[geeklog-devel] Re: Fortune Plugin and GL2

[Tony Bibbs]

Well, the first question I would have is it that important to support more 
than one template library? (i.e. is that really a requirement).  I'm 
haven't had a chance to think completely through this yet.  I can say that 
we've decided not to use PHPLib's library but, rather, the 
PEAR::HTML_Template_IT. I will say the layout flexibility that we've all 
talked about over the past year or so will definitely test the limits of 
any template package we pick.

I'm not sure how many of us developers understand design patterns and how 
to use them.  I am hoping the fortune plugin gets some folks 
started...unfortunately you are the only one to take notice so far.  I am 
still amazed at how much cleaner and more efficient the code is.  This 
should have a very noticeable impact on Geeklog 2.

Speaking of all this, check this out:

http://phrame.itsd.ttu.edu/

Oh, and FYI, I have send this to geeklog-devel too.

--Tony

 On Fri, 21 Feb 2003, Tom Willett wrote:

> > 
> > Are you talking about some sort of template factory?  Expand on that a 
> > bit.
> > 
> 
> One of the normal examples given for use of an abstract factory is to use it 
> for ui items such as command bars, button bars, menus, etc.  Then it does 
> not matter what windowing system you use, x, motif, etc.  The windowing 
> system interface is a concrete factory.
> 
> It seems we could go one of two ways with a template factory.  We could 
> abstract the design elements (tables, lists, list items, headings, etc) and 
> use code or templates for the placement of these elements.  Or we could 
> abstract the templates we have now (header.thtml, footer.thtml, etc).  Or we 
> could do a combination of both.  The concrete factories would then be the 
> implementations of each theme.  The template engine would be part of the 
> concrete factories, making it easy to switch template engines.  The concrete 
> factory could be nothing more than a generic factory passed a path to the 
> template files.
> 
> Make sense?  Does everyone know what we are talking about with factory and 
> MVC (model-view-controller) models?
> 
> --
> Tom Willett
> tomw at pigstye.net
> 

-- 
Tony Bibbs          "I guess you have to remember that those who don't
tony at tonybibbs.com  hunt or fish often see those of us who do as      
                    harmlessly strange and sort of amusing. When you  
                    think about it, that might be a fair assessment." 
                    --Unknown