phpwebsite-developers — For our development team.

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] formating amd themes

[yawstick <yaw...@ch...>]

> The .tpl files in that directory are simple html templates with tags
> that indicate where the TITLE should be and other info. By editing the
> copy, you then customize the layout for your uses without the originals
> getting changed.

Thanks a bunch I had selected the wrong template in pagemaster for the page
with out knowing what its was doing

>
>
> Not currently without a fair chunk of php added to themes theme.php and
> an understanding of how the module works.
>

I was looking at the w3c theme.php. would a variation of that work where the
.css file was selected conditionally depending on which user created it
instead of  via a link on the page? Could it all be done in the theme.php
file?


Thanks Again

Paul

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] PhpDocumentor and Code Comments

[M. F. <md...@gm...>]

> On Tue, 2005-01-18 at 07:00 -0800, Wendall Cada wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > Ok, I have a proposal to make for the project. I would like to see this
> > fully implemented in 1.0 and think it could easily fit with 0.9.x with a
> > minor amount of tweaking.

I would love to see this happen as well. Any documentation that could
possibly lessen the slope of the learning curve of getting into
phpWebSite is a good thing. Reading Matt's tutorials for fallout is
helpful, but not everyone learns the same way.

If at all possible, would love to see the full adoption of using
PhpDocumentor and possibly even include that into the coding standards
(if the default PEAR standards don't already adhere to the format ).

-Michael

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] formating amd themes

[Shaun M. <sh...@ae...>]

On 19 Jan 2005, at 13:38, yawstick wrote:
>
>  I think I'm using version 0.9.3-4, at least that whats showing when I 
> go to
> the boost page. Where would I change the format of the of the pages 
> that are
> shown in the center on the homepage. These are just pages that I' have 
> added
> that have pictures and text.
>

It depends on which module you used to edit that text. Probably it's 
'announce' or 'pagemaster' which appears as 'Web Pages' in the control 
panel.

You need to copy /mod/announce/templates/* to 
/themes/<yourtheme>/templates/announce/* or /mod/pagemaster/templates/ 
etc.

The .tpl files in that directory are simple html templates with tags 
that indicate where the TITLE should be and other info. By editing the 
copy, you then customize the layout for your uses without the originals 
getting changed.

>
>
> Also some themes change the title and text alignment, cowboy in 
> particular
> has the title centered rather than to the left, where is this being 
> done.

That is done in the stylesheet for the theme /themes/cowboy/style.css

>
> Lastly is it possible to have a different theme for pages users have
> created. ie when you go to pages they have created the theme would be 
> one
> that they have selected or that the admin selects for that users 
> pages. If
> so where would that be done.
>

Not currently without a fair chunk of php added to themes theme.php and 
an understanding of how the module works.


Shaun
aegis design - http://www.aegisdesign.co.uk

[Phpwebsite-developers] formating amd themes

[yawstick <yaw...@ch...>]

I'm not a programmer or a power  user but have phpwebsite running on a
freebsd box and trying to customize some features of phpwebsite. If  this is
the wrong place for this type questions let me know where to go.

 I think I'm using version 0.9.3-4, at least that whats showing when I go to
the boost page. Where would I change the format of the of the pages that are
shown in the center on the homepage. These are just pages that I' have added
that have pictures and text.

The default puts text beside the pictures and I would prefer that the title
and text appear below the picture.

Also some themes change the title and text alignment, cowboy in particular
has the title centered rather than to the left, where is this being done.

Lastly is it possible to have a different theme for pages users have
created. ie when you go to pages they have created the theme would be one
that they have selected or that the admin selects for that users pages. If
so where would that be done.

Thanks

Paul

[Phpwebsite-developers] AutoDia output

[Wendall C. <wen...@to...>]

As I mentioned in the PhpDocumentor thread I just started, I was working
on UML output for classes as well...here's a sample:

http://phpwebsite-comm.sourceforge.net/coredoc/PHPWS_Item.png

I'll submit a UML diagram of some database output as well later.

Wendall

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] PhpDocumentor and Code Comments

[Wendall C. <wen...@to...>]

Some sample output for core/ can be found here:
http://phpwebsite-comm.sourceforge.net/coredoc/li_Core.html

