First of all, I absolutely refuse to base anything off of those themes. They are so weighted down with useless code and oversimplification that its just not worth it to make that a template for a future theme. It seems that someone is compensating for lack of graphic ability with an overly excessive amount of code. As I said many times before, I'm not theming via _INSERT_THEME_IMAGE_HERE_ just because "John Doe Team Leader" says I have to.
I refuse to accept "you have to code this way because its easy for new designers to understand". That has got to be the most ridiculous thing ive ever heard in my life. If you can't figure out how to make your theme work and you can't ask someone to explain it to you or code it for you, then you have no business making a theme in the first place. I'm not "noobing-up" my themes so that Jim Bob Newbie can understand how to make his own. I'm not here to teach the world, I'm here to make themes. If a new designer wants to learn how to theme for XOOPS he can go look at the default theme just like anyone else with common sense would do. Perhaps this is why XOOPS rarely has _new_ themers...or themers with any noticeable talent aside from "lookie i made my header blue!" because its too much of a pain in the ass to make a XOOPS theme that doesn't make devs head's spin because you didn't use THEIR code. You have been trying to force this "morpho-template" for how long? I don't see a line of new designers flooding in, eager to make uber themes based off of it.
You guys go ahead and theme-by-numbers, have fun with it, but count me out.
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but i should add instantly. if you cant accept please explain your idea and your standards.
1. Does't "break" anything in XOOPS or limit its functionality
2. W3C compliant
3. Doesn't hack the core
I do agree that certain CORE css classes should be kept compatible for use (even, odd, row1, row2, etc...). That only makes sense so that ALL modules look good with your theme. But the problem with that is that quite a few nameless module developers insist on hardcoding classes in awkward places (a forums module i currently use hardcoded even/odd/row1/row2 randomly on everything and makes for horrible theming). One of the biggest flaws i've seen isn't in the theming engine, it's in quite a few module developers inability to place css functions properly so that a theme "fits it"....so the themers just try to make due with what we have to work with. However I don't think you should be given a css file and told: "here change these to make your theme".
Which brings up another problem that theres 5600 different modules that do the exact same thing and NONE of them use even/odd/row1/row2/etc in the correct places. I can make my CBB forums look snazzy with a theme, but someone installs my theme on their site & they use d3 or newbb etc etc, and my theme looks like shyte on it.
What you
NEED to do is set standards for css classes used in module/block code, or make a wrapper for them like every other cms on the planet, THEN let the themers adapt to those, THAT way when I set something to row1 it's going to look right in every module and I don't have to sit here and template override every #OOPS#ing module. But sadly none of that will ever happen even though it makes MUCH more sense than the current system...themers/module devs are lesser mortals, their ideas matter not.
Stop trying to put shackles on themers, get your code straight first, then talk to us to make it look pretty.
PS: This is the part where kris says: "I'm right you're wrong and theres nothing you can do about it because I'm the Design Team leader, muahahaha"