Template Blocks

In this (almost) anniversary release, l tried to include most of the small bugs that appeared after using this application for about a year.

To mention a few:
- Improved parsing of remote XML in administration area
- File locations are now more accurately defined
- Included new globals:TEMPLATE_DIR, TEMPLATE_PATH, TEMPLATE_URI
- Moved conditions for running the engine in a seperate function (checkPaths)
- Better support for custom location of the template folder
- Other improvements for overall better performance…

This release also signifies the end of the first cycle for Template Blocks. I have already scheduled a second version with improved features and functionality.

To mention a few:
- AJAX based on JQuery
- Standalone SQLlite database for all template-related configuration.
- Export options to .html files or other popular CMS templates.
- …previously mentioned features that remained in the wish-list…

The most important feature though is that it will stop being a wrapper to other content scripts and will aim to conform to an MVC structure, since that is the way most innovative web development is geared towards to these days.

This final release of the first cycle will always be available as a legacy version. All previous versions will be taken offline once version 2 is released. There is is definite date for that, but stay tuned

Thank you all for using Template Blocks so far.

After a month and a half of gathering notes and fixing glitches, the updated engine is ready for you to use. Of course this was scheduled to be a bug-fix release over the previous version (as no program is bug-free from version 1.0) but in the process many new interesting features were added. Let’s outline some of the things that changed:

Bug fixes:
- Timed out sessions loaded the login screen within the admin pages.
- JavaScript blocks were linked falsely (with a .javascript extension instead of a .js)
- A section with static content could not be converted to a section of an external script.
- Setup process didn’t stop when you entered the wrong database information.
- In IE, blocks where loosing their coloring after some moving around in the template editing.
- Version number was erased after editing the website settings.
- Before loading a block for editing all the “\” characters where removed.

Improvements:
- Introduced loading screen to cover the delay when navigating through the admin pages.
- Moved classes folder outside the admin folder for a more logical structure.
- Removed the assets sub-folder so it doesn’t get confused with the user assets folder. All its contents are directly available in the admin folder.
- Moving the blocks around in the template layout used to have a few glitches. Now it’s more smooth and stable.
- Homepage now loads faster with the remote call for latest version converted to an Ajax call.
- The search engine friendly URLs are now parsed more properly. The parent element is considered to validate a URL. An ending slash with no filename redirects to the section with the same name as the folder.
- Feedback messages when editing the template do not fade out if they request an action from the user.
- Sections can be nested in more than two levels.

New features:
- More dynamic elements are displayed in the homepage (comments, repository).
- Now you can load custom classes for each external script you use, so you can connect to it for manipulating elements of the template like the page title.
- There is now an exception list in the settings page to insert all the URLs you specifically don’t want the template engine to process.

These and other smaller improvements have made the template engine more stable (especially for IE that had the most problems), more clean and more logically structured. Some of the new features (ex. the custom classes) need more explaining and you will find this information in the tutorial pages.

As always you can send in your comments and suggestions to make this a better engine than it is…

Creating this template engine was an idea I had some time in my mind. I had already created another template engine in 2005 for my personal website at www.makis.info (now updated).

I always intended to improve that engine as it lacked the basic user-friendly features (No SE-friendly URLs, no dynamic content and no AJAX administration) but never really found myself doing it, mostly because other work took up all my energy/time.

Fast forward to 2008 and after years of web designing the logic of a proper template engine matured in my head. To my surprise I didn’t find this logic implemented on any of the template engines I worked on till then. It finally hit me one day that this will never end. I would spend valuable hours of my life trying to work with inflexible engines unless I sit down and create what was in my head.

I wanted it primarily for my websites but thought I should release it to the open source since the goal to create a visual template engine is beyond my personal needs. At this point I have to redirect you to the About page for more info on the underlying ideas of this project.

Serious development begun on March 2008 and although the main parts where setup soon enough (within two weeks) I still managed to spend another month fine-tuning the administration interface and creating all the elements that would be appealing for the users: the official website, the setup procedure, the demo content…etc.

I’m releasing version 1.0 at this point so I can get some feedback from the users and according to that shape the direction I want to take for future releases of the engine. Above all this is a web designers tool and I feel that web designers should have the first word for improving it the way they like it.

There are a series of features and bugs already noted but left to be included on later versions (or not). In any case, one of my biggest concerns will be to optimize the back-end as well as the front-end, so you will always have a stable and user-friendly canvas to work on.

Even though it is the first release, it is a functional engine with many of the features advertised at perfect state. Your feedback and support will help it become a valuable tool for any web designer.

You can download this version of Template Blocks from the following sources:

Google Code

SourceForge.net

Cheers,
Makis