Symphony.

Hi all,

I'm brand spanking new to Symphony but am really liking how it so far. I've started fiddling with getting Foundation (a responsive grid with extra's, a bit like Bootstrap, but better), into a workspace in a way that enables me to use it as a base site for building on. This will include static and dynamic sections so that everything isn't geared around the blog metaphor, but includes it as a feature. Think your average proposition site: static content that needs to be edited on pages with a unique layout, a blog, contact forms, social feeds etc. All baked in ready to use.

I think this will be a hugely useful ensemble not just for me and my agency but for others as well, and I'd really like to share it.

I'd love to know if there's anything I need to keep in mind if I want to distribute this ensemble, how content works (i.e, I'd like default content included which lives in the database - I know how to insert this with WP, how does it work with Symphony?). Any tips at all are hugely appreciated. Also how to house it on git hub/what kind of relationship it should have with other packages etc.

Hi Nathan,

Welcome to the community!

I've used Foundation recently, and it's squarely designed to be a frontend framework/boilerplate, much in the same guise as Twitter Bootstrap, and more extensive then something like my other favourite Susy.

As Symphony's backend is bare to begin with, I would recommend that foundation be broken up into XSLT snippets and templates. This would lend itself best to working with symphony.

You could reasonably argue that by having Foundation carved up into templates (in the XSLT sense) you would actually have a much more extensive and powerful framework then foundation already provides.

In turn this would mean you could re-use this over and again on a multitude of projects, regardless of the data and content structure.

This is my initial thought, and something that I would do myself if I was to adopt it as my CSS framework of choice.

All the above would mean doing some XSLT homework, and a few runs of trial and error. Ultimately this would lead you to better understand the way XSLT works in Symphony and help you write more productive code.

I would recommend making this a GIT repo and sharing your code with us, so we can all learn from oen another.

I use Foundation a fair bit, as it is my CSS framework of choice, but I have yet to create a basic ensemble to start off each project. Count me interested in this thread :-)

@Fazal

Cheers, sounds interesting. I'll admit that I need to do a lot of reading up on XSLT, but the prospect of pulling in framework code via a snippet is interesting (if I understand you correctly - pulling in chunks of the grid code via an XSLT call?). If you're able to elaborate a little on this I'd greatly appreciate it, or point me in the direction of a good tutorial/doc (I'll have a search myself, but if there's something you'd recommend…).

I'll definitely be throwing it up on github sooner rather than later - but I'll try and get it in some kind of usable format first while I'm still playing.

@Lewis

My agency builds pretty much everything with Foundation now so this seemed like the perfect way to start with Symphony :)

if I understand you correctly - pulling in chunks of the grid code via an XSLT call?

I've given this some thought today and there's definitely a cost benefit analysis that you need to apply to each chunk. I think having some reusable page templates, navigation template, etc. would be the best place to start. The templates shouldn't get in the way, the focus should be on reusable.

Ah OK; that's the way I'm currently approaching it. Using the utilities to provide the master template (as per the default, essentially the HTML wrapper with the head info, all adapted from foundation) and bits like navigation, a slider etc.

I guess building the grid HTML into templates wouldn't necessary simplify anything (if that was what was meant by Fazal) - but worth considering if it eases the workflow.

Probably best to start simple.

Hi Nathan, have you checked out the bootstrap ensemble? This should be a good studycase to get you started.

Cheers Cremol, I did check it out but haven't had a good poke around it yet - I'll be sure to!

Hello,

I'm new Symphony but am really liking how it so far. I'm trying to get Foundation 4 into a workspace as a base site for building on top of it (instead of the default workspace).

Is there an ensemble of Foundation 4 available?

Thanks.