[Rainbowportal-devel] Regarding the Theme/Layout Discussion

[John M <how...@ho...>]

Hi all,

Unfortunately I deleted those mails because of space limitations on my 
hotmail account.

I did however read them and thought I would throw my idea into the mix.

Regarding the message I sent out about how we could proceed in the future 
(building blocks, not re-inventing the wheel etc) I have received very 
positive feedback from a few of the core developers and I was wondering if 
that is the general opinion.

If it is a good idea then this message is to try and push us towards that 
goal (more or less).

We are talking about creating a new theme/layout system. Some very good 
ideas have been suggested and some samples have been done. 
But............how about this for an idea.

With limited resources the theme ideas could take a long while to 
develop....why not:

Avoid re-inventing the wheel............a lot of work has gone into 
producing up to 4 theme systems for DNN (Shaun is currently evaluating them 
and has created a matrix....Cory could you ask if the core developers here 
could get a copy so we can compare the feature set with what we have 
discussed). They are close to selecting one. Once they have....why not make 
it into it's own engine (if it isnt already)....If we need to convert it to 
c# in order for it to work then that at least should be easier than building 
one from scratch.

Benefits:

1) A bigger user base is testing it (Rainbow and DNN) so bugs will be 
identified quicker allowing both portals to have a more robust/stable 
theming system.
2) Takes us one step closer to have rainbow made up of building blocks.
3) Would take less time to implement.
4) The DNN community has a lot more designers in there. It would be great if 
you could drop a DNN theme in and have it work out of the box (or with 
little to hardly any tweaking). This could also apply the other way round (a 
rainbow theme being used by a DNN portal). It could also encourage people to 
develop themes for resale as the market would be bigger.
5) If I go to a client with a custom theme they like but after a while they 
decide that they like the theme but would prefer the DNN framework because 
they have a VB.Net developer in their IT Department, then my theme is easily 
transferable which saves me time and money (The same example could be used 
for Rainbow......A Client could decide they like the theme but want rainbow 
as they have a C# developer).
6) Their would be a bigger knowledge base out there. If people write 
articles about how themes work and how to build custom themes etc then 
someone could apply that knowledge (more or less) to either framework....the 
same goes for FAQS, forum posts etc.
7) It would free up our resources to focus on other areas of the framework 
(although people would still obviously work on the UI Framework and post 
suggestions/code etc).

If we can agree to a standard between portals it would benefit everyone.

What do you think? Cory could you approach Shaun for a copy of the matrix he 
created so we have an idea of it's functionality and whether or not it is a 
good idea.

"Skinning
Ever since I mentioned the skinning solution from David Haggard, I have been 
overwhelmed with requests of people wanting to try it out. The problem is 
that the official decision on the skinning solution for DotNetNuke has not 
been made public and David's solution is only one contender ( out of a 
possible 4 options ).

We have however come closer to a decision. We have defined a list of 
requirements and a spreadsheet of whether or not each solution implements 
these requirements. I have sent it out to the team and hope to get some 
feedback in the next few days.
"

From Shaun's blog.

Regards,

John

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself with cool emoticons - download MSN Messenger today! 
http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger