I write code in cakephp (although this question can apply to anything
that uses HTML/CSS) and find the default "skin" very uninspiring. In a
fit of depression I bought this : [http://themeforest.net/item/simpla-
admin-flexible-user-friendly-admin-skin/46073] and tried to install it
into the application I was working on.
I quickly realized that the CSS/markup combo that cakePHP uses is not
the same that the simpla writers had in mind, and had to go back and
change all the markup on my forms, etc etc.
My question is this; Is it a bad idea to abstract my HTML into common
elements? I was thinking of doing something like this:
<?php
class InterfaceHelper extends AppHelper
{
var $name = 'Interface';
var $Theme = null;
function beforeLayout()
{
parent::beforeLayout();
}
function __loadTheme()
{
$theme = $this->getTheme();
App::import('Vendor','interface_themes/default');
App::import('Vendor','interface_themes/'.$theme);
$className =
Inflector::camelize($this->getTheme())."Theme";
$d = new $className();
$this->Theme = $d;
}
function getTheme()
{
if(!Configure::read('edlib.theme'))
{
return "default";
}
else
{
return Configure::read('edlib.theme');
}
}
public function __call( $method, $args )
{
$this->__loadTheme();
return $this->Theme->$method($args);
}
}
?>
Now, all html elements for my "theme" would be defined in functions
called ::open_table(), ::open_row(), ::open_cell() (for example) and
would return <table>,<tr> and <td> respectively (for example) as
follows :
<?php
class DefaultTheme
{
var $name = 'Default';
function open_box($args)
{
if(!$args) { $title = 'NONE'; }
else { $title = $args[0]; }
//print pr($title);die();
$text = '<div class="box">' .
'<h2>'.$title.'</h2>'.
'<div class="block">';
return $text;
}
function close_box()
{
return '</div>'."\n\t\t".'</div>';
}
function page_heading($args)
{
if(!$args) { $title = 'NONE'; }
else { $title = $args[0]; }
return '<h2 id="page-heading">'.$title.'</h2>';
}
// etc...
}
?>
This has the following advantage; Need a different markup for forms?
Just over-ride your DefaultTheme::open_form() function in a NewTheme
class. Each theme has a demo file that allows you to both display and
test all interace elements defined by DefaultTheme class. Let's say
you're changing your buttons from $html->submit to an image-based box
link, you could over-ride $interface->button() instead of changing
every line of code that uses the button.
My question is, am I going a little crazy here? I feel like this will
help my quick iteration process become even quicker. I can break all
of my apps down into "interface elements" such as forms, tables,
notification boxes, blockquotes, etc.. and then just output them
quickly using my default theme, then over-ride them once my mockup has
been approved and automatically have a working webapp that's nicely
styled in much shorter time.
What do you guys think? My other alternative approach was to compile
interface elements using my own syntax much like [http://lesscss.org/]
[2] compiles CSS. Is there a better approach?
For those who are interested, I've included a quick mockup of the code
on github for the sake of example :
http://github.com/edelbalso/cakephp_themes/tree/master
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