I have a basic question about how the template sets work. I understand the division of work among the theme, template set, modules, blocks, etc.; but one thing isn't clear. Can the user's choice of a theme affect which installed templat set is used; or is the one set in the General Settings admin form always used, no matter which theme is in effect?

If the theme can affect the choice of template set; how is that choice specified? And if it can't, why is the choice in the General Settings screen labeled 'Default template set'; implying that non-default template sets may be used?


Thanks,
-Volant

The default template comes with every installation and can not be modified. No matter what theme you select, it will always use the default template, unless otherwise specified through the admin panel.

Once you clone your default template, you can make changes to how certain elements on a page will be displayed. For instance, if you want to change how your redirect looks, you would modify this in the template section of your admin panel. If you have the default template selected in your admin preferences, and have modified a clone of your default, your modification will not show up until you have selected the cloned template from your admin panel, if you follow what I mean.

In general, theme selection will not affect your template selection or layout. You must specify which set of (cloned) templates you want to use for your site overall. On rare occasions, theme develeopers have included a default template set that enhances the overall theme output, but this is very rare. Of course, you do not have to use the (rarely) included template files that (may) come with your theme.

I hope this clears up any confusion you might have had over the difference of themes, templates and their usage. Please, feel free to post any further questions you have, as I'm sure I havn't quite touched on everything you were asking in my general overview.

Quote:

That's what I thought; but I wanted to be sure. Whichever template set has been chosen in the admin page must support all of the themes that are made available.

I had been toying with the idea of building a set of themes that used CSS to the greatest extent possible; but also having one or two that rely on attributes in the HTML tags for use with older browsers. But it sounds like that can't be done cleanly because all the themes will have to share a single active template set. I might still be able to do it by having each template snippet wrapped in a smarty if/else block that checks the theme name; but that's pretty ugly.

Of course, there's always the alternative of hacking the main XOOPS code; but I'd rather keep that close to standard to make it easier to keep up with future versions. (Unless this is a planned enhancement anyway and I could contribute the changes back to the project...)