New Template system for prestashop themes

[shoulders]

Firstly i do not want to replace the smarty template engine. My idea is to use it but add an extra layer (possibly).

I am not a coder/developer but this is an idea i have picked up from joomlart. see here http://wiki.joomlart.com/wiki/JA_T3_Framework_2/Guides

Joomlart created a template engine where they can alter it to make themes without having to start the code from scratch. It consists of a template skeleton with preset classes and divs, The skeleton overides the joomla code so joomlart can make all these classes and divs match to how they like them. In prestashop the skeleton part might not be needed becaus eyou could use the default template with appropiately name divs etc..

In joomla you install the plugin which adds the skeleton, overides the joomla core to allow joomlarts nicely setout default template. You then install a theme (or make one) and install it as normal. The theme only contains files to overide this skeleton core. So there are very few files in the template, most of the changes are done with css.

The reason i would like this sort of arrangement in prestashop shop is a custom theme could just contain the files it needs to overide, rather than all of them, modified or not.

Using this system the prestashop default template would be made to act like the joomlart skeleton. This would make upgrading a lot easier because

- there will not be as many files to update, the ones that need updating would be easy to identify

- if the default template has all the DIVs with IDs most custom templates changes could be done in the CSS files.

- maybe possible to make custom layouts easy, ie add module positions

- templates would stay compatible possibly across version numbers

this is just an idea i had because for some people with the regular updates to prestashop can cause issues for end users who have purchased a template for a particular version of prestashop and do not know if it will work with the next release of PS.

cheers

shoulders