On Tue, 2005-01-18 at 07:00 -0800, Wendall Cada wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> Ok, I have a proposal to make for the project. I would like to see this
> fully implemented in 1.0 and think it could easily fit with 0.9.x with a
> minor amount of tweaking.
> 
> PEAR has a package some of you may have noticed called PhpDocumentor. I
> have noticed this package many times, since it is used quite frequently
> by other php projects.
> 
> Description:
> The phpDocumentor tool is a standalone auto-documentor similar to
> JavaDoc
> written in PHP. It differs from PHPDoc in that it is MUCH faster, parses
> a much
> wider range of php files, and comes with many customizations including
> 11 HTML
> templates, windows help file CHM output, PDF output, and XML DocBook
> peardoc2
> output for use with documenting PEAR. In addition, it can do PHPXref
> source
> code highlighting and linking.
> 
> You can find the package information here:
> http://pear.php.net/package/PhpDocumentor
> 
> The output is pretty awesome if you see it in action. This is an
> excellent way of documenting any classes. I think phpWebSite is optimal
> for this type of documentor.
> 
> The manual is here:
> http://manual.phpdoc.org/HTMLSmartyConverter/PHP/phpDocumentor/tutorial_phpDocumentor.howto.pkg.html
> 
> Here is an example:
> phpDocumentor tags are very similar to tags for the JavaDoc tool for
> Sun's Java Programming Language. Tags are only parsed if they are the
> first thing on a new line of a DocBlock. You may use the @ character
> freely throughout documents as long as it does not begin a new line. An
> example:
> 
> 1     /**
> 2      * tags demonstration
> 3      * @author this tag is parsed, but this @version tag is ignored
> 4      * @version 1.0 this version tag is parsed
> 5      */
> 
> There are quite a few @ flags for use within comments to assist with
> documentation. I feel that the current documents would work well with
> PhpDocumentor. This example is nothing new to most of you, since
> comments like these are scattered throughout phpws code. However, a
> standard has never really been established. 
> 
> Here is an example of it in use:
> http://manual.phpdoc.org/HTMLSmartyConverter/PHP/elementindex_HTML_TreeMenu.html
> 
> All the test pages there are generated using PhpDocumentor.
> 
> In short, I am proposing that we adopt the PhpDocumentor style and use
> it throughout phpWebSite as the official comment style, so we can use
> auto-documentation tools.
> 
> This has several benefits, since we can generate documentation straight
> from code. I always find the energy and time to add a comment for a
> function when I add it, but rarely do I have the energy to writeup
> documentation after the fact. This will solve alot of this issue by
> making all the very nice samples and comments available in a readable
> format for developers to use. It would also be an excellent tool for
> attracting new module developers. This may be a quick and dirty way for
> us to make up for the poor documentation sins of the past. A few tweaks
> here and there to some comments and run PhpDocumentor against phpWebSite
> and we have something to start with.
> 
> I worked a little bit last night on creating UML diagrams of existing
> code with AutoDia http://droogs.org/autodia/using.html It works quite
> well and can be paired with the output of PhpDocumentor.
> 
> I will give some time to generating some reports on what needs to be
> added/modified on the existing code base. I'm sure most things will work
> in their current state, but some of the @ may need modified or added for
> more accurate output. We can create a cheat sheet for the @ comment
> flags available for use with PhpDocumentor. However, the tutorial is
> pretty straight forward about what can be used and how.
> 
> Wendall
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> The SF.Net email is sponsored by: Beat the post-holiday blues
> Get a FREE limited edition SourceForge.net t-shirt from ThinkGeek.
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> _______________________________________________
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> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/phpwebsite-developers

[Phpwebsite-developers] PhpDocumentor and Code Comments

[Wendall C. <wen...@to...>]

Hello all,

Ok, I have a proposal to make for the project. I would like to see this
fully implemented in 1.0 and think it could easily fit with 0.9.x with a
minor amount of tweaking.

PEAR has a package some of you may have noticed called PhpDocumentor. I
have noticed this package many times, since it is used quite frequently
by other php projects.

Description:
The phpDocumentor tool is a standalone auto-documentor similar to
JavaDoc
written in PHP. It differs from PHPDoc in that it is MUCH faster, parses
a much
wider range of php files, and comes with many customizations including
11 HTML
templates, windows help file CHM output, PDF output, and XML DocBook
peardoc2
output for use with documenting PEAR. In addition, it can do PHPXref
source
code highlighting and linking.

You can find the package information here:
http://pear.php.net/package/PhpDocumentor

The output is pretty awesome if you see it in action. This is an
excellent way of documenting any classes. I think phpWebSite is optimal
for this type of documentor.

The manual is here:
http://manual.phpdoc.org/HTMLSmartyConverter/PHP/phpDocumentor/tutorial_phpDocumentor.howto.pkg.html

Here is an example:
phpDocumentor tags are very similar to tags for the JavaDoc tool for
Sun's Java Programming Language. Tags are only parsed if they are the
first thing on a new line of a DocBlock. You may use the @ character
freely throughout documents as long as it does not begin a new line. An
example:

1     /**
2      * tags demonstration
3      * @author this tag is parsed, but this @version tag is ignored
4      * @version 1.0 this version tag is parsed
5      */

There are quite a few @ flags for use within comments to assist with
documentation. I feel that the current documents would work well with
PhpDocumentor. This example is nothing new to most of you, since
comments like these are scattered throughout phpws code. However, a
standard has never really been established. 

Here is an example of it in use:
http://manual.phpdoc.org/HTMLSmartyConverter/PHP/elementindex_HTML_TreeMenu.html

All the test pages there are generated using PhpDocumentor.

