the route I am headed is to use Gimp's macro to allow users to create Themes
=========================
BJ Freeman
Strategic Power Office with Supplier Automation
<http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=52>
Specialtymarket.com <http://www.specialtymarket.com/>
Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist
Chat Y! messenger: bjfr33man
Ryan Foster sent the following on 1/7/2011 11:44 AM:
I don't want to misquote Bruno, but I believe what he was saying was "if we create
dependencies" between themes, it does not allow modular selection, distribution, and
installation. Not that those dependencies already exist, because they don't.
I am not saying that I want to "get paid" for all of the themes I create, I'm
simply suggesting it would be better in the long run if we leave modularized theming
options open, monetized or otherwise, and let the user pick and choose what they want to
install. Installing themes does not require a paid consultant to install. A new theme
can be installed on-the-fly using the xml data import feature in webtools in a few
minutes, with very little knowledge or instruction.
You do bring up an interesting idea though...
Say for instance we have just 2 themes in the OOTB installation with a link under the
selection list that said "get more themes". Clicking that would bring up a
list of themes in an external themes repo. We could then have a script that allows the
user to grab the external themes XML seed data and download the themes assets to their
installed instance. Might be a good idea for a future enhancement.
Ryan L. Foster
801.671.0769
cont...@ryanlfoster.com
On Jan 7, 2011, at 11:17 AM, BJ Freeman wrote:
Bruno says:
"Dependencies between themes do not allow modular selection, distribution and
installation."
You say they are modular.
David has commented that he started this project with Idea that Trained
consultants in ofbiz would be paid to install modify, and customize ofbiz.
That model in my opinion does not work, as David has since said, with open
source. Especially being in ASF.
I have some modules that once the design time has be amortized I will release
to open source. Till then they cost.
However my main thrust with ofbiz is first make it widely accepted so by sheer
numbers, there will those that want to hire consultants. So my focus is a good
online embedded Doc and help, along with a flexible and powerful setup that
will lead a end user through a complete setup.
Part of that setup is a java based component that will go get ofbiz and
download it then ask if they want demo or Production setup. I can see in that
phase of the setup making the end user aware of themes in galleries they can
then have installed.
To that end I believe the current themes should be left in place and future themes that
people want to "get paid for" be put on their own website where they can
amortize their efforts.
=========================
BJ Freeman
Strategic Power Office with Supplier
Automation<http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=52>
Specialtymarket.com<http://www.specialtymarket.com/>
Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist
Chat Y! messenger: bjfr33man
Ryan Foster sent the following on 1/7/2011 8:52 AM:
I understand BJ concerns, but again, I'm with Bruno on this. Themes are modular and
preferential by nature. Not every user will want or have a need for every theme. For
instance, if I develop a women's boutique front-end theme, it may be of great interest to
an owner of a women's boutique but the owner of an auto parts store could probably care
less. Why not leave 2-3 "official release" themes in the trunk that are up to
date and maintained consistently by the community and move everything else to an external
directory. Then, let the user/developer pick and choose what themes to install.
In the end, we all decide whether we want to contribute the code we develop back to the
code base or not. For existing themes, my vote is to keep the active themes in the trunk
and move the deprecated/ unsupported / "un-evolved" themes out to the theme
gallery. This means BizznessTime?(which unfortunately seems to be rapidly losing
community backing), Bluelight, and DroppingCrumbs.
For future themes that I develop, the choice is easy for me. I will simply not
grant the theme ASF license to be included in the trunk. I will release the
theme to the public and post the theme to the theme gallery or distribute
through some other method. If we decide to create a new theme from Flat Grey,
I am calling the new theme Dorian Gray
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorian_Gray). The new theme will continue to
look young, fresh and modern, while it's reflection, Flat Grey, will continue
to look older and more dated with each passing year... ;)
Ryan L. Foster
801.671.0769
cont...@ryanlfoster.com
On Jan 7, 2011, at 5:06 AM, Bruno Busco wrote:
Dependencies between themes do not allow modular selection, distribution and
installation.
Please give a look to these web sites:
http://www.templatemonster.com/magento-themes.php
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/
http://drupal.org/project/Themes
they are all examples of how to maintain themes database.
In a production installation one can choose between:
- using one of the OOTB themes as it is
- use one of the themes from the theme gallery as it is
- start from one of the OOTB or gallery themes to build a new customized one
Moving a theme from OOTB to the theme gallery should not be an issue. It
simply slightly changes the way how a production server is updated.
-Bruno
2011/1/7 Jacques Le Roux<jacques.le.r...@les7arts.com>
From: "BJ Freeman"<bjf...@free-man.net>
more the second.
however I am reacting more to a pattern change.
for instance ecommerce was downgraded from a main app to a specialpurpose.
