Magento

One of the particular things I don’t quite like about Magento’s template system at this time, is the default Magento layout / template. It is offered as a sample for create a new one, It is good enough for showing a nice look and feel, and it makes great use of the template engine but its quite complex for beginners and we are all beginners at this point (except for the magento team), I can not wait for the developers, or any other contributor to release more templates cleaner and simpler using different uses of the engine.

I have been working with the template system for over 3 months an I think the learning curve is quite long, for the same results I have achieved with other CMS and Stores.

Am I the only one that finds this system a mess? or is there any commercial or technological purpose for making it complex?.

:D

I agree, it’s WAY over engineered. I mean really..."learning curve”? I have yet to see an actual document on how all the elements are actually pulled and from where. Am I missing something? I saw the abstract of how the pieces come together which is, dare I say, abstract? Nothing but the ethereal left column and right column boxes sitting on each side of the content box. Ya, I guess they do sit next to each other huh? Now if we can get a road map to how, why and where those boxes and what is in them is coming from.

You are going to top off soon if some real documentation or a simpler system isn’t enacted. Isn’t that in the road map? Drag and drop design? I love the front end but working on the back end you DO need to know how to code. How many designers do you know that can code, and with this complexity. I can’t. I also have to run a business too, not just spend oodles of hours getting one thing to look the way i want it to. Am I missing something? Seriously.

I hear of MANY MANY people having issues with all aspects of the system. From upgrades to missing files, to missing parts of files, to lack of changes documentation too...am I going on? Uh, yes team Magento I am. I just recently got my version 1.1.2 payment screen in Modern to work because some other nice fellow was kind enough to go through the javascript for me while we waited on Magento to debug the other what, 400, 600 bug requests SINCE 1.1.1. Ya, he figured it out. It was missing lots-o-lines of code.

I mean I am going forward with my project but this is silly. Get it together or charge for the thing. Period. This middle of the road freebie but you’ll have to pay us to get it to work is garbage. Nice business plan but it’s not fulfilling its potential. You’ll see in the next few months if things don’t get a little more together.

Thanks for listening. Am I done?

Magento is very powerful and flexible. The trade off for that is a system that is...well...i don’t want to say over engineered, so I’ll stick with “Complex”
Basically, flexibility is proportional to complexity

In any case, Magento has one of the steepest learning curves I’ve come across, but it’s an awesome application, with a solid code base to work off of.

You can tell the Magento team are a bunch of real programmers. They clearly love coding and hate documenting

Most certainly Magento is a piece of genius work all on its own. But really...the templating system is a mess. It would be so perfectly suited for what my people are trying to do, if not for the templating system. I’ve read the term ‘smarty’ earlier in this thread...well, maybe it’s a bit slow, but at least you knew where your stuff was going and where it was coming from. (Not trying to advertise here, really)

Anyway, my biggest problems:

1. Everything is swarmed over X Files
2. I can’t really make my own templates
3. Documentation…

For the explanation of the second one:
Many functions seem to be related to certain classes, ids etc. (like JS: getElementByID). Which means, that functionality seems to get suspended, as soon as you want to use your OWN layout. (which introduces your own classes, divs etc). Or am I missing something important here? Where do they say, what ‘block’ goes to what position?

This goes hand in hand with my first problem.
Modules are fine and good, but changing the theme for them is a pain. Cause you have to browse through a million different files instead of having it in one file. And rearranging stuff isn’t exactly easy either.

The third one speaks for itself. There is no proper tutorial for making layouts, is there? And I’ve read the abstract stuff. And honestly...I’ve been programming for a while (I’m not even a mere designer), but that system...anyway, I think I made my point clear.

If not, here’s the summary:
Magento is all nice and great, but the templates at least need a proper tutorial, that explains ALL steps in detail. (For example: Explain how you made that default layout. From scratch.)

Thank you.

I really think the layouts should be managed in the admin section with some GUI.

I just hope people really manifest this problem so Varien do some changes.

By the way I just find out after 2 weeks, that if you change certain CSS Class the checkout stop working. lol

which type create magento theme with express engine.please explain it.

thanks