Administrative and Maintenance Tools - Automatic Template Compiler

Development Tool: Automatic Template Compiler
Requirements: PHP 5, vBulletin 3.5+

Summary: Allows you to edit HTML files directly instead of using the AdminCP template editor. ATC will automatically update the database if any changes are detected. This is intended for a development environment only, and will only run while in debug mode.

Why: Template development is a huge PITA because of how templates are stored in the database - they are compiled. This means you cannot simply save a file, or update the database, because vBulletin needs to compile them first, and maybe even update the style cache. This saves TONS of time copy pasting and switching between your editor, your page, and the vBulletin template editor box.

How it works: ATC maintains a checksum (md5 hash) of each template body, and when it finds that one is out of sync with your working copy, it will save that template automatically in a very efficient manner. It updates both the template about to be displayed in memory and also the real copy in the database.

It also includes a very basic import utility so you can copy your existing templates into the filesystem for easy editing.

How to use it: Follow the install instructions, and then whenever you edit a file, the changes will transfer to vBulletin itself.

This was written in PHP 5 (OO) and I have no plans to make it work with PHP 4, but I may eventually build an interface to manage the settings, but for developers, configuring it should be no problem.

[cheesegrits]

Ooops! I could have sworn you'd released the new version I've been testing / using.

-- hugh

[MrNase]

Ok, I'll wait for the next version then.

[cheesegrits]

I'll bully AJ into getting it released ASAP! I'm still in shock at just how darn useful this mod is.

Oh, and I'll donate a "the" to your sig word collection. Copy, paste and use wisely.

-- hugh

[ninjamaster]

thanks nice work

[Zachery]

Nice, Don't really have a need for it as I've never found it a pain unless I was updating multiple styles to new versions or working en mass with lots of styles. Though I'm slightly suprised no one did this sooner seeing how part of this has been in the code for awhile.

Nice work

[cheesegrits]

I think you'd be amazed at how useful the ATC is, even if you don't do much template editing. You'll save the time it took you to install the ATC the first time you do need to edit a template. Template editing becomes just like PHP editing - make your changes to a simple HTML file using your IDE / code editor, and hit your page again.

I don't do a huge amount of template editing, but the ATC has already become one of those things I don't know how I lived without.

Even if you don't do template editing, just being able to dump all of vB's templates and include them in your IDE's "Search in Files" path is invaluable when trying to work out how vB does something. Like, what does $show['some_show_thingy'] do, how does it get set and where does it get used? One search in your IDE finds all occurrences in PHP and templates.

-- hugh

Originally Posted by Boofo

I sure wish you guys weren't PHP 4 haters.

Me too.

[high]* Guest210212002 clicks install anyway
[/high]

I might actually upgrade to PHP5 just for this mod.

[Adrian Schneider]

Sorry for the huge delay in upgrades.

You can track the real progress of it at my dev. blog, and you may also be interested in the other upcoming or existing tools if you are serious about developing.

(ATC is being renamed to VDE -- vBulletin Development Environment and will soon work for the other product data aside from just templates).

SVN users will be pleased to see public SVN access.

[cheesegrits]

Originally Posted by SirAdrian

SVN users will be pleased to see public SVN access.

And if you aren't an SVN user ... you should be.

A quick crash course for anyone unfamiliar with it, SVN is a "source control system". It allows developers to share and distribute the latest code. And because AJ's stuff is on a public SVN server with 'anonymous' access, anyone can use SVN to download AJ's latest and greatest, without having to wait till he gets round to updating the ZIP on this page.

For Windows, by far and away the best SVN client is Tortoise SVN:

http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads

Download and install it. Tortoise installs itself on your normal right click folder menu. Create a new folder somewhere called 'vbdevtools'. Right click in the new folder and select "SVN Checkout". In the "URL of Repository", paste this URL:

https://vbdevtools.svn.sourceforge.n...oot/vbdevtools

Click OK. Tortoise will now connect to the SVN server and download all the folders and files for AJ's 'vbdevtools' project. In ./vde/unstable you will find the ATC. To install / upgrade to it, do exactly what you would normally do - upload the uploads and install the XML.

From now on, whenever AJ updates his code, Tortoise will change the Green Tick folder icon on your 'vbdevtools' folder to a Red Exclamation Point icon. To download the updates, just right click the folder and select "SVN Update".

-- hugh

[Antivirus]

ah nice, I didnt know you released this publicly yet - i'll refer here from now on