ntucakovic Posted April 4, 2016 Share Posted April 4, 2016 Hello everyone, I've recently started working on a new template for WHMCS 6.2.2. Changed bunch of stuff, made many improvements to the theme. Paused on a project and few weeks passed. Apparently, there's new major release, 6.3. Which changes A LOT of files. Meaning I have to upgrade my theme to cover new features? So really, this is the templating process you advise? God forbid someone has a unique and original site and has to do a major release, now the theme needs to be reworked from ground up. That's just ridiculous. Am I missing something? I really can't believe that this is advised workflow? ------- After investigating further I've found even worse info. Apparently one should clone github repo, do change on separate branch (I hope?), and then just rebase changes when new release has happened and you sync your backend. Now this absolutely limits and ties hands regarding setting up a workflow a developer is accustomed to. The simplest example is that assets are loading from $BASE_PATH scope instead of the theme directory with common package manager, for example bower to take care of dependencies for the theme. What if I want to build bootstrap how I find fit for the theme I'm working on? I've got to make changes to a lot of files, only to do that. Think a bit further, do more customizations, and you'll make a frankenstein theme that is just a hell to maintain and is a complete performance wreckage. Solution - build a custom theme which needs to follow up with core changes, yeah right. I'm really not satisfied with how you're progressing, at least not in front-end section. ---- Does anyone have any suggestions, maybe share your workflow you have with WHMCS? Maybe I just don't have good practices? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sentq Posted April 4, 2016 Share Posted April 4, 2016 there was an option to compare between two versions of the template on github 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zomex Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 The templating system has made vast improvements especially with the use of Github showing the exact modifications. In terms of bootstrap.css you can easilt edit this one line to load a copy from your template directory and then you're free to modify it as you like. What would you suggest to improve it? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ntucakovic Posted April 5, 2016 Author Share Posted April 5, 2016 I'm just gonna line them all up, in case you want to debate some, feel free to start the discussion. Inline javascript in multiple templates Importing libraries and external resources from outside scope - ideal situation for config implementation and/or package manager (how about bower?) Overall feeling that there's no coding standard in place (on frontend). Different styles of writting js (didn't want to lose time figuring out optimizations, I believe there can be tons) Poor bootstrap implementation Poor resource delivery (way too many requests for http1) Poor ability for customizations, you'd need to override stuff, causing unneeded duplication No proper development practices in place for theming from theme six How about folder structure? Maybe add some component organizations in place? Still using smarty? Should have been reworked in major release cycle. 5 => 6 for instance There's the feeling like it's painful to develop the theme, and it should be fairly straightforward if you know how to do your job. Meaning, you're basically re-inventing the wheel and not following common practices. You should have made dev. version of theme six and production one. Developers who are used to writing unmaintainable code which is made by overriding, can do just that. On the other hand developers who tailor their development practices, shouldn't spend this much time working out new workflow in order to get ahead of a simple task such as theming. Take for instance how boostrap works (obviously not very comparable). You can download zip file, import the CSS, and you're done. How much you use it is up to you. OR you could download sass and js components and just use what you need. Also, did I mention sass (or less of course). Need more? Again, WHMCS isn't open source, it's completely commercial product. Should have made it easier to work on their stuff. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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