[Zope3-dev] Re: How does the rotterdam skin work?

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Tonico Strasser wrote:

> Michael Jansen schrieb:
>
>> Hi
>>
>> Is there anywhere an explanation how the rotterdam skin works. Some
>> insight's to how an when which parts are selected?
>>
>> How to use and expand it?
>>
>> I think i'm making progress in understanding how the parts click
>> together, but some additional insights would be nice.
>>
>> The tutorials i found about skins just told me to create a
>> template.pt and a dialog_macros.pt and so on. But not why. And when
>> either one is used.
>> I think i understand some parts of that now and if there is no such
>> thing like a explanation of this logics i would try to blame myself
>> by writing down my findings so far.
>>
>> Btw. I think doc/skins/README.txt is a little bit out of date. 
>
>
> I think the Rotterdam skin is doomed. I'd rather create my own skin
> than try to expand it.
>
> Tonico
>

Hi!
the problem is not in the skin itself, but in the model  used to create
"skins". Filesystem-based skins that depend on ZPT macros are doomed by
definition, unless they are designed to cover most of the site layouts
you'll find on the internet (for instance the Plone skin is quite
generic). But maintaining such a generic skin (HTML + CSS) is a lot of work.

Also there is a problem with the target audience: ZPT programmers are
not always good graphic designers and UI/ graphic designers are not
always good at ZPT / python.

/JM