In this chapter, Alexander Limi gives us a sneak peek into the future of rules-based theming for Plone. This chapter will feature a complete walk-through of theming a site using the collective.xdv
add-on.
The current approach to theming (also known as "skinning") the Plone sites (Plone 1.0 to 3.x) has been steadily evolving over a number of years, and is powerful, but somewhat complex.
As with most software, the reason for this complexity is usually a side effect of the evolution of the product—adding more functionality and more flexibility to meet the needs of power users, while still retaining the same approach to the problem space.
For Plone, the current theming approach has served us well for the last 8 years, but we realized it was time to reevaluate how theming was done, as it's such an integral part of managing a Plone site.
The main goals for a new approach were:
No requirement for the people doing the theming to know anything...