Adrian, I am sorry to put again this on the table. I know we have already discussed about but I think that you are trying to better explain over and over a wrong concept. You can see how it is wrong when you say "In the original visual theme, the tab-bar decorator was used for the sub-menu at the top of the main content area, button-style-1 was used for intra-app links, and button-style-2 was used for inter-app links."
It cannot be a visual theme to use a decorator for a sub-menu, button-style-1 for intra-app links etc. It is the application itself. So why the application should decide which style should be used for a sub-menu? It should only identify the sub-menu as a sub-menu and then the visual theme should decide to decorate the sub-menu with a specific visual aspect. If the application developer A is free to use button-style-1 for intra-app links and button-style-2 for inter-app links then application developer B would be free to use button-style-1, let me say, for backoffice links and button-style-2 for ecommerce web site links. Then how could a visual theme designer create a graphics that somehow helps the user to distinguish between links? He could not do anything, he will understand that if the two decoration classes have not the same CSS the links will appear different without a clear reason and so we will have that the two classes will be, in a proper designed theme, with the same CSS. We are moving now towards having more visual themes hosted separately from the main trunk. If we do not clear away those ambiguity we will never have a solid base in the main trunk to let external visual themes to rely on. So my suggestion is to change all style names that do not describe element functionality but visual aspect. Of course I get your suggestion to spend some time removing box* styles but they should not be the only one to leave. -Bruno 2011/1/29 Adrian Crum <adrian.c...@sandglass-software.com> > I'm sure we discussed this just a few weeks ago, but I will go over it > again... > > The button-style-1 and button-style-2 CSS classes are button-bar class > decorators. The button-bar class has other decorators too - tab-bar and > tool-bar. Altogether, there are four button-bar decorators. The button-bar > decorators were not intended to be used alone to style links, but they have > been used that way recently and I have been fixing those instances as I come > across them. > > Setting up the CSS classes this way gives the graphic artist some > flexibility in styling the buttons. Attributes that all button bars have in > common (spacing, positioning, orientation) can be applied to the button-bar > class, and then the various decorators can have attributes that make them > unique. > > It is up to the application developer to decide what the various button-bar > decorators represent. The decorators have no inherent purpose - they simply > provide the developer with some choices. In the original visual theme, the > tab-bar decorator was used for the sub-menu at the top of the main content > area, button-style-1 was used for intra-app links, and button-style-2 was > used for inter-app links. > > I see no reason to remove any of the button-bar decorators. The decorators > give the developer and graphic artist a palette of choices. That same > concept gives us a choice of table header styles, table grid styles, etc. > > If there is an interest in removing unnecessary styles, then (in my > opinion) that effort should be invested in removing the deprecated CSS > styles. You can find them listed at the bottom of the Flat Grey maincss.css > file. Removing the box* styles would be a good place to start. > > -Adrian > > > On 1/29/2011 6:46 AM, Bruno Busco wrote: > >> Hi, >> again on this topic. >> >> I have seen that in the new Flat grey theme the button-style-1 and >> button-style-2 are rendered in the same way. >> I agree on this and was going to do the same on the Tomahawk theme. >> While doing this I asked myself if it does make sense to keep those two >> styles. >> >> They seems to be intended to be used to differentiate between intra-app >> and >> inter-app links. >> But why an user should be aware of the matter that a link is an intra-app >> or >> inter-app ? >> Shouldn't it be completely transparent to him? >> >> I think that keeping these styles is only confusing and I would like to >> remove it. >> Moreover we should go toward style names that describe element functions >> and >> not their apparence. >> For example the "create", "delete", "search", "refresh" button styles have >> not been defined as "button-with-plus", "button-with-cross", >> "button-with-maglens" etc. >> >> The new Demo page layout is a great tool to test themes. >> It could also work as a "style dictionary" having all allowed styles >> present >> on the page and specifiyng that only styles present in this page should be >> used in the rest of the code. >> >> Does anybody see any issue if we get rid of the button-style-1 and >> button-style-2 styles? >> >> Thank you, >> Bruno >> >>
