This section reviews the manual process of setting up template files. The core template of our application is divided into two parts. These are as follows:
When constructing your own templates, you need to set up several files and folders in a coordinated manner. A template needs to contain various files and folders. The global layout is a high level control area, where you can manage common colors, images, styles and basis design competent of a web template. You can manage global header, footer bg or fg colors , text colors, css, image , jquery and other etc through global layout area located at application => layouts => scripts => <$templateName >/
All of our web applications comes with a default templates named as $productName_default. These initial templates are defined by directories within the installation "application/layouts/scripts/ProductName_default/ " directory. Each template has it's own directory. Within the main directory of a template are numerous files: templates (.phtml), cascading style sheets (.css), images (.jpg or .png) and maybe others. Like in other theme-based systems, fragments of HTML code are stored in the .phtml template files.
Follow is the structure of template and skin directories:
Root_Dir |___application | |___layouts | | |___scripts | | |___ProductName_Default |___blocks/ |___css/ |___js/ |___images/ |___languages/ |___layout.phtml |___error.phtml | |___YourTemplate | |___default
In layout terms, modules are essentially the building blocks of a page. Our application comes with several built-in modules, such as Menu, Polls, Articles, Comment etc. If you take a look at Site Module Manager in your Administrator backend (Admin =>Modules), each module is assigned a position (left, right, top, etc) and modules may be assigned to the same position to its corresponding page. Each module of application is sub-directory of application/ modules directory.
Here is an example of a module directory consist of some sub-directories which are:
config: This directory consist of module configuration
Forms: Define all routes that map the URL to module/controller/action following Zend Framework standard
formname.php : a php program to render the dynamic forms.
source/: User readable and updatable form and it’s attributes
en_ISO_Territory : List of forms files in various languages.
controllers: Controller layer. Each file is a controller classes following Zend Framework naming convention
languages: Consist of all available languages for module. Each file defines the translation for certain language in INI format.
model: Model layer. In most cases, this layer execute database queries
views: View layer. This directory consist of helpers and scripts directories defined by Zend Framework workflow.
helpers: (optional): Contain helper classes which can be called in view scripts
scripts: Display what users see in back-end
It is important to note that, all of our default layout are named as $ProductName_default. Before customizing your template, please make sure you have created a custom directory coping files from $templatename_default and set your custom directory as default from Admin => Setup => Template installer. DO NOT customize on $ProductName_default directory, because you might have a risk of overwriting the files when you will be upgrading the software to newer version.