I was not removed. the architecture lets it be moved with out any code
changes to custom components already developed against it.
Yes, I completly understand your point... And I guess you are not alone in
this situation...
related to themes, and multitenacy, not every user is going to want the
same theme so the themes folder will be filled with `100's eventually.
the script I started,
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-3490
is getting fancier.
I can see templates for functionality of themes instead of the themes
themselves.
the seup app reads the data templateThemeData.xml and modifies it on the
fly to the way the customer wants it.
This way we don't have a lot of inactive themes and all the possibilities
are in the template data.
this is a flexible change once the Setup structure is in place.
see
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-635
comment - 05/May/09 02:14 PM
As I planned initially, to be discussed...
Jacques
=========================
BJ Freeman
Strategic Power Office with Supplier Automation<
http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=52>
Specialtymarket.com<http://www.specialtymarket.com/>
Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist
Chat Y! messenger: bjfr33man
Jacques Le Roux sent the following on 1/6/2011 11:15 PM:
OK, that was the reason I had some concerns. Let's discuss it
seriously...
I think there are 2 ways to create a new themes from an existing one (a
brand new one is not a problem).
Duplicate an OOTB existing one and peek an poke there (resourceValues in
ThemeNameThemeData.xml are all refering to locations in this theme)
pros: independent from changes in the original theme (no pb if the theme
dissapears, is changed for any reasons, etc.)
cons: independent from changes in the original theme (you can't benefit
from bug fixes, improvements, enhancements, etc.)
Create a new theme by keeping references to an OOTB existing (some
resourceValues in ThemeNameThemeData.xml are still refering to locations
in this original theme)
As (almost) ever there are 2 faces to the coin, the pros and cons are
reversed from above.
Which one are you using BJ? I guess the second. Else you would not have
any concerns
Jacques
From: "BJ Freeman"<bjf...@free-man.net>
Adrian i am sure as a business man you understand if it ain't broke
don't fix it.
Now if you talking about new themes I can agree, but no one has
proposed any or give an price.
=========================
BJ Freeman
Strategic Power Office with Supplier Automation
<http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=52>
Specialtymarket.com<http://www.specialtymarket.com/>
Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist
Chat Y! messenger: bjfr33man
Adrian Crum sent the following on 1/6/2011 3:23 PM:
That can go both ways. If your deployments depends upon the visual
themes being in the trunk, then perhaps you should fund their upkeep.
-Adrian
On 1/6/2011 2:58 PM, BJ Freeman wrote:
so you will be glad to fund the effort to do that.
Time is money. and anything the effects the ROI needs to be
considered,
if the software is to be widely accepted.
=========================
BJ Freeman
Strategic Power Office with Supplier Automation
<http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=52>
Specialtymarket.com<http://www.specialtymarket.com/>
Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist
Chat Y! messenger: bjfr33man
Ryan Foster sent the following on 1/6/2011 2:51 PM:
I completely agree with you BJ. Considerations definitely have to be
made when things are removed, especially if they are tied to the
framework. What is being discussed is whether to remove themes, which
can be hot-deployed from being maintained in the trunk. For future
releases, all you would need to do is manually add your themes,
custom
or otherwise, to your production instance. If they are no longer tied
in svn to the trunk, they would not be effected by any updates or
releases.
Ryan L. Foster
801.671.0769
cont...@ryanlfoster.com
On Jan 6, 2011, at 3:40 PM, BJ Freeman wrote:
so there will not be any more releases based on the trunk?
I was speaking in the future when 11.04 or 12.04 happen.
it is the disregard of those that actually use this software instead
of just enjoy developing it.
I am a developer second and a business man first.
basically you can add all you want but when you want to remove you
must consider those that have counted on what was provided.
=========================
BJ Freeman
Strategic Power Office with Supplier
Automation<
http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=52>
Specialtymarket.com<http://www.specialtymarket.com/>
Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist
Chat Y! messenger: bjfr33man
Bruno Busco sent the following on 1/6/2011 2:33 PM:
The theme will still be present in the 10.04 releases.
No production servers should rely on trunk.
-Bruno
2011/1/6 BJ Freeman<bjf...@free-man.net>
I have one that uses the flat grey as default
so if I do an update from the svn the flat grey will and my
customization
disappear.
my sas uses all those in the themes, with my modification.
they will be removed. when the svn update is run.
those are just a few examples.
=========================
BJ Freeman
Strategic Power Office with Supplier Automation<
http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=52>
Specialtymarket.com<http://www.specialtymarket.com/>
Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist
Chat Y! messenger: bjfr33man
Bruno Busco sent the following on 1/6/2011 2:00 PM:
I am sorry, BJ, I do not see your point.
