If you are expected to take a freshly installed system and mold it into something your client wants without the help of an experienced (SocialEngine) developer, then you may be in for trouble.  If you are just skinning a default setup with no customization, then it might not be too bad (though some systems can still be ugly.)

Well said, John. It does depend on the role. I remember choosing between Drupal and EE for a major site I was developing, having used neither previously. It was a tough call at the time because, while EE was super easy to theme, it seemed easier to create different kinds of content (“static pages,” specifically) in Drupal. But then Mark Huot released his pages module, and I’ve never looked back.

The learning curve for EE is certainly there, but—for me—the way templating works in EE is magnificent and more than makes up for any potential shortcomings I’ve come across.

Smarty tags are very similar to EE tags and have some more options EE does not have in the tags. And Smarty is not so hard. Load vars into object and choose template and then smarty code in the template.
the only thing smarty has is a different way of doing foreach loops than php so you have to use the limit section.