New base in Magento 1.4
Friday, 26 February 2010Ever bother to read the release notes? When upgrading to Magento 1.4 there are numerous new features, but also a new directory-structure when it comes to theming. When building new themes based on the parent/child concept, this is important to know.
With Magento 1.3 and prior, a child theme or subtheme would use it only files, but if the theming engine asked for a file that did not exist in the subtheme, the equivalent file from the Magento Default Theme was taken. The Magento Default Theme referred to path-names with "default" in them.
Now the Magento 1.4 release notes mention a new "theme fallback to base". This minor note has big consequences: The "default" theme is now gone (or actually not default anymore), but instead the parent-theme is called "base".
For Magento modules that install themselves through PEAR packages (as is used with the MagentoConnect application) this poses no problem, but for Magento modules that are installed through a ZIP-file the procedure should be changed: Instead of copying files to "default" they should be copied "base" instead. Nonetheless, it still works if the files are placed in "default". Hmm, it confuses me.