Blank-Slate Skin

Hello,



I have to say first that CS-Cart is great software with some terrific features. Though I have one major request that would probably make a lot of developers’ and designers’ jobs a lot easier. I have been working on a CS-Cart customization, using the my-changes addon to override hooks and css. But I have found that there are not always hooks available to do what I need to. Thus I have had to modify skin files directly in a few case, which I would like to avoid to simplify the upgrading process.



It would be great if there was a blank-slate skin, with very little or no css, which we could use as a starting point for custom designs. It would also be great if all or most of the files had template hooks wrapping the entire content, which would make customization even easier.



Just a suggestion. I imagine a lot of developers would find something like this useful. Please second this request if you agree!



Thanks

Andrew



PS Maybe this does exist and I am just ignorant. If so please let me know. Thanks!

If your objective is to be as upgrade independent as possible, then having essentially blank templates isn't going to help you a whole lot.



Easiest thing to do in your situation is to add your own hooks where needed with clear comments so at upgrade, the conflicts will be easy to spot. I.e.


{*Added hook abc because....*}
{hook name="product:abc"}
original cart content
{/hook} {* end of add hook abc *}


At least this way most of the code is separate and the added hooks are pretty clear.

Thanks for the pointer. What you have suggested is essentially what I have done.



While part of my objective is to be upgrade-independent, my main point is the cumbersomeness of the development process when significant design and layout changes are required. This is especially true when it comes to CSS; in my opinion, the CS-Cart themes are bloated with excess, redundant CSS, which becomes a nightmare to systematically override.



Even if the html structure of the templates were left the same (althought I think this could be streamlined and made easier to customize), it would be incredibly useful to have a skin with NO stylistic CSS, allowing designers to start with a blank slate.



I can't be alone in this opinion, can I?

I agree, that there should be a basic blank skin that doesn't tie into the default theme, I'm sure some stuff like checkout and forms may need certain styles but the base.css file doesn't separate enough from the skinned default template. Maybe create a less or sass version where we could compile only the parts of css that we want to include.