In short, I am proposing that we adopt the PhpDocumentor style and use
it throughout phpWebSite as the official comment style, so we can use
auto-documentation tools.

This has several benefits, since we can generate documentation straight
from code. I always find the energy and time to add a comment for a
function when I add it, but rarely do I have the energy to writeup
documentation after the fact. This will solve alot of this issue by
making all the very nice samples and comments available in a readable
format for developers to use. It would also be an excellent tool for
attracting new module developers. This may be a quick and dirty way for
us to make up for the poor documentation sins of the past. A few tweaks
here and there to some comments and run PhpDocumentor against phpWebSite
and we have something to start with.

I worked a little bit last night on creating UML diagrams of existing
code with AutoDia http://droogs.org/autodia/using.html It works quite
well and can be paired with the output of PhpDocumentor.

I will give some time to generating some reports on what needs to be
added/modified on the existing code base. I'm sure most things will work
in their current state, but some of the @ may need modified or added for
more accurate output. We can create a cheat sheet for the @ comment
flags available for use with PhpDocumentor. However, the tutorial is
pretty straight forward about what can be used and how.

Wendall

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] phpWebSite Community wiki

[Greg M. <drk...@co...>]

Wendall Cada wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> You can find the wiki on http://phpwebsite-comm.sourceforge.net/wiki

> the wiki convention of FirstnameLastname. Ask someone already on the

Gentlemen, Would one of you please add me to the wiki editing group.  I 
have registered as GregMorgan.

A year ago I started on revising the documentation.  Life happened.  I 
am back trying to answer questions in the forums.. LOL should I say the 
official forums.  Now having been off for a year I see that most of the 
questions are the same.  Actually I can go to my monitory email folder 
and pull out the answers from a year ago and they still work.  I believe 
I have enough junk to create an enhanced install list, etc.  I'd like to 
take all the existing txt files in the docs directory and kludge them 
together into a nice document--I am so lazy to start with other people's 
work ;) but it's the open source way.  The wiki looks like the perfect 
place to do this because other people can pipe up and biff me in the 
head if I get it wrong.  More importantly, it solves some of the 
fragmentation issues the community has over documentation and other 
issues.  We're all gungho to do something but it is difficult to follow 
through.  It seems hard to build on other people's work.

With that in mind how would you like to start this off in the wiki?  My 
thoughts are to take the existing doc at 
http://phpwebsite.appstate.edu/manual/html/; add an install section; 
toss in the developer's txt files; revise or should I say wiki wiki and 
all the user's problems will go away---if they read it.

What kind of junk to I have to bring to the table?  So I answer 
questions like this one 
https://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2927443
I pull this out of my umm archive ( and you thought I was going to say 
something else ;-) ) 
https://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2928134
I add this
https://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2929150
Seems like a common problem.  So this can be added to a section of the 
INSTALL.txt to build on it.

Then you have this question 
https://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2927129
I am answering it here 
https://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2929633 with the idea 
of revising it for the manual.

What have I done before life happened a year ago 
http://kissalice.sourceforge.net/phpmanual/output/c2120.html.  As I 
recall the CVS section was fairly polished.  I started on a theme 
section http://kissalice.sourceforge.net/phpmanual/output/c2466.html. 
That idea sucked because not everyone is a chess player.  However, I 
have been thinking another way to attach the problem.  Mike wants to 
kick me in the butt because he has leaf up on phpwebsite and I still 
don't have the module written.  However, I was going to show the design 
process here 
http://kissalice.sourceforge.net/phpmanual/output/c2260.html.  I also 
wanted to take what was in the phpwebsite CVS for 1.0 and revisit as 
another way to create modules.  I think Stardog was working on something.

So if you give me access, I will write.  I will perhaps answer user 
forum questions first in the wiki and then point them to it there. 
Hence others can refine it.

Thanks,
Greg

[Phpwebsite-developers] Re: [-comm-devel] phpWebSite Community wiki

[Kenneth P. <ken...@gm...>]

Very nice work guys, thanks!

I have just posted an announcement and adjusted the link on
http://phpwebsite.appstate.edu

