Re: [Openinteract-dev] OI2 + CSS + XHTML thoughts

[Salve J N. <sal...@me...>]

Teemu Arina wrote:
>> If I understand you correctly, you'd like to generate CSS files?
>> (as opposed to generating CSS dynamically per-request.)
>> 
>> I was thinking more in the direction of _not_ to generate any CSS 
>> _at_all_ - that all CSS files are static.
> 
> I need a tool for your granny to customize it for herself. Simple
> stuff. Most user interfaces have common properties that could be
> changed at once with inherited CSS files. Requesting her to write a
> custom CSS file just doesn't cut it ;)

I'm all for a seperate package that can supply this feature, and if 
you'd like to make it, then you should be able to. :)


>> Hmm... I was thinking more in the direction of having a standard
>> set of CSS files for all pages, and then let each application add
>> stylesheets on it's own, either by using an "append_style"-like
>> method, or perhaps by tweaking a configuration file (e.g. the app's
>> action.ini file). No tables should be needed at all.
> 
> .ini files are fine, also. You are right. We still need a system wide
> CSS file, though. server.ini?

System-wide config belongs in server.ini, yes. :)

e.g.

==========================8<----------< somewhere in server.ini
[stylesheets]
main_style_sheet = /main.css
main_style_media = screen

@,alternate_style_sheet = /print.css,/mobile.css
@,alternate_style_media = print,handheld
------------------------------------------------->8=============


>> I actually like the minimalist style OI2 currently has, even if
>> it's not among the prettiest. If we try to keep the layout as
>> simple as it is now (just the content/forms, and the concept of
>> "boxes") I'm sure we can tidy up the look and reduce the number of
>> templates without adding too much new functionality. :)
> 
> Yep. We have gone crazy with our UI in Dicole. I also propose that
> <table>:s are not used to align stuff on the screen in OI basic
> theme. Columns can be achieved through other means.

Tables are nice for tabular data, though. :)

At work we've experimented with structuring forms using only <dl|dt|dd>, 
<span> and <div>. It looks promising, and we'll try to show what we're 
up to when things are getting ready. :)


>> I kind of like the idea of widgets. It lets us do the basic stuff
>> easily while keeping the resulting HTML consistent, and if I need
>> to do things my own way, I still can.
>> 
>> What kind of alternatives would you suggest?
> 
> 
> A very specific widget system allows you to write a UI library that
> operates similarly to something like Perl/TK. You can have containers
> and all kinds of stuff in them. The UI logic is then written in perl
> but separated from the business logic. The view, how the widgets are
> displayed based on the generated data structure is also separated for
> the interface designer. The drawback is that the designer loses some
> of the control on how various pages look but well, the result is more
> consistent and easier to maintain so.
> 
> So with a web based widget UI toolkit, you basically define various
> parts your application may have. The most useful part for the UI
> widget toolkit is obviously the application part itself (excluding
> page navigation, footers, login boxes etc). Dynamically generating
> each page in a very detailed widget system is very slow in TT because
> of hundreds of includes, so this could be optimized by pre-generating
> applications. Detailed widget systems are to some degree predictable,
> so: on server startup (or when a single application action is
> accessed the first time), the UI templates for various application
> actions/tasks get generated once. The resulting output for each page
> is a new cached template toolkit template that is able to take in
> business logic from the application. Server startup will be slow but
> this way we have only one template include for each application task,
> problem solved.
> 
> That's the way I thought I would like to optimize our system but it
> sure requires a lot of thinking to implement correctly. We will lose
> some freedom and control in our templates but I think the consistency
> is worth the effort.. and it would be the coolest UI toolkit for the 
> web ;) When writing a new application for OI, in most cases you don't
> have to write a single template. Saves a lot of development time.

I think I'll have to digest this a little...


- Salve

-- 
Salve J. Nilsen <salvejn at met dot no> / Systems Developer
Norwegian Meteorological Institute           http://met.no/
Information Technology Department / Section for Development