This is all good, but what do we do for the existing image-location which has
been introduced earlier, with the Themes I guess?
I believe Nicolas saw that and followed the way...
It seems we 1st need a serious theme refactoring...
Jacques
From: "David E Jones" <[email protected]>
Thanks Scott, I agree. We need to use flexible and generic tools like CSS more,
and stop creating so many nightmares of
parameterization. It seems like over the last few years every new general
feature has been handled not by design and considering
the best generic solution, or by looking at where the framework can be extended
or changed to handle something better (while
keeping things like visual elements separated from business and technical
elements, ie the form widget ideally shouldn't have ANY
styling in it and even layout is separated from the base field definitions). It
seems like all of the new features are handled by
parameterizing the heck out of default templates and creating decorator screens and all
sorts of inconsistent "conventions".
This maybe goes back to the the discussion in the "hiding functionality in
ofbiz." thread. It's pretty clear that a big problem is
near zero collaboration on design. I know that's difficult with a larger group,
and that when the active group of developers in
OFBiz was smaller we were _constantly_ discussing new feature ideas and making
dramatic changes to initial ideas through those
discussions. That started with the early days when Andrew and I spent hours on
the phone discussing things, so much so that we
changed cell phone carriers so we could use the unlimited mobile to mobile
minutes on the same carrier. That continued with the
various people who got involved early on too, sometimes with phone calls and
often with long discussions on the mailing lists.
It's definitely the case that not every little thing was discussed, and many
things were discussed after a commit (which was often
used to facilitate communication and solicit feedback since the contributor and
user communities were both much smaller). These
days there seems to be almost no discussion, and even very few requests for
feedback... and understandably so as many of the
requests for feedback result in very non-productive mudslinging.
And yes, not every idea is a good one and many things really don't belong in
the framework. Putting things in themes instead of
the framework is a good idea for many things. And on the topic of themes, it
would be nice (and reduce the incredible amount of
redundancy in themes) if the themes were limited to visual artifacts such as
images and style sheets, instead of also including
various templates. Take these hugely redundant theme templates (especially for
header) and combine that with the practice of
parameterizing every little thing... and you have an error-prone tangle that
makes customization difficult and discourages
innovation and improvement in the project.
Sorry for the rant, but this kind of thing has been going on for a long time
and is another reason why I still maintain that the
ONLY way OFBiz will ever have a clean framework separation, and even a clean
framework, is if it is a separate project maintained
by a different group of people than maintains the more business-oriented
functionality of OFBiz.
-David
On Apr 26, 2011, at 4:37 AM, Scott Gray wrote:
I agree with Adrian, the style element alone already gives more that enough
control to theme designers.
Every web developer has (or should have) at least a basic understanding of css
and every time we step away from such a standard
(like with additional attributes in the widgets) we make OFBiz a little harder
to use and maintain, it's plenty hard enough
already. Not every idea is a good idea and not every good idea is really
needed.
Regards
Scott
HotWax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
On 26/04/2011, at 8:37 AM, Adrian Crum wrote:
Main style sheet:
.button-bar ul a.create,.button-bar a.create {
padding:6px 10px 6px 10px;
}
Optional icons style sheet:
.button-bar ul a.create,.button-bar a.create {
background: url(../images/button_sprite.png) no-repeat 0px 0px;
padding:6px 10px 6px 30px;
}
No changes to markup needed. It is the same thing we do to switch rendering
from LTR to RTL.
-Adrian
On 4/25/2011 1:19 PM, Nicolas Malin wrote:
Your are against me ? My popularity increases :)
At this time :
Screen definition :
------------------------
<link target="EditExampleLayer" ... style="buttontext create"/>
Output html render :
---------------------------
<a class="buttontext create" id="FindExample_LF_1_link"
href="javascript:void(0);">Nouvel exemple</a>
Style theme definition :
------------------------------
style.css :
.button-bar ul a.create,.button-bar a.create {
background: url(../images/button_sprite.png) no-repeat 0px 0px;
padding:6px 10px 6px 30px;
}
My proposition, after your first remark :
Screen definition :
------------------------
<link target="EditExampleLayer" ... style="buttontext">
<icons name="add">
</link>
Or
<link target="EditExampleLayer" ... style="buttontext" icons="add">
Or
<link target="EditExampleLayer" ... style="buttontext" purpose="add">
Output html render :
---------------------------
<a class="buttontext add" ... >Nouvel exemple</a>
Style theme definition :
------------------------------
icons.css :
.button-bar ul a.add,.button-bar a.add {
background: url(../images/button_sprite.png) no-repeat 0px 0px;
padding:6px 10px 6px 30px;
}
What's changes ? What is broken? Your are against widgets controlling styling
but at this time all icons define by style
attribute on elements to be used by theme. I propose more fexibility to explain
the element's purpose that will be work by
screen renderer and after by theme designer.