Kenneth


On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 13:21:52 -0800, Wendall Cada
<wen...@to...> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> After a full day of fighting with a bug in MoinMoin that made it nearly
> impossible to setup permissions for the wiki, setup is complete.
> 
> You can find the wiki on http://phpwebsite-comm.sourceforge.net/wiki
> 
> For those of you who have not been a part of our ongoing discussions,
> this wiki is mainly for developers, testers, managers and other involved
> community members to discuss and refine the direction of phpWebSite.
> Really it can be used for any purpose, so long as it has relevance to
> phpWebSite or related project.
> 
> To use the wiki, simply sign up for an account. Easy to do, try to use
> the wiki convention of FirstnameLastname. Ask someone already on the
> UserGroup page to add you to this page so you will have editing rights.
> http://phpwebsite-comm.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/UserGroup
> 
> Feel free to email the list, myself at wendall911 [at] users.sf.net or
> Mike Noyes at mhnoyes [at] users.sf.net if you need assistance, or drop
> by our IRC channel on irc.freenode.net #phpwebsite and we can help you
> out.
> 
> Maybe Kenneth can make an announcement for this at
> phpwebsite.appstate.edu and news could be posted on the relevant sf.net
> project pages. I don't know if this is necessary however, I'll leave
> that up to someone else.
> 
> Wendall
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> The SF.Net email is sponsored by: Beat the post-holiday blues
> Get a FREE limited edition SourceForge.net t-shirt from ThinkGeek.
> It's fun and FREE -- well, almost....http://www.thinkgeek.com/sfshirt
> _______________________________________________
> phpwebsite-comm-devel mailing list
> php...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/phpwebsite-comm-devel
> 
> 


-- 
  Kenneth

[Phpwebsite-developers] Re: Filtering what the Manager actually lists

[<re...@ki...>]

> From: Steven Levin
> Subject: Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] Filtering what the 
> Manager actually	lists
> To: php...@li...
> Reply-To: php...@li...
> 
> On Sun, 2005-01-02 at 00:13 +0100, Ren=C3=A9 C. Kiesler wrot
> > So. Can you give me some advice on what to do?
> 
> My suggestion would be to take a look at the List class found in the
> phpwebsite core.   This is a trimmed down / more flexible version of
> Manager.  It allows you to setWhere() and setSort().


Thank you! This seems to be what I am looking for. I'll have a deeper look
into it soon.

[Phpwebsite-developers] phpWebSite Community wiki

[Wendall C. <wen...@to...>]

Hello everyone,

After a full day of fighting with a bug in MoinMoin that made it nearly
impossible to setup permissions for the wiki, setup is complete.

You can find the wiki on http://phpwebsite-comm.sourceforge.net/wiki

For those of you who have not been a part of our ongoing discussions,
this wiki is mainly for developers, testers, managers and other involved
community members to discuss and refine the direction of phpWebSite.
Really it can be used for any purpose, so long as it has relevance to
phpWebSite or related project.

To use the wiki, simply sign up for an account. Easy to do, try to use
the wiki convention of FirstnameLastname. Ask someone already on the
UserGroup page to add you to this page so you will have editing rights.
http://phpwebsite-comm.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/UserGroup

Feel free to email the list, myself at wendall911 [at] users.sf.net or
Mike Noyes at mhnoyes [at] users.sf.net if you need assistance, or drop
by our IRC channel on irc.freenode.net #phpwebsite and we can help you
out.

Maybe Kenneth can make an announcement for this at
phpwebsite.appstate.edu and news could be posted on the relevant sf.net
project pages. I don't know if this is necessary however, I'll leave
that up to someone else.

Wendall

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] Defining and implementing design standards in phpWebSite

[Mike N. <mh...@us...>]

On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 16:23, Mike Noyes wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 15:44, Shaun Murray wrote:
> > Perhaps someone should write some documentation and define the base 
> > classes as I don't see the similarity between Xaraya and our 4 tier 
> > approach at all.
> 
> I'm working on an update to my debug theme, and Wendall is working on
> installation of a wiki at phpwebsite-comm.

Shaun,
The wiki is operational. Everyone, thank Wendall.

http://phpwebsite-comm.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/FrontPage

My debug theme is now self contained.

http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/phpwebsite-comm/themes/debug/

        Note: I haven't updated README yet.

-- 
Mike Noyes <mhnoyes at users.sourceforge.net>
http://sourceforge.net/users/mhnoyes/
SF.net Projects: ffl, leaf, phpwebsite, phpwebsite-comm, sitedocs

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] Filtering what the Manager actually lists

[Steven L. <st...@tu...>]

On Sun, 2005-01-02 at 00:13 +0100, Ren=C3=A9 C. Kiesler wrot
> So. Can you give me some advice on what to do?

My suggestion would be to take a look at the List class found in the
phpwebsite core.   This is a trimmed down / more flexible version of
Manager.  It allows you to setWhere() and setSort().  It also splits
what is pulled from the database from what actually displays in the
table.  By defining getListvarname functions you can filter data before
it is shown.  I believe this is exactly what you are looking for.  Take
a look at the current version of announce module for an example.

--=20
Steven Levin

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] Defining and implementing design standards in phpWebSite

[Mike N. <mh...@us...>]

On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 15:44, Shaun Murray wrote:
> Perhaps someone should write some documentation and define the base 
> classes as I don't see the similarity between Xaraya and our 4 tier 
> approach at all.

Shaun,
I'm working on an update to my debug theme, and Wendall is working on
installation of a wiki at phpwebsite-comm.

