Support/UpgradeToTiki4/ThemeCoordination

About the theme so far...

Code

An experimental branch has been created: http://tikiwiki.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/tikiwiki/branches/experimental/sumo/

In action

In action: http://sumo.ourwiki.net

People

• Gary
• luci
• Marc
• you?

Stylesheets

There are two basic looks (that I've found so far):

• "Top pages" like the site index page and the top forum page ([1]). These have an intro statement and the logo/searchform. The darker blue background extends further down the page to underly this additional content.
• "Normal pages" like, for example, this one. Here the darker background image is positioned higher on the page since the logo/searchform aren't present.

One theme - moz4.css - is the default, and its theme option, moz4intro.css, is for introductory pages such as the site index page. This way they can share any modified templates. (This is an update from the previous arrangement - see the page history for details.) The theme option is assigned to a category "Intro_pages" using the Template Manager (set on a category basis; my first idea was to set the theme option on an object basis but it seems this isn't possible, maybe due to an oversight when the theme options feature was added.)

SUMO currently uses some YUI ([2]) methods to reset properties, etc. I'm not really familiar enough with those to implement them here, so have used the ways I know. Probably this can be adjusted if the SUMO people want to do that.

Templates

My goal was to have as little template customization as possible, of course. But I think it's not possible to avoid that altogether. Already, to produce the fixed-width aspects of the pages, I modified tiki.tpl to move the end of div#main above the bottom-bar area so that #main can be narrowed and the footer can be full width.

Regarding: "I think it'll also be necessary to modify tiki.tpl to add divs for the bracket images that display above and below the content" luci says:

Ideas:

• IMHO you don't have to modify tiki.tpl. Just try to use the layoutshadows feature in Look & Feel
  • gary replies: You're right, luci. I turned on the layoutshadows for the extra divs, and used them for the bracket images. Thanks.

I didn't get that far yet, but probably tiki-showpage.tpl will need to be modified also, along with forum tpls.

Top menu

Still details to finish up, but Superfish does a good job replicating the original top menu appearance and function.

Custom center column heading

We talked about this some time ago, and this is a perfect use case. I commit the change today (r21258), and replaced the related files at this site. So "Top pages" use this Look and Feel option. So far, there's just the HTML from the SUMO site pasted in (to produce the site index content), but the forum-top and other top pages (I haven't explored yet to find them) will need either their content pasted in, or maybe the L and F textarea should contain logic to load menupages or something, for the various pages that need the content.

Footer

The L and F bottom bar custom content feature is used for the footer content. This displays the "Switch Language" module floated right and a menupage module (calling page "moz4_footer_menus") floated left, followed by the "about" and "powered by" lines in a div.

Regarding: "Aside regarding module names - not about this project - I'm having problems with module names in trunk, maybe due to the work going on with them now. At my wamp install (SVN-upped), the module name menupage works, but at this site I get an error (as can be seen). So looks like one way or another this site should get updated." luci says:

Ideas:

• Fixed here. It has to be lowercase "menupage", not "Menupage".

The module names are pretty chaotic right now in trunk IMO and should be systematized some way, I think. I got the switch-language module to work in a module wikiplugin by using the name "switchlang", but there's no indication on the module admin page that this is the name to use (it's listed there as "Switch Language").

Columns

Only the center and right columns are used. I made "Firefox Support" a normal user module and put it at the top of the right column (its top item still needs styling).

Breadcrumbs

The SUMO site uses breadcrumbs, so I turned this feature on here. A problem is that our breacrumbs (neglected feature) only produces links, and these should be in a div, so this should be corrected in the breadcrumb.lib code, for better white space. Also a method is needed to not have the breadcrumbs appear on certain pages. If every page's body tag could be given a class or id similar to every module's div.box tag, then CSS could be used for this. ML: SUMO fixed breadcrumbs or put content in such a way to simulate content? We should take this opportunity to either fix or remove breadcrumbs :-) ML 2010-01-22: SUMO uses category path as breadcrumbs

HomePage page title

Not just about this site, but also needed for this site, I've long thought that there should be an admin option to turn off the display of the text "HomePage". Displaying that is fine on an info wiki, but looks very 1990s on most other types of web sites. There are workarounds, like using page descriptions for page titles, but there should be a direct admin solution IMO.

Similarly, refreshing the page by clicking on the page title should be an option IMO, similar to "double-click page to edit", etc.

Reimplementing SUMO interface parts

The wiki action icons, etc., are in a visually distinct box, so this will need to be done.

Please give your input, of course. :-)