For THEME Designers: Helping Patchers Out

[ninetydegrees]

Here are a few things you can do to help developers patching themes. If you have the time and energy to do any of them, please consider it. Otherwise, don't worry, 'k?

-- Alphabetizing themes when your submit them seems like a tiny detail but actually makes editing our giant spreadsheet (currently at over 1,000 lines) ten times easier.

-- Keeping code lines alphabetized and removing any empty ones such as set blahblahblah = ""; makes patching much easier and faster.

-- Making sure you have set color_page_text as black may not be the default for everybody.

-- Keeping the # symbol before any color code. This one is pretty unexpected and very easy to miss so pretty please?

-- Using #000 for black and #fff for white instead of the full hexadecimal code. This works for #333, #666, etc.

-- Setting apart code lines which aren't color settings or things which won't end up in the theme such as module settings is very helpful too.

-- Sorting colors into categories -- page, header & footer / entry and comment / module -- would be most helpful, even if it's just by adding blank lines between section.
Besides testing, reformatting themes to sort settings into categories and adding proper headers is what takes patchers most time.
Here's a good example of what a color-only theme look like and here's another one with one with fonts, images and custom CSS.

Also, we've had about 200 new submissions since August. What have you been eating?! *is stunned*

Comments

[ex_rising236]

Coffee. Lots and lots of coffee, and things with caffeine in them, and things with sugar, and I'm sure you get the picture as to what I have been eating.

(Also, aaa you used my theme as an example? I know I do a lot of custom CSS stuff like that and all, but still! Aaaaaa.)

Also, I try and remove the blank lines, and I'll try and remember to stick all the custom CSS at the bottom instead of at the top of layers, which is what I tend to do while I'm editing it because I want to see what I've got going and all that. :D So I will try and remember better, and such.

[gone_fishing]

Going to second the "coffee". >.>

I'll try to remember re: blank lines but sometimes I forget. I'll at least try to alphabetise my next batch. /o\

[rise]

If you haven't set a color, removing empty lines like set blahblahblah = ""; would make patching easier and faster.

Is there a specific preference for themes that set a color to be empty or blank where normally there would be a color?

For example, the Gradients themes I submitted for Crisped depend somewhat on blanking out/removing the background color for the entry titles, entry headers, and module headers so that the gradients will be visible. The way we did that was setting set blahblahblah = "none"; instead of set blahblahblah = "#NNNNNN";—though I realized after submitting that set blahblahblah = "transparent"; might work just as well, and might also be easier on the end user. We didn't really want to completely code background colors out of the CSS, in case the user wanted to have backgrounds in some places and gradients in others, instead of gradients everywhere.

Is it also acceptable to edit for corrections when a theme is submitted but still under review? It occurred to us that some of the s2 color value choices that we originally made in the Gradients themes should be changed around for usability and easier user customization. (We realized that repurposing the currently "blanked" s2 border color for the drop shadow color makes more sense than matching the drop shadows to the s2 entry title color. It's not exactly a giant thing to fix, but we feel a little dumb now.)

[ninetydegrees]

Is there a specific preference for themes that set a color to be empty or blank where normally there would be a color?

Styles don't have default colors -- they're all set by themes -- so you shouldn't have to do this. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean here?

It's perfectly ok to edit your code. :)

[timeasmymeasure]

I've noticed that not a lot of submissions have been claimed for patching in the last few weeks and I was wondering if y'all (general DW patchers/developers/those who understand bugzilla's processes ;p) would prefer we ease up on submitting to dreamscapes for a while. Of course if that's not the case, I certainly plan to keep on submitting, I do this for the love of it, after all; I'm just checking to be sure :)

[ninetydegrees]

As far as I'm concerned, go ahead but be aware that it may be quite a while before they get patched unless other people start working on this.

[timeasmymeasure]

Ah, I get it. Do you know if there are any of those patching tutorials going around?

[ninetydegrees]

There are but could you tell me which OS are you on so that I point you in the right direction?

[timeasmymeasure]

Windows 7, and thanks for this :)

[ninetydegrees]

Same as me then. Have you ever done any dev work before? Because there are two tutorials, one for the style patching itself and one for setting everything up on a Windows OS.

[timeasmymeasure]

Not yet :)

[ninetydegrees]

Ok so this is the guide I wrote for Windows newbies: Newbie Guide for Windows People Working on Minor Bugs.

I don't know what time it is in your part of the world and when you plan on doing this but I'm available on GoogleTalk if you need me or just want me to be there if you have questions (or you can comment here or PM me if you prefer) and I know there are always people on the #dreamwidth IRC channel willing to help.

[timeasmymeasure]

Thank you for all your help :)

[timeasmymeasure]

Hey, could you please direct me to the styles patching tutorial; in dire need over here, :P

Thanks for all the help so far!

[ninetydegrees]

Here you go: http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/notes/Newbie_Guide_for_People_Patching_Styles

[bindingthreads]

I totally missed this when I did the submission! D:

I'll try and do this for next time. Could perhaps this bet stickied at the top of the community? It would be helpful for general reference. :D

[ninetydegrees]

Oh I was just speaking as a dev and volunteer; I'm not an admin of this community but I think at least one of them is subscribed to the comments so I guess they'll see it.