-- 
Mike Noyes <mhnoyes at users.sourceforge.net>
http://sourceforge.net/users/mhnoyes/
SF.net Projects: ffl, leaf, phpwebsite, phpwebsite-comm, sitedocs

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] Defining and implementing design standards in phpWebSite

[Shaun M. <sh...@ae...>]

Perhaps someone should write some documentation and define the base 
classes as I don't see the similarity between Xaraya and our 4 tier 
approach at all.

Shaun
aegis design - http://www.aegisdesign.co.uk

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] Defining and implementing design standards in phpWebSite

[Mike N. <mh...@us...>]

On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 09:58, Shaun Murray wrote:
> On 5 Jan 2005, at 16:51, Mike Noyes wrote:
> > On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 04:34, Shaun Murray wrote:
> >> It would also have to have a template module css import as well. So 4
> >> style sheets. I do hope theme developers never have to modify anything
> >> other than the /themes/zen/style.css in this example and that the
> >> module css is largely free of fonts, colours, alignment and spacing
> >> unless it does something out of the ordinary for a good reason.
> >
> > Any class can be modified or overridden by the theme developer in
> > /themes/zen/style.css. The css cascade loads that last and it therefore
> > gets preferred status in the cascade.
> 
> That's merely a bandaid over a self inflicted wound IMHO.

Shaun,
No it isn't. From my point of view, you are confusing the current
situation with what is being proposed for fallout.

> Perhaps I should clarify that with an example before donning my nomex 
> pants.
> 
> phpwsRSSFeeds includes it's own module css to alter the look and feel 
> of the menu from that of the system default (yes, I know we don't have 
> one defined but go with me for now). As you say above, I could override 
> that in /themes/zen/style.css or even in 
> /themes/zen/templates/phpwsrssfeeds/module.css which would probably be 
> a better place. Great. Fantastic. Powerful even.

Current phpwsrssfeeds css isn't relevant.

> However, that's merely masking the problem, that the module developer 
> has chosen to override the system default. Personally, I'd rather edit 
> the module css, removing the change, than patching over it in all my 
> themes by introducing extra css in the themes themselves.

The core css would only be extended by mod css in situations where a
needed class isn't defined. Theme developers should _never_ modify core
or module css directly.

> The problem then is that you have to either persuade the module 
> developer to conform or continue patching module css every time they 
> release a new version, just to make it look like the rest of the 
> system.

Yes. This is what core css is all about. Did I miss something?

> This is the exact same situation we have with templates currently where 
> the module developer has chosen to do something differently to the 
> 'standard'. The problem is, we've no 'standard' to which a module 
> developer can conform to, and you can't slap wrists without one. 
> Michael's article perhaps is a good start on one. We need to be much 
> stricter on the UI otherwise my fear with the new css system will be 
> the proliferation of admin across 100's of extra files just to strip 
> out fancy css that shouldn't be there.

No it isn't. The new system is very close to xaraya's implementation.
Don't look at 0.10.0 mod css as an indication of what will be in
fallout.

> The module css and templates need to be as bland and generic as 
> possible in order that they don't have to be overridden on a per module 
> basis. It's also why I'm so hot for core functions/classes to produce 
> most UI elements so that it's less likely a mod developer will roll 
> their own.

Agreed! We need to concentrate on this task. You'll see how the mod css
is beneficial as the process develops.

> How that is policed and by who might be interesting but it needs doing.

This goes in a coding standards doc, just like other projects. It isn't
complicated.

-- 
Mike Noyes <mhnoyes at users.sourceforge.net>
http://sourceforge.net/users/mhnoyes/
SF.net Projects: ffl, leaf, phpwebsite, phpwebsite-comm, sitedocs

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] Defining and implementing design standards in phpWebSite

[Shaun M. <sh...@ae...>]

On 5 Jan 2005, at 16:51, Mike Noyes wrote:

> On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 04:34, Shaun Murray wrote:
>> It would also have to have a template module css import as well. So 4
>> style sheets. I do hope theme developers never have to modify anything
>> other than the /themes/zen/style.css in this example and that the
>> module css is largely free of fonts, colours, alignment and spacing
>> unless it does something out of the ordinary for a good reason.
>
> Shaun,
> Any class can be modified or overridden by the theme developer in
> /themes/zen/style.css. The css cascade loads that last and it therefore
> gets preferred status in the cascade.

That's merely a bandaid over a self inflicted wound IMHO.

Perhaps I should clarify that with an example before donning my nomex 
pants.

phpwsRSSFeeds includes it's own module css to alter the look and feel 
of the menu from that of the system default (yes, I know we don't have 
one defined but go with me for now). As you say above, I could override 
that in /themes/zen/style.css or even in 
/themes/zen/templates/phpwsrssfeeds/module.css which would probably be 
a better place. Great. Fantastic. Powerful even.

However, that's merely masking the problem, that the module developer 
has chosen to override the system default. Personally, I'd rather edit 
the module css, removing the change, than patching over it in all my 
themes by introducing extra css in the themes themselves.

The problem then is that you have to either persuade the module 
developer to conform or continue patching module css every time they 
release a new version, just to make it look like the rest of the 
system.

