moved to chat since it's obviously not a plugin or hack.

tensh do you use b2evolution?

Hi there;

yup, I'm currently in the process of making some skins, I'm just starting to adapt it to my website. I'm also comparing it to LifeType (www.lifetype.net). They have some original ideas, but what I like in b2evo is its flexibility. What they have better is WYSIWYG editor that allows style definitions and easy to understand template system (it's using smarty templates system: http://smarty.php.net) (although I think that b2evo templates system is only a matter of getting used to)

I think that mootools might be very handy :) I'll surely make a skin to contribute to b2evolution project.

Or maybe: is there any way to enable style definitions in posts? For example, as I'm trying to make a table, the tiny_mce writes width in style definition, which is automatically considered as error by b2evo.

regards;
Tensh.

One could duplicate the quicktags toolbar plugin as another toolbar plugin, then make it do whatever one wanted to. That'd allow for some stuff that's not part of the current toolbar. Styles might not be allowed in various tags because of either security risks or valid xhtml. I don't know which, but b2evo tends to be quite firm on both of those points.

So like you could write an alternative toolbar plugin that adds styles to the document's head, then applies classes to various bits. I'm pretty sure that'll make b2evo happy, but it'd be quite hard to know that the styles you apply won't conflict in some way with various existing skins.

A plugin and skin that go hand-in-hand is an option, though ideally either item can stand on it's own.

The big kicker though is xhtml validation. b2evolution doesn't like invalid code.

Yeah, I know this :) I know the webpage that checks xhtml validation, I'll follow the rules :)

tensh,
b2evolution is adding jquery as its javascript library.

Thanks :)

I'm now reading a professional webmaster magazine. There's written about modern web standards. As far as XHTML compliance is what b2evo cares about, they stress the importance of independent template system.

"XHTML language should not exist in any php document"

And... they also pointed Smarty templates system. :)

Written by people who like smarty perhaps?

Given that php writes web pages what's the point in attempting to segregate xhtml from your php? I mean to separate the two means you have to add another layer between them. Like .tpl or .template files for example. And what's the point, other than to say "there is no markup in the php"? Given that php is doing all the work what's the value in requiring these extra layers between your server and your page?

The only people actually opening a .php (or .tpl or anything else) in an editor are those who want to do something the application doesn't inherently do for them, so they are going to have to embrace the method of coding used by that application. If you like phpbb2 (for example) you'll have to accept that all displayed text exists in a lang folder and is called from a .tpl file which, in turn, is called from a .php file. Blech. You can admin a phpbb2 installation without ever touching those files, but if you want something it can't do you're going in deep. The same thing applies to b2evolution and wordpress and lifetype and etomite and drupal: if you want more than it delivers you will have to open up and embrace a file structure of some kind. Of course the same thing applies: you can use all these programs straight out of the box without having to get inside and tweak files.

So to the casual user it doesn't matter if it's php->html or php->template->html because they're not going to see it. For the person who wants more than the app delivers they're going to have to figure out how the programmers make it do what it does. Therefore I have to ask: what's the point of *any* hard rule about how the guts of an app get it done? (Other than it's gotta be secure and needs to generate quality web pages!)

No worries though. Everyone ends up using whatever they deem 'best' based on what they either already know or deem important. There was once a person here who simply couldn't understand how there could be no English sub-folder in the locales folder. Absolutely convinced the ONLY way to write an app was the way phpbb2 does it. That's obviously not true, but since that was important to that person b2evolution was bad. To me back when I started with this app the thing I found most valuable was the depth of comments in the code. I had no preconceived notions of how a php blog app should be written - I had been doing all my pages in html - so I peeked under the hood of a couple of different apps that Fantastico was willing to install for me. If not having xhtml in your php is valuable to you then you'll go with something that satisfies that condition. I think Smarty does it that way ;)

No offence ^^"""

Just for people who are rushy, it can be a problem to edit php skin files (oops, the cursor went wrong way and accidently deleted one " ' " somewhere... which made a whole script non-functional).

Luckily, I'm not such a kind of person. :)

I'd like to know your opinion: Are you after a simple table site design + CSS design? I know that "tables are not meant for it blablabla" but well, if a browser doesn't read css styles (some people do it), Then a sidebar is not a sidebar anymore (displayed somewhere below or so), and a whole content isn't on its place.

I mean: one simple 2-column table to keep the content in right place in case of CSS turned off. And it will still be valid XHTML document (I tested it through the validator).

Why would someone have css turned off? Even if they did, wouldn't it look better to have the sidebar displayed at the bottom or top of the page rather than to see an unstyled table? The default borders of a table make me want to puke :P

Hehe :) You of course define border=0 in the document, not in the css style ^^ The tables are invisible.