[development] PHPTemplate theme & usability

[Stefan Nagtegaal]

I'm not sure I posted this to the right list, but you guys should  
forgive me when I'm on the wrong track..

As you (probably) know, I'm designing/coding a new theme. I am using  
PHPTemplate for the first time in my life to create a full theme  
(please don't ask why).

Now, on my road to get this darn theme working I noticed that the  
following code is used inside coore themes to place the primary/ 
secondary navigation:

       <?php if (isset($secondary_links)) { ?><?php print theme 
('links', $secondary_links, array('class' =>'links', 'id' =>  
'subnavlist')) ?><?php } ?>
and:
       <?php if (isset($primary_links)) { ?><?php print theme 
('links', $primary_links, array('class' =>'links', 'id' =>  
'navlist')) ?><?php } ?>

Now, my question is why do we do this?

There is a block generated for every new 'menu list' which can be  
positioned into every region a theme supports. This is imo very weird..

Even weirder is the way before you get the links to display into the  
defined place using the method above.
(Goto 'admin/build/menu/settings', set the 'Menu containing (primary| 
secondary) links'). I thought we had the blocks generated for that?

I was totally confused.. it took me 2 hours to spit through  
PHPTemplate to find a bug, another hour to fid some settings which  
would popup this idea on my mind, and 2 minutes in #drupal to get the  
solution..

I hope you guys don't mind me saying this, but as someone who has  
been using drupal for 4 years now, this does not make any sense to me  
at all..
is this only me?

Is there anyone who could think of a way on how we can improve this?  
Or am I all wrong, and is this usable "as is"?



Kind regards,




Steef