This is the exact same situation we have with templates currently where 
the module developer has chosen to do something differently to the 
'standard'. The problem is, we've no 'standard' to which a module 
developer can conform to, and you can't slap wrists without one. 
Michael's article perhaps is a good start on one. We need to be much 
stricter on the UI otherwise my fear with the new css system will be 
the proliferation of admin across 100's of extra files just to strip 
out fancy css that shouldn't be there.

The module css and templates need to be as bland and generic as 
possible in order that they don't have to be overridden on a per module 
basis. It's also why I'm so hot for core functions/classes to produce 
most UI elements so that it's less likely a mod developer will roll 
their own.

How that is policed and by who might be interesting but it needs doing.


Shaun
aegis design - http://www.aegisdesign.co.uk

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] Defining and implementing design standards in phpWebSite

[Mike N. <mh...@us...>]

On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 04:34, Shaun Murray wrote:
> It would also have to have a template module css import as well. So 4 
> style sheets. I do hope theme developers never have to modify anything 
> other than the /themes/zen/style.css in this example and that the 
> module css is largely free of fonts, colours, alignment and spacing 
> unless it does something out of the ordinary for a good reason.

Shaun,
Any class can be modified or overridden by the theme developer in
/themes/zen/style.css. The css cascade loads that last and it therefore
gets preferred status in the cascade.

> As long as you can change a class in /themes/zen/style.css and the look 
> of the menu, or lists changes across all menus and lists then the 
> solution works. If it doesn't change some module's look, then we've 
> failed.

Agreed.

        Note: I still believe in two external stylesheets with a single
        installed module @import. The static /conf/mod.css would be
        modified by boost on module install/uninstall. Core module css
        would load first. See my descendant selectors PoC. In addition
        alternate stylesheets are possible.
        
        http://phpwebsite-comm.sourceforge.net/temp/ <-- served as
        text/xhtml
        
        http://phpwebsite-comm.sourceforge.net/temp/xml.php <-- served
        as application/xhtml+xml


> > Proposed example:
> > <link rel="stylesheet" href="./core/style.css" type="text/css" />
> > <style type="text/css"> @import 
> > url("./mod/pagemaster/templates/style.css"); </style>
> > <style type="text/css"> @import 
> > url("./themes/zen/templates/controlpanel/style.css"); </style>
> > <link rel="stylesheet" href="./themes/zen/style.css" title="zen" 
> > type="text/css" />

-- 
Mike Noyes <mhnoyes at users.sourceforge.net>
http://sourceforge.net/users/mhnoyes/
SF.net Projects: ffl, leaf, phpwebsite, phpwebsite-comm, sitedocs

Re: SV: [Phpwebsite-developers] Defining and implementing designstandards in phpWebSite

[Matthew M. <ma...@tu...>]

> It is becoming rather fragmented, and I think we need a single place, where
> we can continue the discussion, collect the ideas, with bits and pieces of
> code, screenshots and examples. I think it is very important, that we split
> up our discussion in categories (titles, input, lists etc.), not necessarily
> in those categories I have used in my article.

We may want to consider forming a wiki site for 1.x standards. Then we
could play around with some ideas. Mike might set it up for us if
someone is willing to administrate.

-- 
Matthew McNaney
Internet Systems Architect
Electronic Student Services
Appalachian State University
Phone: 828-262-6493
http://phpwebsite.appstate.edu
http://ess.appstate.edu

SV: [Phpwebsite-developers] Defining and implementing designstandards in phpWebSite

[<po...@mi...>]

Wendall, I will put my comments on top of yours, since I agree with you,
Matt, Mike, Shaun and Ken (this is becoming highly complicated).

First of all I would like to say, that I appreciate the positive =
response. I
have been a bit nerves before announcing my article, mainly because I =
did
not want to hurt any feelings. I know the team is working hard with a =
great
amount of passion.

Like Matt stated, many of the examples I have used, are from older =
modules.
I know that the team has come a long way since then. I have been =
sneaking
into the CVS repository from time to time, and the new code is looking =
very
impressive. Matt, I am looking forward to the demo=85

A couple of thoughts:

Lists
-------------------
> Maybe a default message advising the user that there are no items
> available for view currently. This leads into another subject, but it
> might be nice to have a nice list of canned English phrases for use.
> This would come in handy for me. I am sure for those who English isn't
> their first language, a list of standardized phrases would be useful =
as
> well.

I like the idea of default messages. It will bring down the amount of
phrases needed to be translated, and it will ensure, that the same
formulation is uses in every module. I have seen many duplicated =
phrases,
translating phpWebSite version 0.1.0. This could easily be avoided =
having a
default amount of phrases for use.

In my article I forgot to mention, that I think the team should consider =
a
standard for showing error-, warning-, information and debug messages. =
Some
of the messages might be default messages, like the "empty list" =
message.
Other messages may depend entirely on the module. In each case, there =
should
be a default location for the message, i.e. implemented via a {MESSAGE}
variable.

