ij_siteschemes
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About this journal
IJ_siteschemes is where everyone involved in designing site schemes for IJ can exchange notes, documents and ideas. Membership is currently moderated, so please leave a comment for branchandroot if you'd like to join in.

September 2015
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Branch [userpic]
Going live

Okay, people, the new schemes are coming out of beta, and the black and white scheme (Monodramatic) is up! If you haven't already, remember to vote for the scheme you'd like to have as the default, over at [info]announcements.

Now that the default will be changing, it's time to start thinking about other layouts that we might want to make available. Since the html is finalized, everyone who wants to make their very own layout(s) can get started! I encourage people to post their style sheets to this comm, so others can make use of them.

Do remember that the one thing that can't be changed by style sheets are things like the comment bar colors--those are defined in the template code and generate in-line styles. So you may wish to specify a layout that has comment colors that will harmonize with the rest of your style (Monodramatic's are gray, for example). [info]snakeling will have news later on how this can, in fact, be done.

And if anyone wants to write up a quick beginners guide to using Stylish, that would probably be really helpful, too.

(Also, yes, I know the font size still has issues. Am figuring we'll have to strip out the font-family definition and just go with browser defaults, because nothing else is both nicely legible and consistent across browsers. Curses.)

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Branch [userpic]
Not dead

Just wanted to update everyone watching: the site schemes are still cooking, and there should be a poll soon for which variation the new site default should be.

The excellent [info]brawlyball is working on the black-and-white scheme, also, so that will hopefully come about soon.

If anyone has any unaddressed bugs lingering, please let us know. Likewise, if you spot any lingering LJ-blue in the schemes, after the recent code update, let me know that too! I think I chased down all of it, but confirmation is always good.

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Branch [userpic]
State of the Schemes

So, work is going forward on debugging and refining the site schemes. The compliant browsers should all be fixed now, so if you have IE7, any Mozilla, Safari or Opera and are still seeing layout bugs, please let me know.

The good [info]brawlyball has volunteered to work on backward compatibility for IE and is prodding at the more arcane bugs on that end.

There are small-font options in the works, but that requires some template code changes and will therefore probably have to wait until Squeaky has dealt with getting a new server and has a moment to breathe.

Once the css is finalized I can bring out the black-and-white scheme which will be the one most useful for putting skins on top of. I'm hoping to have three options for that, a dropdown, a sidebar, and a horizontal dropdown (a la the old XColibur scheme).

On that note, I would like, at some point, to have a graphic interface on the site by which users could either a) cut and paste a premade style sheet or b) select colors that would generate a style sheet to individually customize the site scheme. This is a bit of a pipe dream, but I still dream it. So if anyone is or knows of someone who has programming experience in Perl and database driven applications and might be willing to donate some time and skill to the project, I'd love to hear it.

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Branch [userpic]
To Do and more calls for volunteers

All right, the materials have been sent off to Squeaky to be encoded as a template, and the next thing up will be beta-testing.

Next up on my design list are: plain text version and gray-and-orange version for those who want the new menus but like the current colors. After that, I think, are the rainbow versions that [info]blasphemy_blue came up with.

At this point, there are also a number of infrastructure things that need to be done, and I'd love help with these.

Some FAQs need to be written, to help users customize their site schemes. One of these needs to include directions on how to find/use browser styles in as many different browsers as we can possibly manage. Any volunteers for this would be much appreciated.

As I have never used Stylish, I'd also appreciate it if someone who has could write up something about using that to manipulate a layout.

One of the things I'd like to have available somewhere, perhaps on this asylum, is a collection of ready-made styles and of little style-parts to do things like change the color of the menus and what side of the screen things are on. Most of this will have to wait until the code is finalized, but if people could be thinking about it and maybe jotting down things to contribute, that would be great. Once we have a finalized code, membership will be opened up so anyone can add their design work.

My own rate of progress is about to slow down as I have to start writing lectures again instead of only working on design; I expect that's true for a lot of other people too. But I'm hoping we can still make steady progress.

Branch [userpic]
Worksafe colorscheme up

Okay, the neutral-colors version of the scheme is up. Everyone go take a look and tell me what you think; especially let me know if anything seems to be hard to read or not working or any such. (Ignore the .html files, they're obsolete, and click on the .shtml)

If no one has any more bug reports, I think I'm about ready to package all this up and pass it over to Squeaky for coding, and then we'll go live for beta testing!

One thing: does anyone have, or think they can produce, a good version of Tweak as a transparent gif? Alas, there are still enough IE5 users that a png transparency won't do. Shame, they're much better quality. My various efforts in Photoshop have run aground on the basic fact that gifs binary little buggers. My best version so far is still a bit rough at the edge.

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Branch [userpic]
Update: css all found, I hope

All right, I think I have found all the pages with their own style sheets, and transferred them into the primary sheet so developers of new schemes will have it all in one place. I have altered a few classes in the style sheet, so there are no conflicting names, and added a clearing element to the footer.

I have also packaged up the header/menu and the footer as includes, for ease of further editing, and there are some new test pages up. Note that these are .shtml files.

Home, sidebar version
Home, dropdown version

The next batch are pretty much all the heavily styled pages. All of the below are in sidebar configuration, and some of them are just as squashed up, on a small screen, as I was afraid they'd be. I see no good way around it, given that all this content has to fit in somehow, and at the moment it's stuck in tables. I guess we can see what the beta-testers think, and then, if necessary, re-arrange some of the content to be more vertical and less horizontal.

Portal
Update (the configuration of this page seems to vary, for reasons I am not wholly clear on)
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The next step is tire-kicking, and, for me, starting on the neutral-colors version while I wait to see whether anyone has more recommendations/bug-finds for this.

Branch [userpic]
Welcome schemers

Okay, so this is where we get to toss around ideas and plans for new site schemes. Welcome, everyone, planners and commenters both! If any commenters would like to join in and volunteer time to work on this, please let me know.

Current State of the Scheme: I am working on a CSS framework that can be used to make a lot of different schemes, and will support both sidebar and dropdown options. It will have huge numbers of divs with unique ids and classes, so later designers should have all the parts they need to get just about any effect they want. The sidebar version is pretty complete, and I'm currently testing the dropdown version in different browsers. I think the header, menu and footer CSS can be set by the end of the week, and be ready for new color schemes to be started.

Anyone who wants to take a look at the current development can see my testing page here. Remember, this is a single sample page on a totally different server, so if you click any of the links you'll wind up back on IJ. Comments are welcome; remember, this is the in-development version to test concepts, and bugs may show up and go away without warning. Nothing is finalized yet.

Of course, if anyone spots a layout bug they know how to fix, please let me know!

General background: My thought, here, is to have the header (with menus) and the footer be include files on all the site content pages, so they can be easily edited at need. Personally, I'd like to get the page content re-coded out of tables and into lists and divs, but that isn't absolutely vital right away. I am writing for standards compliance, as much as I can, and for a minimum screen size of 800x600. Maximum, of course, is unlimited.

That's all the basic info I can think of right now. If any visitors have questions, let us know, please.

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