Hey ioan1k, I'm glad you have so much interest in my framework. :)
Templates / Views
Templates are exactly like views in Dingo, they are just organized in a slightly different way. Templates aren't meant to replace views, you can still use views if you want.
Themes are just a group of templates that are organized into a folder in the theme directory (not included in any public releases so far, this used to be called the 'templates' dir). Here is an example usage of views:
PHP Code:
// Load view located at views/sub_dir/wow.php
$this->load->view('sub_dir/wow');
This is an example usage of Themes/Templates:
PHP Code:
// Set current theme to 'amazing'
$this->load->theme('amazing');
// Try to load template located at themes/amazing/sub_dir/wow.php
// If template is not found try to load it from themes/default/sub_dir/wow.php
$this->load->template('sub_dir/wow');
The interchangeability of themes makes it a little easier to build theme-able content management systems, something that would be a little messy if done with views.
Database
Currently the framework does not support this, but it is in the works and will be included with the first public BETA.
Sessions
There is not currently any session support, only cookies at this point. I'm going to look further into this and I'm planning on including a user authentication class with the BETA which will probably handle that sort of thing.
Routes
When a page request is sent to dingo it checks to see if that page matches any records in the $route array. If it finds a matching route it loads it. You will not be able to skip the controller and just process a view.
I simply said I didn't want to explain the routing and I'm not obligated to do so. It's not that it's too complex for me to explain, I just don't want to. When the code is publicly available again you can take a look at it for yourself.
Error Handling
Automatic error logging is supported. You may customize the error view files (located in the errors folder) to send you an email/sms/whatever if you want to (the default action is that the errors are just displayed).
Dingo handles errors very nicely (thanks to Kalle). You can customize the way errors and exceptions are displayed by editing the error view files.
ACL
Could you explain to me by what you mean by an access control list system? I'm familiar with ACLs (and configured them many times) on routers, but I've never heard of them being used in a web application framework.
If you have any more questions don't hesitate to ask! :)