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Design a cool "skin" for my plugin and win an iPod Shuffle!
Okay, I give up. I can code like nobody’s business, but can’t seem to tackle this CSS stuff.
I’m officially announcing a contest – help me design the look of the main reporting pages of my plugin and I’ll give the best designer an iPod Shuffle. The one gig version. For real.
In a nutshell:
- Download the plugins and the static files.
- Make two designs, a basic one and a super-cool one.
- eMail me the files and I’ll change my code to match the CSS sheet.
- The best entry gets an iPod Shuffle and my eternal gratitude.
Details
I’ve got the concept of “skins” built into my code. Using my plugin, people will be able to get a list of skins from my server, click a link, and poof – a new look and feel. There will be an “internal” style that ships with the plugins, but I really want a bit of sizzle for the downloadable skins.
You should probably install the latest version of my plugins to get an idea for how they function, but I’ve made a couple static pages to help people work their CSS magic. You’ll see that there are some simple markups, class=“panel_outer” and such. It’s all garbage – feel free to add whatever you think is appropriate.
Heck, make stuff up like “Lee, you should tag all hits that were recorded since the log was last viewed with ‘class=lxs_new’”. This is a collaboration and I’m very open to suggestions.
The trick is that there each entry has to have two styles:
- I need a simple design that blends well with the admin interface of Textpattern. This style can’t have any images and the color scheme would be something that “fits in” with the rest of the Textpattern product.
- I also want a crazy, super nice, jaw-dropping design. There’s no limits here, add graphics and any sizzle you want. Let me know if there’s a requirement to get the skin to run. Did you use Flash or want sifr-enabled text?
A later version of my plugin will be Ajax-enabled, but if you want to add some DHTML to your skin, feel free. The judges will give you bonus points.
More Details
The trick is to have the designs change by swapping out the CSS file. I don’t want to change any of the HTML that’s being generated. I also want to keep the Textpattern tabs and footer unchanged.
If you look at the plugins, there are two pages that need to be skinned. First is the “View Log”, which is similar to the built-in log. It’s a single table and pretty straightforward. The other page is “View Details”, which is quite a bit more complicated.
This page is generated as a series of tables, one for each row of charts. Within each row is a table “frame” for each chart and each chart is another table (perhaps several). Not very pretty and I’m open to fixing things, just give me an idea for what will work on “most browsers” (looking for FireFox and IE6+ at least).
There are basically three types of charts – simple lists, vertical bar chart, and percentage lists. Note that there are options that turn on icons and also an “advanced view” that will change the way things look. Feel free to suggest changes or additions for these.
As far as timeframe, I’m not sure when I’ll get the next release of my plugin completed. I think it’ll be the end of next week. So for now I’ll say the deadline is October 17th. Let me know if people want more time – I’m looking for quality, not a quick something thrown together.
Feel free to post any questions here.
[Lee]
Monkeys could have written a better post..
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#2 2005-10-05 09:52:15
- alexandra
- Member
- From: Cologne, Germany
- Registered: 2004-04-02
- Posts: 1,370
Re: Design a cool "skin" for my plugin and win an iPod Shuffle!
Hi Lee, did you post on the TextDrive forum as well? There are some more designers who might be keen on an IPod shuffle.
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Re: Design a cool "skin" for my plugin and win an iPod Shuffle!
alexandra wrote:
Hi Lee, did you post on the TextDrive forum as well? There are some more designers who might be keen on an IPod shuffle.
I forget how many Textpattern resources there are out there! I’ll join and put something up there when I have a moment. I suppose that TextDrivel is the best place to put my post?
Thanks!
[Lee]
Monkeys could have written a better post..
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#4 2005-11-01 14:15:35
- alexandra
- Member
- From: Cologne, Germany
- Registered: 2004-04-02
- Posts: 1,370
Re: Design a cool "skin" for my plugin and win an iPod Shuffle!
did anybody win the iPod already?
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