Template Overrides
-
-
- bgman
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 26
- Thanks: 0
-
Not sure if this should be an inside member's area or out, the topic itself is general... but am looking to delve more into RT template structure as to gain some understanding about overrides used in both RT and non-RT templates.
I, personally, think the whole 'overrides' issue is major. And I think that these overrides should be listed/documented as part of 'selling' templates! I've only recently noticed how many template devs, almost ALL, are using overrides to make their templates look good, work, etc. But the problem is when a customer buys them, installs them... goes to install mod/com/etc. and it doesn't work it leads to ALOT of time spent trying to figure out is this just 'my' problem, the com/mod/etc's problem, a template problem, my hosting problem, etc.
I think ALL overrides should be, maybe not in great detail, BUT SHOULD be explained UPFRONT to a person purchasing or potentially purchasing. I think RT Templates are done in honest. Whereas I have had to join a club, at a high price, just for one template for a customer. But the problem is, this template has so many damn overrides to coms that trying to install other bonifide extesions, dont work! Now, with this template dev. I think they are purposely doing this to 'force' their extensions that 'will' work with these overrides in place. I think that is really shady business.
Now, I dont have enough joomla templating experience to totally substantiate this shady practice, but I would love for a RT Dev to expand on this. And does it make sense that as a paying member of RT I should have some documentation to per template/extension overrides, so that when I go to install extensions, etc. that I can save myself hours/days of frustration because I would then KNOW that say com_search has been overridden, meaning that now if I install some other nifty search ext. it most likely will not work? By the way, it is just the opposite in my case, I wanna use an RT extension... BUT, this other template has jacked up the com_search so bad that the only way I can use RT search ext. is to become a PHP/Dev wizard and reverse this override... totally unfair!
-
-
-
- Henning
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 29362
- Thanks: 954
- Volunteer
-
hmmm I really cant understand what the issue is.
All overrides are in the "html" folder in the templates folder.
Just look into that folder and you see wich mods/components outputs are overridden.
To turn the override of just delete or rename that specific folder like "mod_poll" to "x-mod_poll".
more to that: docs.joomla.org/Understanding_Output_Overrides
With gantry something has changed. As you probably know the core Joomla output uses tables. Of course thats not the way to structure sites today ... tables should be used for ... tables. So after years of using "self-made-overrides" RT decided not to reinvent the wheel again and started to use overrides based on code released under GNU/GPLv2 to the community by Yootheme. This is a very stable set and really got rid of tables in joomla combined with a basic css-setup.
I hope this helps ... but I'm not a template developer or a RT-guy ... but understanding overrides is indeed important. For me overrides where the most important feature that was introduced with joomla 1.5. No more core hacking to get the right output.
Overrides are used 1. to get rid of the standard joomla-table-output
2. to integrate a module or component into the design of the template.
-
-
-
- bgman
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 26
- Thanks: 0
-
Thanks for the insight as to where the overrides location is and also the theory behind them.. Im gonna check that link out, im almost certain I did already... I did infact google this topic BUT just never came across some more elementary/basic starter information about these overrides.
The 'issue' that I was stating above was that I think that template devs. should state where and what has been overriden. Ofcourse not in a general forum or anywhere outside of what a member has paid for access to.. BUT, to buy a template one should know what has been altered to the core.. because THAT explains why an added com/mod may not be working as expected if/when that person is having problems with a mod/com/extension.
Example, I spent hour upon hour trying to figure out why a simple search extension wasn't not working. It had nothing to do with the extension, it was ALL because of the override. Now, if I had known (from the template dev.) that there was an override to the core search com I could have saved hours, actually 2 days! Thats the issue.
So nw, imagine how many folks with even less skills than myself, and without the patience to pound google for info, but yet relied on the 'how easy it is to use joomla' + "well designed template" only to come across a problem like this without it even being mentioned by the template dev.? Wouldn't that equate in a loss of business?
-
Time to create page: 0.068 seconds