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Statocles-0.034
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/ Statocles::Help::Theme

NAME

Statocles::Help::Theme - A guide to making Statocles themes

VERSION

version 0.034

DESCRIPTION

A Theme is the "View" class of Statocles. Themes build Statocles::Template objects that apps can then attach to a page. Each template has a category and a name. The category usually maps to the application name, or "site" for global site templates. Themes get their templates from a Statocles::Store.

Writing a Template

The default Statocles::Theme uses Mojo::Template, the template class from Mojolicious. In the template, there are a few directives that allow you to evaluate Perl code, which is why the templates are also called ".ep" for Embedded Perl.

    # A single leading % means the rest of the line is Perl
    % if ( $self->path eq '/index.html' ) {

    # A leading %= means replace with the return value
    %= $self->path

    # Inline code can be wrapped in <% ... %>
    # <%= ... %> is replaced with the return value
    My name is <%= $self->name %>

    # Comments are %# and <%# %>
    %# This is in the template, but not the result
    <%# A comment %>

Template Variables

When an application assembles a page object, it sets values inside. The page then gives those values to the template. The common values in every template are:

    $self   - The current L<Statocles::Page|Statocles::Page> object
    $site   - The current L<Statocles::Site|Statocles::Site> object
    $app    - The current L<Statocles::App|Statocles::App> object

These objects hold all the data we need to render the page.

Helpers

Helpers are extra functions available to the template.

include

The include helper allows you to include another template or file. The include will be searched for in the theme directory.

    # Include a template, passing the same variables as the current template
    %= include "site/before_header.html.ep"

    # Include a file without template processing
    %= include "site/before_header.html"

If the included path ends with ".ep", it is treated as a template. Otherwise, it's just written directly with no processing.

Layouts

When a page object is built, it is given a template and a layout. The layout is a special template called layout.html.ep in the site category that wraps the content from the template, allowing a consistent site style in a single place.

The layout generally adds the site's scaffolding: <html>, <head>, <body>, scripts and stylesheets, header and footer.

The layout gets the exact same template variables that the current page's template gets, so you have the current page ($self), current site ($site), and current app ($app), in case you need it for the layout.

Stylesheets and Scripts

A site's theme is deployed to the "/theme" path. If a theme needs extra files, like stylesheets, scripts, and images, they can be added to the theme's directory and referenced in the HTML from "/theme".

    # Reference a stylesheet in theme/css/normalize.css
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/theme/css/normalize.css" />

Default Themes

There is a default theme included with Statocles, with more on the way. The default theme uses the Skeleton CSS boilerplate to build a simple, clean starting point for your own theme.

Bundling Themes

It is unlikely that the default themes will do things exactly as you need. So, Statocles has a command to copy one of the default themes into your site directory so that you can edit it as you need.

    # Bundle the default theme
    statocles bundle theme default

SEE ALSO

Statocles::Theme
Statocles::Template

AUTHOR

Doug Bell <preaction@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2015 by Doug Bell.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.