Re: [SM-USERS] Changing the UI views in current dev SM

[Alan in T. <Ala...@fi...>]

On Sun, November 16, 2008 6:24 pm, Scott Haneda wrote:

> Yes, I am going to have to think about how I approach this.  In large
> part, the system that SM is moving toward, is a lot like the php based
> forums.  So you have some css files, but of course, there just had to
> be some php to do the work.  I see no way around this.  For example,
> you could not offer this, and just offer to allow people to adjust a
> css file, but then you have a rather rigid layout dictated by the
> output of SM.

I think the base case would be to get SM to a point where it could be radically
altered simply via CSS. Once that is possible, then friendly interfaces or widgets
could be developed to allow non-CSS-aware folks to change layout, colours, fonts,
etc. via a friendly interface which then handles making the CSS changes behind the
scenes.

> A good example would be that every email you read has minimal headers
> at the top of the email, and then the body copy.  If for some reason,
> someone wanted to move that around, it could be done in CSS, but only
> with absolute positioning, which in my humble opinion, it is a bad way
> to do things.

I strongly disagree. I don't understand why you would be against using positioning.
CSS positioning is now many years old, mature, well understood and well handled by
all major browsers. I, and many leading developers, make extensive use of CSS
positioning. It's safe and reliable, and powerful. I can significantly alter layout
and element sequence on my sites just by making small changes in the CSS.
Positioning is one of the most useful aspects to CSS, as it allows rendering
sequence to differ from the sequence in the HTML. This allows, for example, my
navigation to reside at the end of my HTML file (better for search engine rankings
by having real content prior to navigation), even though I may render the navigation
first at the top or left side of the user's browser.


> Wow, ok, that is very cool.  When looking at NutsMail, I see they were
> doing this in result, but they do so by modifying the core code.

NutsMail is not as elegant a SquirrelMail adaptation as another that I've seen, in
which the developer cleaned up SM's HTML and used good CSS for all rendering.

I saw your other message with comments for me. I'll respond when I have some more
time. Thanks.