What could be the issue?
We will have less themes to maintain in the trunk (just Flat
Grey,
Tomahawk,
Default and Multiflex).
We will have more people that will be able to maintain additional
themes
in
the Themes Gallery.
Production servers will have each one its selected theme (one of
the OOTB,
one of the Themes Gallery or a customized version of them).
-Bruno
2011/1/6 BJ Freeman<bjf...@free-man.net>
how about those that are using ofbiz for SAS and will have many
themes
for
their clients.
Bruno Busco sent the following on 1/6/2011 12:51 PM:
Yes, having more than one theme in the trunk was originally
accepted in
order to use and show the visual theme selection feature OOTB.
Actually Bluelight, Dropping Crumbs and Tomahawk are one the
evolution
of
the other.
Each time we decided to create a new theme instead of replacing
the one
existing just to avoid problems to users.
My proposal is to remove Bluelight, Dropping Crumbs and
BizznessTime
from
the trunk and put them in a separate themes repository as
suggested by
Ryan.
Remove the actual version of the Flat Grey from the trunk and
put it in
the
themes repository.
Improve the Flat Grey theme in the trunk with the work you guys
are
doing.
In this way we will have in the trunk two themes for the
backend
(Actual
FlatGrey and Tomahawk) and two themes for the ecommerce
(Default
and
Multiflex).
In the themes repository there will be Bluelight, Dropping
Crumbs,
BizznessTime and the actual FlatGrey.
It could be a nice start for the theme repository (and gallery)
start.
-Bruno
2011/1/6 Jacques Le Roux<jacques.le.r...@les7arts.com>
Ryan Foster wrote:
inline...
Ryan L. Foster
801.671.0769
cont...@ryanlfoster.com
On Jan 6, 2011, at 11:38 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
Ryan Foster wrote:
Jacques,
I understand your concerns about support, and your thoughts
on the
themes has some valid points. However, in regards to the
BizznessTime theme, I never really intended for that to be
"my"
theme
anyway. I always viewed it as a community theme as that
was it's original intent and it was truly a collaborative
effort to
build it between myself, my colleagues at HotWax,
BrainFood,
and other members of the the OFBiz community.
Right, sorry for that Ryan. It's only because I know you
were one
of
the
"fathers" (the most important I guess) and helped much
at the beginning, my apologies.
At any rate, my time issues and focus have shifted
significantly
over
the last few months as I have left HotWax and gone into
independent consulting and freelance development. I plan on
taking
a
much more active role in the community in the months and
years ahead.
That's really a good, very good news!
As far as theme contributions go, I wonder if maybe it would
be a
good
idea to have a theme repo outside of the trunk that
individuals could commit to? The problem with theme
maintenance
once
a
new theme has been added to the trunk is that not
everyone has commit privileges to the trunk. This makes the
process
of
maintenance a lot more time consuming for individual
contributors as they have to rely on patches, updates,
collaboration,
etc, rather than just monitoring and maintaining their own
code.
This could certainly be discussed as themes are no blocking
parts
as
long
as *at least one works "perfectly"* (another way is to
become committer), opinions?
I think the way that Magento and Wordpress do it are good
examples.
With
Wordpress, there is one "official" theme that is
included with the install, but there are literally thousands
of themes
that are not maintained by Wordpress that they list on
there site http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/, and now with
the 3.0
release you can even search for new themes and install them
automatically from inside your Wordpress install. Doing it
this way
fosters wider community support by delegating maintenance of
these themes to individual contributors rather than forcing
it
on a
handful of committers and also allows developers to monetize
there contributions by offering "premium" themes and
plugins. In
fact,
there are many individuals and companies in the Wordpress
community that make their living solely by selling themes and
plugins.
This furthers solidifies the base of support for the
project by offering a mid-tier option for someone who wants
something
more
than OOTB but can't necessarily afford custom
development.
This makes good sense indeed. The only difference, I guess,
is
unfortunately the width of the audience. This does not mean
that we
should
not try...
Jacques
Jacques
Ryan L. Foster
801.671.0769
cont...@ryanlfoster.com
On Jan 6, 2011, at 8:17 AM, Adrian Crum wrote:
From my perspective, I don't see much chance in the Flat
Grey
visual
theme being abandoned. Enough people use it that it will
get the attention it needs. If Ryan isn't available to fix
something,
I
can fix it. If I'm not available, someone else could
fix it, etc.
-Adrian
On 1/6/2011 6:02 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
Ryan,
Your screen copies at
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-4092
looks really great! Looking forward for the
implementation...
