Version 1.1
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…
June 9th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
This is my task list so far - mostly copied from the previous release. Strike through text has already been dealt with and will be available for the next release:
Bugs:
- The dropdown menus appear to be over the loading rollover in IE 6.
- Loading blocks for editing have the <script> tags removed.New Features:
- Nested blocks in template layouts
- When creating a new section you can select the parent section
- An image repository interface (so the user can control the contents of “assets/images” through the cp)
- Ability to have more than one template assigned to each external script.
- Ability to make a section private (until you have finalized the content)
Improvements
- Better text editor for the content area.
- In the blocks edit page: when changing the type, the content should be changed accordingly (for example insert < ?php...?> brackets for a php block…)
- Mark which blocks are not used by any template in the blocks list.
- The file extension can be selected in the website settings (probably 3rd part) and not have all three (.html, .htm, .php) applied to every section.
July 26th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Is there a way to make Template_Blocks working without mod_rewrite?
Using a Sqlite database to make Template_Blocks a stand-alone app?
July 26th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Thanks, edouard - these are both possible improvements.
The main goal is to have Template Blocks working online and offline equally well.
If you want , you can freely experiment - implementing it on a release might take longer as we are noting the feedback from other web designers…
July 26th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
hi,
unfortunaly it’s too hard for me to experiment such improvements. Especially for the mod_rewrite whitch make this very interesting engine unsusable for me. Too bad.
So I’ll keep an eye for the next releases.
You have there a very very good idea, simple to understand and to use.