[RFC] Themes layout support

[gildonei]

Summary

Theme support

Motivation

Reading the docs, I didn't found anything indicating that Ubiquity supports theme layouts, like CakePHP as a sample, Where I can have multiples themes and set the theme to be used on controller and It will render specified view with specific theme.

Compatibility with Ubiquity's philosophy

Indicate compatibility or improvements in:

• ease of use
• design modularity

Expected results

With theme support, we could develop projects and control design versions or create CMSs where users could choose his own theme to apply to his websites

Additional context

CakePHP theme support is a good refer to this feature

[jcheron]

Hi,
I do not know how the cakePHP themes work.
Does a theme include a set of stylesheets, associated with predefined templates, giving the user the possibility to choose a presentation by selecting a theme,
or is it more complex?

[gildonei]

Yes, CakePHP themes include a set of assets (css, js, others) and you can create all of your views according this theme.

In a specifc theme you can use Bootstrap 4, while in other theme you can use Semantic-ui, and in another you can use Foundation.

This website https://www.kenkopattofloripa.com.br and https://kenkopatto.lupahosting.com.br/ were developed with Cake using themes. Both domain use same database and CakePHP core, but domains were configured to load specific theme.

[jcheron]

It's an interesting idea, to be productive more quickly with the framework.
The development of this module will consist of 2 phases:

• Back-office : The development of the core part for the integration of themes in Ubiquity (you must first define a basic structure for the themes)

• Front-office : The creation of themes usable by default (1 by major css framework )

The first part does not pose any particular problems.
On the other side, I'm not an expert for the second (I'm not a graphic designer).

Do you want to participate in development? or was it just a request for additional feature?

[gildonei]

I could participate with documentation and testing those new functionalities. Maybe I could contribute with core code, but I don't know if my skills/knowledge about framework development will attend the needs.

[gildonei]

In CakePHP 3, themes are build like Plugins having its own folders for assets and views and others stuff (https://book.cakephp.org/3.0/en/views/themes.html and https://book.cakephp.org/3.0/en/plugins.html#plugin-create-your-own).

I guess it could work similar or, it could be more like WordPress and in View layer could be a theme folder were themes could be placed with his skeleton and views, and the framework were shipped with a default-front and default-back theme inside themes folder for out of the box installation.

[jcheron]

I could participate with documentation and testing those new functionalities. Maybe I could contribute with core code, but I don't know if my skills/knowledge about framework development will attend the needs.

This is not a problem
it's a good thing to start with testing, debugging, or writing documentation.
Any contribution is welcome!

It would be great if you could list the expected features (use cases) of this module, to build a product backlog.

I just watched the cakePHP 3 plugins ...
It's a bit like an application in the application, like the symfony bundles.
I wish more simplicity, the best thing that happened to symfony is to no longer require the use of Bundle since version 4.
The use of themes should solicit only the front part.

[gildonei]

I agree with simplicity.

About expected features:

• Allows custom set of assest (each theme must have his own css, js, images,...)
• Possibility to load specific theme for a domain (domainA.com loads theme A, domainB.com loads theme B, and go on)
• Callback functions like beforeRender and afterRender for flow control
• Themes could support use of partial views (elements), that could be shared among them. (A sample is meta tags and oc tags that usually are the same on all themes, just like some phones, addresses, etc.

I guess that are some usefull features that could be implemented for themes

[jcheron]

If I rephrase what you said:

• If the themes module is loaded, at any time, there is an activeTheme, which gives access to resources (assets)
• This active theme can change conditionally (depending on the domain or other condition chosen by the developer/user)
• The theme does not modify the common parts (which are not in presentation)
• Some events are emitted before and after loading a theme, so that the user can act on the flow

I find that the most difficult choice to make is the provision of themes for the developer.

• If the themes are installable via Composer, it is a problem to customize them.
• If they are installed directly in the project, themes are easy to customize, but we can not update them anymore.

I think we have to mix these two solutions, but I do not know exactly how.
I'm going to look at how other frameworks work on this subject.

[gildonei]

I guess that themes should be installed directly in the project by developers, as we are creating a framework, not a CMS like WordPress.

In a simple way, a theme will be a set of views (on MVC), that were created in a specific path according with previous variables set in a controller to render in a specific layout presentation.

[jcheron]

Yes, you're right
Nevertheless, the updates are an eventuality.

I'm starting a prototype version on https://github.com/phpMv/ubiquity/tree/theme_module , just to lay the foundations.

You can contribute the way you want (commenting, coding, debugging, emitting new ideas...).

[gildonei]

Deal! I will be following the updates and give help were I can