Titles
-------------------
I think the tabbed navigation design Matt has described will solve many =
of
the problems I have mentioned in my article. The new design could be =
styled
in numerous ways, if the html is carefully prepared. My first thought =
was to
replace the Content and Administration titles by icons, aligning them
vertically to the left. I think Red Hat or Mandrake has a control panel
looking something like that.

Input
-------------------
> I think that some sample forms should be put together to illustrate
> some real life examples.

I think this is a great idea. If someone could produce a couple of =
realistic
input forms and publish them, we (the phpWebSite community) could try to
come up with some examples for the interface. I am not a designer, but I
will give it a try.
This brings me to another subject. Right now this thread is the center =
for
our discussion. Months ago it was in another thread. I have an article =
on my
site related to our discussion, and rck has another article on his site,
with advices on "what to do" and "what not to do" in concern of styling
phpWebSite.
It is becoming rather fragmented, and I think we need a single place, =
where
we can continue the discussion, collect the ideas, with bits and pieces =
of
code, screenshots and examples. I think it is very important, that we =
split
up our discussion in categories (titles, input, lists etc.), not =
necessarily
in those categories I have used in my article.

Another thing about input forms. It would be nice, if the cursor was
automatically placed in the first input field, as long as it is not a
dropdown (I hate dropdowns because they interferes with page scrolling =
and
my mouse wheel). Anyway, this is just a "nice to have" thing. It could
easily be accomplished with a standard JavaScript function, called =
onload.

- Michael Rasmussen (TechElephant)

SV: [Phpwebsite-developers] Defining and implementing design standards in phpWebSite

[<po...@mi...>]

Thanks for your reply Shaun. It is highly appreciated.

> Some of the issues are being addressed in the new code the team are
> working on. I think we've beaten them on the head enough times in IRC
> about menus at least, and we've had long ranging discussions about CSS
> and how it should be implemented - which I don't entirely agree with.

I know. I have been following all of those discussions with great interest.
It was my attention to participate in the discussion earlier, mainly in the
CSS thread, but I though you did okay without my interference :-)

> Personally, I'd like to see more support functions for module
> developers that let them produce menus, submenus, lists, links etc to a
> standard rather than having to build them up manually either in the
> code or in a template. That way there's a set method of doing it that
> can be styled globally.

I agree with you, and think we should focus on this issue when the time is
right. Functions helping the developers produce interface related content,
would ensure a consistent design. There might be a performance issue here,
but I will leave that up to the experts to find the right balance between
functions, templates and homemade implementations.

- Michael

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] Defining and implementing design standards in phpWebSite

[Shaun M. <sh...@ae...>]

It would also have to have a template module css import as well. So 4 
style sheets. I do hope theme developers never have to modify anything 
other than the /themes/zen/style.css in this example and that the 
module css is largely free of fonts, colours, alignment and spacing 
unless it does something out of the ordinary for a good reason.

As long as you can change a class in /themes/zen/style.css and the look 
of the menu, or lists changes across all menus and lists then the 
solution works. If it doesn't change some module's look, then we've 
failed.


> Proposed example:
> <link rel="stylesheet" href="./core/style.css" type="text/css" />
> <style type="text/css"> @import 
> url("./mod/pagemaster/templates/style.css"); </style>
> <style type="text/css"> @import 
> url("./themes/zen/templates/controlpanel/style.css"); </style>
> <link rel="stylesheet" href="./themes/zen/style.css" title="zen" 
> type="text/css" />


Shaun
aegis design - http://www.aegisdesign.co.uk

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] Defining and implementing design standards in phpWebSite

[Shaun M. <sh...@ae...>]

On 4 Jan 2005, at 23:47, Wendall Cada wrote:
> Maybe a default message advising the user that there are no items
> available for view currently. This leads into another subject, but it
> might be nice to have a nice list of canned English phrases for use.
> This would come in handy for me. I am sure for those who English isn't
> their first language, a list of standardized phrases would be useful as
> well.
>

Does the current 'no items in the list' message come from the module or 
from the core list class? If it came from the core, then that's one 
problem solved.

>
> I tried to implement an experimental tableless grid layout in the
> phpwsRSSFeeds admin side of things. I know it has problems, and I fully
> agree with the recommendations in the article. I also have no problem
> with the first form style, assuming that the form is very simple. Once
> the interface becomes more complex, it is hard to use many other styles
> other than the grid style. I think that some sample forms should be put
> together to illustrate some real life examples. I have no problem
> implementing any ideas into rssfeeds for testing and feedback if 
> someone
> wants to point out changes.
>

I've tried, many times to come up with aligned css forms and 
ultimately, they fail on particular browsers (IE usually) when they get 
to a particular complexity or if the label/entry is of dissimilar 
sizes. My favourite is using definition lists (DL) but they don't 
render on some browsers if the label is more lines than the entryfield 
alongside, and you're stuck with simple forms too.

