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New Default Theme
UPDATE: We are looking at this becoming the official default theme for Textpattern in due course.
https://github.com/philwareham/txp-h5bp-theme
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Hi,
Just wondering if anyone was looking at improving the default pages/forms/css that is part of the default install for TXP5 or beyond. It just looks a bit ugly, could be more semantic, and maybe is off putting to new users looking wordpress-like eyecandy straight away.
I’ve spent an hour or so last night playing with the current default elements to see where they could be improved, and could take this much further but don’t want to duplicate effort if someone else is already onto this. It’s based on techniques in Paul Irish’s HTML5 Boilerplate and also HTML5 Reset, and loosely based on 960.gs
Bear in mind this is only an hours work so far, so nowhere near a final template so totally unstyled in places and bits/code missing: see here for example
IMHO some of the prerequisites for a new theme would be:
- At least as simple codewise (if not more so) than the current template.
- No images used at all. CSS everything.
- HTML5.
- Commented where appropriate to explain what each element/form actually does.
- No dirty browser hacks.
- Use CSS media queries to provide a version appropriate for small screens (iphone etc).
What do you think? Is it worth continuing?
Last edited by philwareham (2011-08-31 12:20:09)
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Re: New Default Theme
Thanks for putting the effort into this. Looks good. You might want to team up with Tuts_and_Tipps. Your theme looks spookily similar in layout to the one proposed over there.
As a point of reference, yes a new default theme is a TXP 5 goal. Hopefully by then HTML 5 will be better established too.
Last edited by Bloke (2010-09-23 09:55:41)
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Re: New Default Theme
OK Stef, I’ve asked the question in the other topic, in the meantime I’ve done a little bit more to the above theme (now adjusts layout depending on screen size).
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#4 2010-09-23 19:35:49
- candyman
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- From: Italy
- Registered: 2006-08-08
- Posts: 684
Re: New Default Theme
Good job Phil: I like it!
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Re: New Default Theme
Some strange behavior on active elements in IE7
Piwik Dashboard, Google Analytics Dashboard, Minibar, Article Image Colorpicker, Admin Datepicker, Admin Google Map, Admin Colorpicker
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Re: New Default Theme
OK, fixed the css :focus for IE.
Have to admit I had not done any testing with this template and IE yet, as I was waiting to see if this project was duplicating work others had proposed before continuing. There are other issues with IE7 which I’ll fix when I get a spare moment (I’m not going to bother with IE6 at all though).
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Re: New Default Theme
FYI this theme is now on GitHub…
https://github.com/philwareham/txp-h5bp-theme
And more info is here. Any suggestions/recommendations for future development welcome.
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Re: New Default Theme
I posted in the wrong thread, but here is my 2 cents. The HTML5 and CSS3 is great, but you can take it one step farther/better. :)
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Re: New Default Theme
@Destry
WAI/ARIA roles are now in place as suggested. Github repo updated with those additions and the test site is also updated. Thanks!
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Re: New Default Theme
We are looking to this as being an official front-side theme for Textpattern at some point in the future so I urge any interested parties to fork or at least follow the project on Github. Raise issues, ask questions, make proposals, do pull requests, etc – this can only get done with your help.
Please bear in mind that I’m currently working on this project and it’s nowhere near final stages yet. Still got to think hard about internationalisation, accessibility and cutting code that, whilst nice, is superfluous to the theme working.
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Re: New Default Theme
philwareham wrote:
Please bear in mind that I’m currently working on this project and it’s nowhere near final stages yet.
I’m going to start using this theme on a new site, rather than use the current default as a starting point. I’ll take notes and provide feedback as I go along.
Once I have a good handle on things, do you mind if I package it up using hcg_templates? I can call it h5bp, that way we can engage more people to kick the tires and provide feedback.
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Re: New Default Theme
Hi Bert,
Great idea. Give me another week or so and it should be in better shape (search forms for one thing are not in a stable state yet).
One thing to note is that this project started out as an amalgamation of Textpattern and H5BP with the intention of having lots of best practice methods and examples of how to code a site, whilst also having the bonus of being an easier layout to understand for new TXP users. It’s now moved on from that to possibly becoming the Textpattern default theme, which means I’ve started reducing the features to a bare minimum – as we are not going to dictate to users how they should or should not design their site. We’ll leave that for the likes of H5BP itself.
For example the Google Analytics form has recently been stripped out, as has links to jQuery and some of the more creative uses of TXP tags. Most (if not all) of the English language will need to be removed from the theme in favour of using <txp:text /> instead I guess.
I’m still going to keep any of the bits of code I strip out in an extras folder and any other snippets of code I find useful, but am not sure what I’ll do with them going forward – they certainly won’t form part of a default install.
That being said, the overall look of the theme won’t change too much hopefully.
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