Theme Question: Abstractia

[chiming]

Hi, all! As any fans of the layout know, it has long suffered from an absence of pale themes. This is a problem I plan to remedy with six new layouts similar to this.

BUT. There's always a but!

Current Abstractia themes have a certain grouping with the semitransparent bg images that make up their transparent effect, and these pale themes would require different grouping. In other words:

.entry and .entry .footer currently share a bg image. (One variable, like $*entry_and_footer, in the code.) In the pale layouts, they would have separate bg images.

I can think of two ways to fix this:

1. Adjust Abstractia's main layout to separate the images appropriately in its CSS.
   Pros: More flexibility for other themers.
   Cons: Currently there are 50 themes, and each one would have to be altered for this or risk breaking them.


2. Make the pale themes override the main layout's CSS so that there are only separate images where needed.
   Pros: Easier to implement... right now.
   Cons: Anyone who wanted to mimic the effect would have to know more about templates, or would at least have to know enough to copy what I had done. Also, for themers who want the old look, they would have to know which images to make share which bg images to achieve it.


Thoughts?

Thanks!

Comments

[momijizukamori]

Hmm. I lean towards 1) for a base style that's this new - changing the existing layers isn't that hard - but it does have the potential to fuck with customizations people have made that use new images. I suspect there aren't a ton of those out there, though. And it's generally better to have the properties split, I think.

[ninetydegrees]

+1

[chiming]

Okay, thank you!

[chiming]

File names I'm toying with to reflect the more separated nature of the bg images:

page_background.jpg (I think the convention for this is slightly different, and of course I would follow that, but off the top of my head)

entry_background.jpg
entry_header.jpg
entry_footer.jpg
entry_userpic.jpg

comment_ variation of the above (they will match as a default)

sidebar_background.jpg
sidebar_header.jpg
sidebar_highlight.jpg (this image is the "hover" that shows which page you're on in the nav module)

calendar_background.jpg
calendar_highlight.jpg (the table-head cells in the calendar module)

form.jpg (input, textarea)

A lot of these will be duplicates in a regular layout, but I think they afford a lot of customization to the end user?

[ninetydegrees]

Yep and I think we can add a property initialization function where we say that property X is equal to X if set but defaults to Y otherwise.

[chiming]

Oh, really? That would be GREAT. Would really save a lot of hours spent otherwise tweaking the previous theme files.

[ninetydegrees]

S2 can be awesome. ;) I think the debatable question is rather whether it's worth exposing all these new props in the customization wizard or making them "advanced themer-only".

[chiming]

/o/

I've heard that the system has been overhauled; is there new documentation for editing layouts / adding theme files?

Sorry to bug you!

[ninetydegrees]

You're not bugging me! Do you mean patching them or making them?
If it's the latter then nothing has really changed. We're always improving the layers, adding new features and props and editing CSS but you can always see the current versions at http://www.dreamwidth.org/customize/advanced/layerbrowse.
If it's patching them then yes. We've moved from mercurial to git and github and the workflow has changed so yes, there is new documentation. The main articles are Moving your Dreamwidth installation to use Github and Dev Maintenance, which has been updated. If you're on Windows or need more explanations Newbie Guide for Windows Users might help. The article which is specific to styles and themes is Newbie Guide for People Patching Styles. I've updated it to make sure it pointed to the new folders but it assumes you're already know how to use git.

Feel free to ask me any question if you need help or clarification. If you prefer live help DW's IRC channels are #dreamwidth and #dreamwidth-dev.

[chiming]

Thank you; that's a pretty solid case. My uncertainty has always been, in part, that it seems like people who are trying to theme the layout might be thrown off by not knowing how to match the images to get the "default" look, but I think that they will start out in a default layout using the same images should be helpful enough...

[momijizukamori]

Yeah, I expect so!