[Koha-devel] The future of the prog templates

[Owen Leonard]

Joshua and I have been discussing the future of the prog templates, and
we'd like to get some input from the group.

The prog templates were originally intended as minimal templates with only
structural markup with no style information. They would be used only by
programmers when develeloping new features. Because the templates would be
minimal, it would be easier for designers of alternate templates to diff
changes and incorporate them into their own templates.

Now that 3.0 is starting to be used in production environments it's time to
ask, are the prog templates still serving that purpose, or are they
becoming the defacto default template?

The issue is important to me because I believe that in order to provide the
right amount of flexibility and detail for good design and usability the
templates would have to be expanded: additional markup would have to be
added to create the possiblity of one, two, and three-column designs, for
instance. Divs would be added for the purpose of controlling layout--divs
which have no semantic meaning. This kind of change is at odds with the
original intention of the prog templates.

If it is agreed that the prog templates should be expanded to allow more
flexibility for more complex styling, some discussion would have to follow
about the kind of layout scheme we should use.  The system I chose for
NPL's dev_week opac, for instance, is based on this one:

http://www.positioniseverything.net/articles/onetruelayout/appendix/holygrail

It has worked well for us, but includes some extra markup, as I said. If
others have a tried-and-true layout that uses less extraneous markup please
chime in.

What does everyone think?

Thanks,

  Owen

-- 
Web Developer
Nelsonville Public Library
http://www.athenscounty.lib.oh.us