5.7 Need some perspective
Permalink
Been using 5.6 for ages. Creating themes is easy. Now 5.7 seems to be a whole new ball game. Am I wrong?
Thanks
Thanks
Creating themes in 5.7 is just as easy and has a few more options/configurations. You have to know how to do the "page_theme" class file and explore the possibilities. The rest is all the same. Areas, include elements (either theme or core "header_required"/"footer_required") etc. Just give it a go, you won't regret it, I'm 100% sure of that.
Theme development in 5.7 is much more extensive than 5.6, and there's much more of a learning curve.
New things for 5.7 themes to consider:
- LESS (needed for enabling customization options)
- Enable grid (for creating layouts)
- page_theme file
- Registering assets
Feel free to use my "Profolio" theme as a starting point!
https://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/themes/profolio...
You may also find this useful:
https://www.concrete5.org/documentation/recorded-trainings/theme-dev...
New things for 5.7 themes to consider:
- LESS (needed for enabling customization options)
- Enable grid (for creating layouts)
- page_theme file
- Registering assets
Feel free to use my "Profolio" theme as a starting point!
https://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/themes/profolio...
You may also find this useful:
https://www.concrete5.org/documentation/recorded-trainings/theme-dev...
I don't think the learning curve is much greater, there are really only a few new considerations, and once you've worked them out they don't make theming any more difficult than it was in 5.6.
The trade-off of the new theme related features in 5.7 against the few things that might need some investigation certainly make it worthwhile.
- You don't have to use LESS unless you're wanting to create a configurable theme (i.e. for the marketplace or lots of repeated use)
- You don't have to enable a grid system if you don't want to, or if you're using bootstrap it's a single line to enable. Being able to create your own grid system is enough reason alone to recommend 5.7 over 5.6.
- The page_theme file doesn't have to be complex, and there are lots of templates and examples around to copy. Across the themes we develop this file is almost always the same, with really just the namespace path at the top different, and a few things turned on and off as we need them.
- You don't have to do any asset registering to create themes, it's more just a case of knowing how 'require' a common asset in theme. Normally this is just jQuery', where a single line of code in page_theme.php means it's included.
Probably the biggest difference between 5.6 and 5.7 is how there are now 'Page Types' and 'Page Templates', as different concepts. In 5.6 there were one and the same thing. In 5.7, a Page Type can utilised one or more templates, and the templates can be used across different page types. This is a very welcome improvement.
I just think it's important to stress that although 5.7 looks quite different from 5.6, the new stuff like namespacing requirements to develop themes isn't really that difficult to grasp. The bit of learning is well worth it.
Another example of a basic theme is here :https://github.com/Mesuva/skeleton-starting-point-for-concrete5.7
This is for the Skeleton CSS framework (which I don't use anymore), but it might act as an example of how a 5.7 theme is structured. It includes a custom grid system as well, but it would only take seconds to remove this.
The trade-off of the new theme related features in 5.7 against the few things that might need some investigation certainly make it worthwhile.
- You don't have to use LESS unless you're wanting to create a configurable theme (i.e. for the marketplace or lots of repeated use)
- You don't have to enable a grid system if you don't want to, or if you're using bootstrap it's a single line to enable. Being able to create your own grid system is enough reason alone to recommend 5.7 over 5.6.
- The page_theme file doesn't have to be complex, and there are lots of templates and examples around to copy. Across the themes we develop this file is almost always the same, with really just the namespace path at the top different, and a few things turned on and off as we need them.
- You don't have to do any asset registering to create themes, it's more just a case of knowing how 'require' a common asset in theme. Normally this is just jQuery', where a single line of code in page_theme.php means it's included.
Probably the biggest difference between 5.6 and 5.7 is how there are now 'Page Types' and 'Page Templates', as different concepts. In 5.6 there were one and the same thing. In 5.7, a Page Type can utilised one or more templates, and the templates can be used across different page types. This is a very welcome improvement.
I just think it's important to stress that although 5.7 looks quite different from 5.6, the new stuff like namespacing requirements to develop themes isn't really that difficult to grasp. The bit of learning is well worth it.
Another example of a basic theme is here :https://github.com/Mesuva/skeleton-starting-point-for-concrete5.7
This is for the Skeleton CSS framework (which I don't use anymore), but it might act as an example of how a 5.7 theme is structured. It includes a custom grid system as well, but it would only take seconds to remove this.
