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Skinning
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- W Shealy
- Hero Rocketeer
- Posts: 256
- Thanks: 2
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Last year I wrote a post about wanting to use several templates for different parts of a big site. Since then I have also been thinking about the standards that RT must use in template design. I'm wishing for a little more structure. I'm thinking about separating the skin (override) at least the color scheme, logo and overrides from the features/body making upgrading to the latest features easier while preserving branding and standard positions. If the client loves the cherry red color scheme from colormatic and the red star bullet from one design last year make it easy to give it to them. Red scheme 7 in V4 isn't the same as cheery red. I find I spend a lot of time when it comes time to upgrade to the latest features about every 6 months and I expect when you go 1.5 only or when I need 2 templates on the same site.
1. The templates seem to be moving toward some standard positions so as you switched templates and things would generally be in the correct position. For example the header top search box and the adjoining position for adding bookmarks, feed icons etc be generally in the same place. Maybe the right side of the header would always have a search, bookmark, and std banner position. That the top positions always be user1-3. That the tabs always be the same positions. I don't want to keep you from having the special effect or unique positions that is okay. But I would like to be able to switch between or use multiple templates and have things generally show up in the correct place. When I am working on a site or upgrading I typically try several designs often with a template switcher.
2. My clients tend to have corporate logos and color schemes that are a part of branding. What about a skin.css that would be in the top template directory that would allow a custom override of the template design styles. Allowing you to set the color scheme especially the header and title colors, set the logo, and the company name and slogan which would be applied to each design. It might also could override other things like icons (the star from a template last year that one of my clients loves), the size of images in the rotator, your favorite module design so you could set a module to -mystyle or -ugly and preserve your custom design or one from a favorite template. That way I could maintain some of the branding when I upgrade to a more current template. I find that my clients have favorite designs so this might allow me to get the red cherry colormatic look with V4 flexibility. V4 has a red but it isn't the one that has become a part of my client's image.
2a. I also tend separate the company name and slogan from the logo so it can be in a h1 tag in the header for SEO.
3. I also wish that the custom RT modules had a default.css that was installed with the module so when rotator or other module was used on one of the templates it wasn't designed for that it at least had some skin and all the button graphics showed. Overriding them for a particular template is fine but they should have a clean design like other modules do when installed on a template other than the one it came with.
I hope I'm making sense. I think this mostly about color scheme, logos, icons, and other branding elements so that people come back and say I recognize XYZ company. It isn't about the new sizzle you add. I find that once templates get more than six months old sometimes sooner I'm missing features I'd like to have.
I'm rambling
Wallace
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