Hi,

I have a question for the fellow XOOPS module developers:

I've modified/developed a few modules in last two years, but I still have trouble managing the tempaltes aassociated the modules. What I uaually do (when I'm in good mood) is to write the templtes in html, uplaod to the web server, install or update module and try to run the page. What frustrates me is that whenI just need some minor changes in the layout or some Smarty variables, or even to correct a small typo, I'll have to do the whol thing again.

If I just modify the html file on the server, without updating the module, it would work. Apparently, when rendering the pages, XOOPS reads from the databse instead of html files. Sometime I get lazy, and edit the template in the databaase directly (via Admin's tempalte management page), I can get instant response on the pages being displayed, but there is a risk: I would someday accidently overwrite the template in db with the ones in html files, unless I download it immediately (XOOPS amdin provides this functionality)

If you use the default theme and enable the system general setting "Update module templates from themes/yourtheme folder" XOOPS will check the physical files in the module directory for changes (and update the database automatically - so it is rather heavy on the server, but that should not be important when it comes to developing)

It's one of the more obscurely hidden features in XOOPS that we are working on bringing into the light in the future.

Mithrandir,

Many thanks for the hint. So if I understand it correctly, this switch does not only apply to the templates under themes/yourtheme/ folder, it also applies to templates under individual modules folder.

Actually I thought about that once, but I quickly mismissed the idea. I guess I should try everything, as long as it doesn't kill me:)

Again, thanks a lot.