I heard this that XOOPS support smarty
the only thing is that i dont know what is smarty exactly and their website isnt making it any clear for me
i just know it has to do with making themes with out effecting the code
is it like software or a script or a new computer langugae?

what is smarty?

Smarty is a template engine. Which basically means it's a simplicfication of dynamic data for use in your website. Smarty is used to make the split between code and presentation easier.

Herko

well is till dont get it
where can i get something that will make me understand it more and how to use it

Did you read this? http://smarty.php.net/crashcourse.php

It's hard to get a good understanding of Smarty by looking at how XOOPS uses it, because XOOPS uses some of its advanced features, such as using a MySQL database to manage the caching.

When I was learning Smarty, I downloaded Smarty and installed it in a directory separate from Xoops. The Smarty download includes at least one simple, but complete and working, example of using Smarty.

Then I reworked another (non-Xoops) site I had, which used a PHP script to generate static HTML pages, to use Smarty. By the time I finished that, I understood Smarty pretty well.

well do u think its a good idea to learn smarty and use it?
or i dont need it really?
where is it really powerful to use

Quote:Well, as ususal "...it depends..."
Smarty (template engines in common) is good idea and power implementation of idea, but - it's one more language and one more additional layer for site from "bad side", but it simplifies (extremely) development and support of Smarty-powered big and complex sites... really simplifies... from "good side"
Quote:
But before it you have to answer "Who I'm? What is my role and which changes in game I can wait in future?"
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Where you have (and can) separate programming part of dinamic sites from presentation part
Programmer can know nothing about face, where and how his data will be used. He work only on tasks "get such data in these variables", and can't broke design
Designer designes pure design with "data slots" in it, and delegate non-design tasks to others

There are less critical errors, responsible person always known, visual redesign can be done more easy and fast.