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Re: New admin-side theme
Very nice job!
Fwiw – on the write tab, w/ arc_twitter installed, the “options” header’s background extends to the right of the rest of the right column (into the gray).
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Re: New admin-side theme
@maverick
I am aware of the issue with arc_twitter – it’s actually a problem with the structure of the HTML generated by that plugin which I can’t fix with CSS alone. I’ve contacted the author and he’s going to adjust it in his next release.
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Re: New admin-side theme
Thanks Phil.
another fyi – in case it helps
I also just noticed a styling conflict with wet_quicklink. The second level navigation bar runs over top of the window that wet_quicklink pops up
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Re: New admin-side theme
I’ve updated the theme to beta3, changes are…
- Corrected height between ‘form preview’ and ‘form save’ buttons.
- Removed z-index of secondary nav bar so it doesn’t interfere with wet_quicklink popup.
- Fixed display of category edit form.
- Added more hide toggles to ‘custom.css’.
Last edited by philwareham (2011-02-22 18:52:29)
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Re: New admin-side theme
Thanks Phil!
You’re being thorough and responsive.
re: wet_quicklink – I’m still getting the overlay. Did a hard refresh just in case is was a cache issue, but didn’t help.
Another heads up.
(I feel lousy bearing issues) :-/
I tested it out on my sandbox install. I have tons of plugins installed there for testing purposes. in the Extension tab, the second nav bar wraps into a double line with all the extension names.
When it wraps to two lines (rows), it overlays smd_admin_theme. It covers the file upload portion almost entirely.
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Re: New admin-side theme
:-/
again w/ the bug report.
w/ smd_tags -> tags
There’s a tag search element overlapping (pretty much completely covers) the links for switching between preferences and managing the tags.
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Re: New admin-side theme
OK, I’ll look into that later in the week if I get a spare moment. It seems like I’ll have to force wet_quicklink up the layer stack with some z-index styling or something.
I realised a few days ago that there would be a problem if tons of extensions were installed, I’ll have to think of a way round that problem. I’ll also install smd_tags on my test site and see what can be done about that one.
Last edited by philwareham (2011-02-22 19:43:06)
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Re: New admin-side theme
Trouble is, there is currently no hard guidelines on how to structure HTML in the admin area so many plugins have their own structures and even their own styling. Even the core admin area has lots of inconsistency in how it’s laid out – it was not until I started theming that I found that out.
Anyway, not grumbling too much, I know the admin area rewrite is top priority of TXP5.
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Re: New admin-side theme
Trying to theme in a way to accommodate all variations of plugins out there is almost impossible at this point. I know from past experimenting it’s time consuming as well.
Just wanted to post known issues in case it helps.
Another example that is not playing nice is MultiDoc. The controls for adding, deleting and moving articles up and down in a collection are way off to the right.
It just so happens I’m developing a demo site for someone at the moment that wants to be able to update twitter when new videos and blog posts go up, be able to tag items, and have an organizational handbook. So I’m using those plugins as I speak and thus finding the conflicts.
It may be that for now not all plugins will cooperate :)
Last edited by maverick (2011-02-22 20:00:41)
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Re: New admin-side theme
Yes, plugins are a pain aren’t they — especially when they’re badly done like smd_tags!
I’ve been systematically going through my plugins as and when I get time to bring them up to scratch so they play nicer with themes. I’m doing this by removing most of the hard-coded colours and only applying minimal positional styling to let the theme shine through. My current yardsticks are classic and Stuart’s gorgeous Vitraux, which is my new best friend in theme land. If it looks OK in those two then it’s usually ok in most themes.
Huge Extensions tabs are also a problem — mine is colossal. Other themers have addressed this by switching to a remora-style dropdown if the number of item is greater than a certain number. Others just handle the wrapping by allowing a double-height row area or just forget fluid and go with suckerfish menus (or, in mrdale’s case, a combination of the two which works surprisingly well).
As you say, it’s taken having themes being written to find the shortfalls with the admin side, and the only thing we can do is try to make our plugins play nicely with themes, and maybe have theme authors expand the theme guidelines on the wiki to write about things that work best, things that don’t work as well, and so on so we build up a knowledge base that helps other themers and plugin writers to co-exist on the platform.
My 2p.
The smd plugin menagerie — for when you need one more gribble of power from Textpattern. Bleeding-edge code available on GitHub.
Txp Builders – finely-crafted code, design and Txp
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Re: New admin-side theme
Not wanting to teach you to suck eggs, but I think the best way forward with TXP5 admin-side is to create a selection of UI widgets that cover most conceivable structures that plugin authors would need, and then document them to hell.
Tabs, accordions, form layouts, navigation menus, buttons, etc. No small task in itself though.
And no tables for layout apart from actually for tabular data.
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Re: New admin-side theme
philwareham wrote:
create a selection of UI widgets that cover most conceivable structures that plugin authors would need, and then document them to hell.
Agreed. Doesn’t help us now of course — all I can do is try and make my plugins as low impact (in terms of styling) as I can — I’m getting there slowly — and hope that other authors do likewise over time. btw, if you spot anything in smd_tags (or any of my other plugins) that would help make things run more smoothly / interfere less, then do let me know. Stuart does that and it helps immensely.
Tabs, accordions, form layouts, navigation menus, buttons, etc. No small task in itself though. And no tables for layout apart from actually for tabular data.
Yep. And a smattering of AJAX where appropriate to ease workflow. As you say, no small task. No doubt we could use some UX/UI expertise when the time comes.
The smd plugin menagerie — for when you need one more gribble of power from Textpattern. Bleeding-edge code available on GitHub.
Txp Builders – finely-crafted code, design and Txp
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