Re: [VuFind-Tech] VuFind 2 Theming QuickStart

[Mosior, B. <BEM...@sh...>]

We need to document the process for setting up the override anyway, so we'll try to come up with something for everyone. The consortium CSS override can be an example of where to go from there. Our documentation is growing as we make progress, so a Code4Lib Journal article is certainly not out of the question!

Thanks again,
Benjamin Mosior

From: Demian Katz [mailto:dem...@vi...]
Sent: Friday, October 12, 2012 8:58 AM
To: Mosior, Benjamin; vuf...@li...
Subject: RE: VuFind 2 Theming QuickStart

I agree that overriding definitely does not replace the need for the quick start...  I was just suggesting that if you created a standard template theme which already has some basic overrides set up, that could make your quick start less complicated since you could just tell users to edit the override CSS file.  You could even put comments in the CSS to make it more clear where everything goes.  Of course, that approach would make your quick start less suitable for general consumption... but I think helping your local audience is probably your first priority, so I can live with that. :-)  If it works out well, it might make a good article for Code4lib Journal ("Making VuFind 2 Configuration Easy for a Consortium") -- I'm sure others would be interested in following your lead.

- Demian
________________________________
From: Mosior, Benjamin [BEM...@sh...]
Sent: Friday, October 12, 2012 8:45 AM
To: Demian Katz; vuf...@li...<mailto:vuf...@li...>
Subject: RE: VuFind 2 Theming QuickStart
Demian,

Overriding would simplify everything greatly. I'll send a note to our student developers and have them take a look at what we can do in that area.

I'm not sure if that reduces the need for a quick-start, but at the least we could probably include an example of setting up the override in addition to what CSS attributes can/should be modified.

Thanks!
Benjamin Mosior

From: Demian Katz [mailto:dem...@vi...]
Sent: Friday, October 12, 2012 8:25 AM
To: Mosior, Benjamin; vuf...@li...<mailto:vuf...@li...>
Subject: RE: VuFind 2 Theming QuickStart

Thanks for sharing this -- it looks like a good start.  One question, though -- how are you setting up your institutional themes?  This document suggests that they are all copies of the blueprint theme (or at least that they include copies of the full blueprint theme's styles.css).  If that's the case, this could become a maintenance headache for you when upgrading, since it will become difficult to incorporate changes to the base blueprint theme into your institutional themes whenever you upgrade (basically requiring a three-way merge).

Would it be better if all of your institutional themes simply extended blueprint (using the extends option in theme.ini) and added a local CSS file (local_styles.css) which could be used to override some of the settings in styles.css?  This could make your quick start even easier -- local_styles.css would only include the things that users are most likely to change, so they wouldn't have to search as far in the main styles.css -- and it would greatly simplify upgrades, since the base theme would change and you would only need to worry about checking backward-compatibility for files that you added or overrode in the extended theme.

- Demian
________________________________
From: Mosior, Benjamin [BEM...@sh...]
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2012 3:32 PM
To: vuf...@li...<mailto:vuf...@li...>
Subject: [VuFind-Tech] VuFind 2 Theming QuickStart
Shippensburg University's Savanah Steigen has started taking a look at creating a quick-start guide for theming in VuFind 2. Our goal here is to have something to hand to the members of our consortium that will ease the initial customization process, while those that have the time and resources can delve into the user interface customization guide<http://vufind.org/wiki/vufind2:customizing_the_user_interface>. This guide makes reference to a multi-institutional configuration, but it should still be relevant for single-instance installations. If you think it will be useful, feel free to revise for general consumption.

[Attached: VuFind_2_Theming_Quickstart.html]

Benjamin Mosior