[opencms-dev] CmsTemplateBean once again!

[T Reaves]

On Jul 21, 2005, at 5:38 AM, GV wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> after searching the archives I saw few questions regarding  
> documentation of
> "templateone" and especially requests for a CmsTemplateBean javadoc  
> but no
> real answer was provided!
>
> Is any chance to get something on these topics?
>
> As pointed by other users, templateone seems very useful but without
> documentation leads to a dead end!!! :-(
>
> In a hope that Alkacon will reply to this ...
>
> Thanks


     I think everyone will find that templateone isn't useful for  
much other than exploring; it doesn't make a good site, and things  
aren't implemented that cleanly.  What do I mean by these two  
statements?  I'll explain.

     As to not making a good site, there are two things here to  
consider: it's very heavy for almost any real site, and secondly, you  
can't really make the site look that much different from every other  
site using templateone.  Of course, if neither of these two  
considerations you care about, ignore them.

     As to not being clean, this is a little less ambiguous:  there  
are just several things they do incorrectly - or poorly - in  
templateone. There are areas where properties are read from elements  
to configure both look and function, then other areas where things  
are hard-coded.  Places where things are hard-coded just don't make  
since, as properties would have been just fine.

     It's also important to note that CmsTemplateBean is in a package  
for templateone, so that the two go together.

     I don't want anyone to think I'm knocking templateone, as it is  
very useful as a learning area; it's just that after a week or so of  
playing around with it, any competent developer is going to decide  
it's more trouble that it's worth to deploy it, and take what they've  
learned from it to create there own template system.  That's what  
happened to me, and a few other people I know that use OpenCMS.

     As an interesting aside, I've wondered why people haven't  
released their own templates to the community;  I'm working on a very  
nice one at the moment, and will be releasing it when finished  
(hopefully in another few weeks).