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dds Textpattern Admin Themes
After several months in development, I am releasing my first big set of Textpattern admin themes for 4.0.8.
I put together a demo page that let’s you switch between themes, so you can try them all out before you download them. These are 4.0.8 compatible, and they should be backwards compatible all the way back to 4.0.5. The themes are just CSS files. You can implement them one of two ways:
Save them as textpattern.css and overwrite the default textpattern.css file already in /textpattern.
Or, you can try out the little plugin I developed just for admin CSS, dds_admin_style. This allows you to manage styles with Textpattern and then head on over to the Extensions tab to select which one you want for the admin css. (I am not a PHP developer, so feel free to point out errors or general ugliness if you spot any in the code. Much appreciated.)
Also, if you find any quirks or browser issues with the themes, be sure to bring those up as well. I’ve done my best to have them work in all modern browsers including IE6.
Txp admin themes | dropshado.ws – a blog for design noobs like me
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Re: dds Textpattern Admin Themes
Great! The biggest advantage – ability to change css from admin side.
Nice work, thanks!
Providing help in hacking ATM! Come to courses and don’t forget to bring us notebook and hammer! What for notebook? What a kind of hacker you are without notebok?
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Re: dds Textpattern Admin Themes
Lovely lovely work. Thanks! And your new site is really nice too.
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#4 2009-02-22 17:26:23
- candyman
- Member
- From: Italy
- Registered: 2006-08-08
- Posts: 684
Re: dds Textpattern Admin Themes
I think they are great and, thanks to David, I use a modified version on my site.
The only thing that may be improved (according to me!) are the three labels beside the body area that seem to me out of place: I mean that they have an old-fashioned style different from the other coloured panels.
I’d also put they a bit down, with the first one (HTML label) at the same height of the top of the input box.
Anyway, an awesome option that make appear TXP a more modern CMS to the newbie eyes.
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Re: dds Textpattern Admin Themes
@Jonathan – thank you for the kind words!
@candyman – You’re right. The preview verticle tabs remain unchanged in all the themes I created. This was one detail I was okay living with. While they don’t really fit in with some themes, I feel that they do not stand out that much.
My hope is that designers who do want to address these details will be empowered by the dss_admin_style plugin. All they have to do is create a new style, copy/past in the latest textpattern.css, and tweak it to their liking.
Txp admin themes | dropshado.ws – a blog for design noobs like me
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Re: dds Textpattern Admin Themes
So how does this compare to to aro_myadmin ?
It appears that one changes some function and adds a dashboard tab, while this one just allows you to easily change the css for the admin. Is that a good synopsis?
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Re: dds Textpattern Admin Themes
Yes, that is a good synopsis! But I’d like to advocate that the difference is more than just “A does X and B does Y.”
I created these themes and the plug in because I wanted an easy way to overhaul the design of Textpattern without touching any of the PHP. I have an aversion to mettle in the code, I worry about interoperability when making tweaks to the code. CSS is ideal since it is completely seperate from the structure, its purely presentational. So to a novice user user, yeah, both plug ins make Textpattern look different. But to the more knowledgable user, these themes allieviate the worry and tedium of customizing PHP and lots of more file management.
Txp admin themes | dropshado.ws – a blog for design noobs like me
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Re: dds Textpattern Admin Themes
This plugin rocks! The simplex theme rocks! Perfect, thank you so so much.
~ Cameron
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Re: dds Textpattern Admin Themes
Nemoorange, the themes are great and the plugin incredibly useful! Thanks you!
I’ve had a problem with your stylesheets: the images didn’t show up (Firefox 3 on Linux and Windows). I found out that relative urls are formated like this:
url(/txp_img/theimage.gif)
I think it would work if the txp_img folder was at the root of the site, but that’s not the case in my install.
I tried to replace with the following:
url(txp_img/theimage.gif)
or
url(./txp_img/theimage.gif)
both solutions work in my case.
BTW, I had a hard way finding some specifications about these syntaxes. Does someone know where to look for?
Pascal
Last edited by PascalL (2009-03-10 14:44:39)
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Re: dds Textpattern Admin Themes
@PascalL — Thanks so much for bringing this to my attention. Because of the way the demo page works, I obviously had some trouble referencing the default admin images located in textpattern/txp_image . The correct syntax, which corresponds with the default css, is:
background: url(txp_img/theimage.gif)I just updated all the stylesheets with the appropriate syntax. If anyone is using a theme, either update it by copying off of my site, or do a find replace.
find: /txp_img
replace with txp_img
Last edited by nemoorange (2009-03-10 19:13:35)
Txp admin themes | dropshado.ws – a blog for design noobs like me
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Re: dds Textpattern Admin Themes
Yay your really fast Nemoorange! :D
I was puzzled by the fact it worked at your demo, and had to double check I didn’t have any strange mistake on my side! Glad that could be useful!
Right now I’m trying to write my own stylesheet, and I must say it again: your plugin makes things much easier! I want to rearrange admin elements quite differently, and was limited by the table layout. I have tried to delve into the code of other core files – but was unhappy with that. Finally got the idea that tables/rows/cells are just other html tags, and can be formatted and floated like any div around! Don’t believe me? Just do a display:block on them and you are now free to move things around!!! Sadly, it doesn’t work with IE (we are suprised, aren’t we ?), except v8 beta (the future is bright?).
I’m just at the beginning of this, don’t know yet what will come out. Anyway it’s a lot of fun!
Pascal
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Re: dds Textpattern Admin Themes
@speeke – Yeah, you’re not the first one to bring up this mis-alignment. Do you have any plugins that might off set those tabs? rah_textile_bar? Also, thank you for your support
Txp admin themes | dropshado.ws – a blog for design noobs like me
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