Witness menuman's advanced form and try and replicated that in css, not 
that that is a good idea though as that interface is by far the worst 
in phpwebsite.

We should also make more use of fieldset and legend as well even though 
they don't render so well on IE. And label has to be used more also for 
xhtml compliance.


> Major problem in implementation for phpwsRSSFeeds was a lack of core
> styles to build on and no full support for module level css. I believe
> that these have already been addressed in large by Matt in 1.0.
>

If there were more core styles then you wouldn't need so much module 
css. No offence intended Wendall but there's nothing in phpwsRSSfeeds 
that shouldn't be in the core styles - it's just boxes, menus and lists 
after all, and those are used everywhere. By putting them in the module 
it makes it really hard for theme developers to make the layout 
consistent across modules.


>> Buttons
>
> I tend to drop the button after the closing of the table as well.
> However, I usually make the button centered. I do however agree that
> flush left may be better. This may depend on what the grid layout is
> like. For instance, if my text labels are right justify, and my input
> fields are left justify, centering may make sense, as it follows 
> layout.
> However, I see no problem using left justify for everything.
>

Centering is usually one of the things I take out wherever I can. 
Alignment is language specific so leaving it out is usually the best 
option and trusting the users browser to align things correctly. 
English may be left-to-right but there are plenty of languages that 
aren't. Perhaps centering is the politically correct method. (joking) 
;-)

>> Buttons as links
>> --------------------
>> Agree 100%. Anything that does not pass form elements, doesn't need
>> to be in a button.
>
> Another point of note on this item. If an item does need to pass form
> elements, but needs some type of user interaction, I'd like to see the
> javascript popup dropped from use. A standardized form for user
> confirmation would be very nice to have. Maybe as a part of Form.
>
> Another comment on the subject of forms. In the button example, there
> are a couple samples of multiple forms on the same admin page. I'd like
> to see this go away if possible. I made some of my own functions for
> addition of fatcat categories in phpwsRSSFeeds so that the form 
> elements
> could be included in the item creation and editing forms, instead of an
> additional form at the bottom of the page.
>

I'd agree here too. In showing someone how pagemaster worked a while 
back, the multiple buttons at the bottom of the page with menu choices 
and save page confused the hell out of them and that's just one 
example.

Shaun
aegis design - http://www.aegisdesign.co.uk

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] Defining and implementing design standards in phpWebSite

[Shaun M. <sh...@ae...>]

On 4 Jan 2005, at 21:29, Mike Noyes wrote:
>
>
> I think core css should be static and persistent; so module and theme
> developers can utilize it, and build on it when necessary.
>

Ditto that. Building your own css should be an extra above and beyond 
the core and module developers need a damn good reason to go their own 
way, or theme developers will be somewhat annoyed.

Shaun
aegis design - http://www.aegisdesign.co.uk

Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] Defining and implementing design standards in phpWebSite

[Mike N. <mh...@us...>]

On Tue, 2005-01-04 at 13:37, Matthew McNaney wrote:
> > Matt,
> > The one issue I have with the current fallout code is the core module
> > css is dynamic. It isn't always available for other modules to use, or
> > did I misunderstand something?
> > I think core css should be static and persistent; so module and theme
> > developers can utilize it, and build on it when necessary.
> 
> I'm not sure if I am answering this correctly so get back to me here if
> I am wrong.
> 
> What exactly should be persistent? Tables? Fonts? I'm not grilling you,
> I just need my memory refreshed on this discussion as I know we have had
> it before. It would benefit those who read this list to hear it anyway
> so please expand upon your question.

Matt,
Core module css should always load in a persistent stylesheet. Currently
module css is loaded dynamically with @import and it's availability
isn't guaranteed.

Current example:
<style type="text/css"> @import url("./mod/controlpanel/templates/style.css"); </style>
<style type="text/css"> @import url("./themes/zen/templates/controlpanel/style.css"); </style>
<link rel="stylesheet"  href="./themes/zen/style.css" type="text/css" />

Proposed example:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="./core/style.css" type="text/css" />
<style type="text/css"> @import url("./mod/pagemaster/templates/style.css"); </style>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="./themes/zen/style.css" title="zen" type="text/css" />

css class reuse:
pagemaster mod wants to use the ????? class in controlpanel with a
slight modification. In the first case the modified css will only work
when controlpanel is active. In the proposal the controlpanel css is
always available for pagemaster to modify.

Does that make sense?

        Note: this is part of the reason I called for a single @import
        of loaded module css (controlled by boost) in the preferred
        stylesheet in my descendant selectors prof-of-concept.
        
        http://phpwebsite-comm.sourceforge.net/temp/

-- 
Mike Noyes <mhnoyes at users.sourceforge.net>
http://sourceforge.net/users/mhnoyes/
SF.net Projects: ffl, leaf, phpwebsite, phpwebsite-comm, sitedocs