This bit me really hard today. it makes child templates completely useless to me

This is a standing issue for the template manager obviously exaggerated when child templates are also in the mix. The root problem is that the overrides diffing, notification, etc is completely rubbish as almost everything that is coming from GSOC. The whole architecture of figuring out the updated layouts is very wrong (that's even without the child templates). The way that the system tries to figure out what is changed is by checking 2 points the extension entry point and the template html folder. I mean it doesn't need much thinking to figure out that this is extremely shortsighted, because there is an API where a developer could intervene and set another layout folder/entry. In such case you get always notifications (what happens to many templates at the moment as they have an intermediate point for their layouts either in a plugin/library/etc) although there might be absolutely nothing changed! This obviously affects the child templates as these are actually using the parent template as their entry (if it exists) layout. In sort it's the same issue many 3rd PD templates experiencing since 4.0!

To the point of your issue:

• when 4.1 was under development this was noted
• it couldn't be patched in some hacky way
• thus it was left for a broader refactor of the whole override notification system

@bembelimen can verify that the decision was to leave that for another minor release, meaning I wouldn't be involved for that issue

EDIT The previous comment addresses the overrides part; about the file manager NOT being very informative about what the parent template also contains:
It's a limitation of the code that existed (and the project had to use without major B/C breaks). On the other PR were I was rewriting essentially the template manager the child template also displayed the parent template files as faded files and thus you could create the override with a couple of clicks but also you had a way to see what's in the parent immediately. Unfortunately this had major changes in the model/view and wouldn't be accepted for 4.1. I guess someone could start working on it for v5. By the way just for the improvement of UI/UX this probably should be assigned to someone, there's plenty time to get it for v5.

This is not about improving the UI/UX for cosmetic reasons. Without it the entire child templates thing is useless.

It should be something like this. Then you could see if there was an override in place already etc

Just another example of unfinished functionality added to the core and then never finished.

It cannot be finished with the current codebase without making a total mess, the template manager is already very ugly code wise. The best path is to rewrite it from scratch in the next possible version (v5). Keep adding bad code on top of very bad code is not scaling nor it's maintainable. My 2c

in which case child templates should not have been added. it is useless as it is right now.

I said it wasnt usable and it wasnt complete when it was merged but no one listened again

it is useless as it is right now.

I'll repeat again that Child Templates were introduced in 4.0.0. What you're complaining about is the GUI, which obviously you can completely ignore and do things in the CLI or your IDE. The GUI that shipped in 4.1 was a compromise due to B/C restrictions.

its still useless

its still useless

Then don't use it, you're not forced somehow to use it.

closed