/
  What are these files about?  /
------------------------------/

They are the framework that gets filled by the actual data - being your blog.
These very files are based on the template I use myself. It's quite barebones.
You almost certainly want to alter them. They do work, though.

  #
  #     The Files, and what they are there for...
 ###   -------------------------------------------------------
  #

header.part
footer.part

  These create the global frame, all pages have in common.

posting-start.part
contentstart.part
posting-end.part

  Commonly, there are parts that surround individual postings.
  These files are there for that purpose.

menu-generic.part
menu-post.part

  You got the possibility of defining two menus:
  one for single posting pages, the other for all other cases.

arch-start.part
arch-line.part
arch-end.part

  These are used to create the archive pages.

atom_header.part
atom_prepost.part
atom_postpost.part
atom_footer.part

  The Atom1 Feed needs a template. These files do that job.

style.css

  CSS used for this template.
  this might drop out of the actual template in the near future.
________________________________________________________________________________

Don't see this setup as being set in stone.
I think this is far too inflexible.

One should be given the oportunity to define themselves, what files they want
to use and when. I see this to be done by definition arrays and a bunch of
hooks. The zblog core codebase is too big and clumsy already. This needs to
be tackled as soon as possible.

The only thing, I see as a pretty fixed fact is:
  + Index
  + Archive
  + Single Posting pages
  + a Menu
  + Atom Feed

I'm still looking for a reasonable Idea to make the archives searchable.
Currently I think a very flat html-file that would be machine readable would
be the right thing[tm] to do.