Templates folder

[tobeycodes]

This folder structure is way better than having a bunch of files in the root with markdown, bower, etc. What do you think?

templates/
│   404.php
│   page-home.php   
└─── partials/
    │   header.php
    │   footer.php
└─── layouts/
    │   base.php
    │   base-home.php

[tobeycodes]

For reference, I learnt about it here: https://github.com/dxw/govsite/

[tobeycodes]

The only issue I see, is that when you move functions.php it won't be able to locate_template the /lib files since WP updates TEMPLATEPATH value to theme/templates folder.

[QWp6t]

For the record, i love the restructuring ideas implemented in govsite. Kudos @dxw.

[tobeycodes]

@QWp6t I would happily implement and submit a pull request myself but I think we need to discuss what to do with functions.php. We have three options I can see

1. Replace locate_template with a function to check if the file exists and move to templates folder
2. Keep functions.php outside template folder (although I'd rather keep all PHP together)
3. Move functions.php to lib folder and rename to loader.php, and have a functions.php inside the templates folder that loads the single loader file.

[retlehs]

would love to do something like this. it's time to start [publicly] talking about next steps regarding PHP in the theme.

if we are going to be adding functionality like this, it would ideally be managed outside of the theme itself. the best solution is probably to add composer to sage. that unfortunately would bring our package manager count to 3 - npm, bower, and composer.

by adding composer to sage we could also separate the following components into their own repos/projects:

• the theme wrapper
• conditional tag check

related reading: http://tomjn.com/2014/04/01/theme-composition-vs-frameworks/

we've discussed this quite a bit internally but haven't made any decisions yet.

[retlehs]

playing with this right now...

wordpress requires functions.php, style.css, and screenshot.png to belong in the subdirectory with the primary wordpress templates (index.php, etc). it would be odd to have those files in a dir called templates/ when they're not actually templates

[tobeycodes]

Yeah I know. That is why I didn't actually do anything or submit a pull request.

[retlehs]

seems like we could modify the theme wrapper and also use a utility like #1414 to replace get_template_part to get this working without the weird theme file requirements

like i mentioned in my previous comment, this is going to require us adopting composer in the theme and separating out components.

[JasonTheAdams]

You know, over time I've found myself favoring what I call "View Functions" over partials. These are functions that I define with the intention of using throughout my templates, something like get_the_billboard. The reason I largely prefer functions over a simple include is because I can pass arguments to the function to tweak it from one section to the next.

You could, of course, rely on the fact that the included file will inherit the current scope of variables, but I find this to be confusing at best -- when viewing the partial I exclaim, "Where the heck did that variable come from?!"

I realize this doesn't exactly mean that the idea of the suggested feature is a bad one, but I felt I'd throw out there that this isn't something I personally miss as a feature, as I think there's a generally better alternative.

[christianmagill]

@JasonTheAdams, The get_component function mentioned above, #1414, is essentially a "view function" without being tied to a specific item. The first parameter to the function is a component name and the second is an array of arguments to pass to the component files scope.

@retlehs Theme composition sounds really interesting!

[christianmagill]

Any updates on this? I'm starting to play around with the idea of using a "Get" namespace, which includes functions to load a "part" or "component" with the folder paths built in. I am unsure as far as the regular templates "404.php", "page-home.php", etc. I'm guessing that would require hooking into some WordPress filters to override the deafult.

[kalenjohnson]

Just found this on core trac: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/31475

Don't know how much interest is in that ticket, but it would simplify how we have set up templates in Sage.