My concerns are that maybe you will not have enough time
later to
keep
up with possible bugs or other issues. Look for instance
what
happened
to Bizzness Time
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-2398
.
Even if it looks a bit old, we have a theme which works
great. Why
taking any risks with it? Also I can't see any issues
with
having
more
themes. The more we have the better, I like to have the
choice.
Some
(rare) people prefer to use old things, see games
machines or
synthesizers for instance (I still love the DX-7 sound
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_DX7
http://www.vintagesynth.com/yamaha/dx7.php)
There are any evolved version of Flat Grey yet. So this
could be
the
1st
modern one still using the RTL mechanism introduced by
Adrian.
Just
choice the name!
Thanks
Jacques
Ryan Foster wrote:
IMO I see no reason to have a "Flat Grey Evolution"
theme.
Adrian
is
right, the Flat Grey theme hasn't had a visual update in
years and it looks very dated. It needs some love. Let's
not add
another improved version, let's just improve the
version we
have now. I think that is more efficient and more
beneficial in
the
long run.
As far as the tabs go, we can still keep a horizontal,
tab-like
navigation without actually having the tabs look like
tabs.
Because, the absolutely do look terrible displayed in
two
rows.
Adrian, I would be happy to collaborate with you on
this. I
think I have some ideas that could help. Email me
directly if you
want
to hash out some ideas outside of this mailing list
discussion.
Consequently, as far as new admin themes go, I guess I
can use
this
as
an opportunity as well to drop a teaser about a new
theme
I have been working on already for some time now that I
honestly
hope
will become the go-to theme for scalability and
customization, and that will eventually replace the Flat
Grey
theme
altogether. The new theme scales down very well to
800x600
and has minimal styling for maximum flexibility and
customization.
Stay tuned for more details in the next few days...
Ryan L. Foster
801.671.0769
cont...@ryanlfoster.com
On Jan 3, 2011, at 11:04 AM, Adrian Crum wrote:
Chiclet refers to a brand of chewing gum. The tabs look
like
pieces
of Chiclets chewing gum. They look terrible when they
are
displayed in two rows.
-Adrian
--- On Mon, 1/3/11, Jacques Le Roux<
jacques.le.r...@les7arts.com>
wrote:
By "chiclet" main navigation style,
you mean the tabs? Then I think we should keep Flat
Grey as
it is (because there are advantages
to have tabs) and create a Flat Grey evolution...
Jacques
From: "Adrian Crum"<adrian.c...@yahoo.com>
I was thinking we could use colors from the Apache
logo
and the BizznessTime theme. I would also like to get
rid of
the "chiclet"
main navigation style, and maybe have that menu in a
collapsible left column.
-Adrian
--- On Sun, 1/2/11, Sascha Rodekamp
<sascha.rodekamp.lynx...@googlemail.com>
wrote:
From: Sascha
Rodekamp<sascha.rodekamp.lynx...@googlemail.com
Subject: Re: Discussion: Flat Grey Visual Theme
To: dev@ofbiz.apache.org,
"Jacques Le Roux"<jacques.le.r...@les7arts.com>
Date: Sunday, January 2, 2011, 2:27 AM
I really would appreciate to keep the
Flat Gray. But you're right it needs a
few visual improvements.
Let me think about this, maybe somethink comes to
my mind
..... :-)
Cheers
2010/12/29 Jacques Le
Roux<jacques.le.r...@les7arts.com>
IIRW, it's the only really RTL capable. So a big YES
to keep
it,
of course.
I have no ideas though :/
Jacques
From: "Adrian Crum"<adrian.c...@yahoo.com>
The Flat Grey visual theme is getting old.
The current version of the theme is based on the
original
look
and feel of
OFBiz when I first joined the community - back in
2004.
Around
the Spring of
2007 I added some gradient gifs to make the
original style
a
little more
interesting.
After that, the visual theme was converted to a
floating
flexible layout
(to fit any size screen), it was made
sight-impaired accessible (font size
can be changed), and it added support for
bi-directional
layout
(for rtl
languages). Those design decisions were made by
the
OFBiz
community and, in
my opinion, continue to make the Flat Grey theme
the
fallback
theme when all
else fails. It just works.
Despite its advantages, it looks dated. I would
like to
update
it to make
it more modern, but maintain its advantages over
the other
themes. I'm
thinking it only needs css and gif file updates.
The
current
templates and
javascripts would be maintained.
If anyone is interested, they are welcome to help
out. I
would
also
appreciate any suggestions or comments.
Let me know what you think.
-Adrian
--
Sascha Rodekamp
Lynx-Consulting GmbH
Johanniskirchplatz 6
D-33615 Bielefeld
http://www.lynx.de