To continue update icons improvement :
<set field="iconsModeViewEnumId from-field="userPreferences.VT_ICONS_MODE_VIEW"/>
<!--If User whant to view icons-->
<set field="iconsStyleLocation" from-field="userPreferences.VT_ICONS_"
global="true"/><!--If User have preference on icons to
use-->
<service service-name="getIconsVisualThemeResources"><!--return the css file to
use that contains icons definition-->
<field-map field-name="visualThemeId"/>
<field-map field-name="iconsModeViewEnumId"/>
</service>
Nicolas
Le 25/04/2011 14:25, Adrian Crum a écrit :
I'm against the idea of widgets controlling styling. Period. I am against
Nicolas or any other developer deciding which icons
get used and where - that is a decision that should be reserved for theme
designers.
To summarize my view:
1. Icon display and the choice of icons should be left to the theme designer.
Therefore, icon references should be kept in
stylesheets.
2. If a theme designer wants to give the user an option to use icons or not,
then the theme's templates can conditionally load
a cascading stylesheet that includes icons.
-Adrian
On 4/25/2011 5:14 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
On a second thought, we may use another technology than CSS and still have
styles, see for instance in POS: posstyles.xml. So
yes,
styles add flexibility and independence.
At 1st glance, Adrian's proposition sounds better from flexibility POV. But, if
I have well understood, is still limited to
icons or
not in the whole OFBiz (like Google bar) when Nicolas's allows to set it by
screens (why not even by form fields or menu
entries?)
I think this is really an important point in UI and should be discussed by the
whole developers community, any other
opinions,
suggestions?
Thanks
Jacques
From: "Adrian Crum" <[email protected]>
You can control icon display through user preferences without embedding the
icons in markup. A user setting can
conditionally load
a stylesheet that references the icons.
I'm not against having new icons in the project. An expanded selection of icons
is a great tool for theme designers to use.
But
their use should be determined by the theme designers - not by screen widgets.
The OFBiz community has worked hard over the
past 4
years trying to get styling out of markup and into stylesheets. I will push
hard against any effort to reverse that.
-Adrian
On 4/25/2011 1:32 AM, Nicolas Malin wrote:
Adrian I understand your remark but I'm not completely in agreement with that.
Icons is at once of the most visual but also a help user. We could associated
directly to a themes but the reality is more
complex. If I take the GTK project, every user can define if he wants icons,
icons and text or only text independently of
the
themes.
On issue OFBIZ-4259 I do an error to use icons through img because although
they are images, they are a more complex
management.
I'm not for their exploitation only through css or style because although they
results from it. We limit their display
rendering
on one technology et style don't allow user preference managment.
I propose to continue icons integration, add a new element in screen renderer
that indicates what icons use on menu and
form
field. Thence following the user preference and then the themes we display
icons or not. Whether rendering css by then or
treatment with an image, it will be template renderer are made their work.
Nicolas
Le 25/04/2011 05:21, Ryan Foster a écrit :
I thought the original idea that Nicolas proposed, was for this to be
configurable by theme (adding a
layoutSettings.VT_ICONS_LOC to data config). I think that you should be able
to turn icons on and off as well as change
the
icon library location.
Ryan L. Foster
801.671.0769
[email protected]
ryanlfoster.com
On Apr 24, 2011, at 6:29 AM, Adrian Crum wrote:
The main problem I have with this is the idea that theme design has been taken
away from the theme designer. In other
words,
icons should be added by the theme designer - they should not appear in all
themes by default.
-Adrian
On 4/24/2011 5:26 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
It's actually related to https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-4259 and
r1095984
I did not see any issues in Flat Grey, could you post a screenshot?
If it's really blocking (I doubt we can't fix any related issues), it should be
easy to configure with a property in
widget.properties to bypass image rendering in menus (HtmlMenuRenderer.java
around line 500) and buttons
(MacroFormRenderer.java look for submitField.getImageLocation(context) or
maybe rather ModelFormField.java but this one
existed before, see http://svn.apache.org/viewvc?view=revision&revision=1095984
for files changed)
Jacques
From: "Adrian Crum"<[email protected]>
I see that icons were added to menu items - maybe in rev 1088549. Is there a
chance we can revert that? Or at least
make it
configurable on a per-theme basis? The new icons break the layout in the Flat
Gray theme. It would be helpful if a
theme can
choose to use the icons or not use them.
-Adrian
