On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 9:09 AM, Petko Yotov <5...@5ko.fr> wrote: > Simon writes: >> >> I have to speak in strong support of a separate group for skins >> I think that the community is asking for this, and more, is volunteering >> to make it happen. > > > I have asked the community for the "reasons" why should a category of > recipes (Skins, and not Administration or Uploads for example) be moved to > its own group. I wanted to know what problems we currently have that require > a separate group. And I also asked how should we deal with this group and > with the Cookbook group translated in other languages. > > For the moment, the only real inconvenience we can agree upon is that from > the names of some pages (eg. Flickr, PhotoGallery or Choice) it is not > immediately clear that the page is about a skin. > > This is a problem with readability. > > I am willing to find a way to fix this inconvenience, but we actually found > more than one way to do it and we should select the better one. > > There is also something that should be clear - the Cookbook contains many > things: modules, simple recipes, skins, even some core documentation. I have > the feeling that for some people the cookbook should only contain "modules", > additional programs that are downloaded and installed. For these people > there are only modules and skins, nothing else, and they see that other > pieces of software only have those. Our cookbook is more than just for > modules, and the skins are one category among other recipes/modules. > > Peter explained it better than me. > > If we create a new Skins group, it should be considered part of the > Cookbook. > > >> Having skins in a separate group would have several benefits >> * it clearly identifies skins (look and feel) as separate from add ons >> (functional extensions), thus emphasising to PmWiki potential users this >> benefit > > > We might agree that a number of skin recipes offer far more than look and > feel, with SiteHeader, SiteFooter, RightBar, skin themes etc. We also have a > number of look and feel recipes that are not skins, and a number of recipes > that concern or manage skins, but are not skins. There is not a clear line > what should be in this new Skins group, and why some recipes shouldn't. > > >> * it obviates the need to categorising, or naming conventions for skins > > > Categories: there isn't a problem or a difficulty to add categories to the > recipes - and if one isn't added, just tell me and I'll add it. > > The benefit of having categories rather than WikiGroups is that a recipe can > be in many categories but in a single group. Moving all skin-related recipes > to a new group will not obviate the need to categorising, for example the > blog- or gallery- oriented skins in these categories. > > Naming conventions: using a page name "Skins.Name" is a naming convention, > but instead of a suffix you ask for a prefix. Currently there are no naming > conventions, most of the skins end in *Skin. > > To improve the readability, an alternative to a new group could be to just > rename the other skins to have a suffix. This will be easier and as > effective. > > >> * the cookbook group is big enough without skins > > > It is also even bigger without the RSS recipes -- should we move them to a > new group? > > I feel that most visitors either search, or browse the Cookbook categories > to find what they need or might use. Nobody reads all Cookbook pages one > after another. > > >> Even if there is a bit of manual work to fix links, etc, I'm happy enough >> to contribute. > > > It is not only a bit, it is also about clarity (no clear line what should be > there), maintenance (new upload directories) and future (other languages). > > I am not strongly opposed to a new Skins group (we have more than 90 skins) > but I am still unsure it would be better than, for example, have a *Skin > suffix, in order to fix the perceived readability inconvenience. > > Petko > > > > _______________________________________________ > pmwiki-users mailing list > pmwiki-users@pmichaud.com > http://www.pmichaud.com/mailman/listinfo/pmwiki-users
At first, I was all for having a new WikiGroup for Skins, separate from the Cookbook. One of the reasons was that I have been thinking about and trying to limit my skin designs to just layout and presentation, not functionality or content. However, it's been difficult in all cases to make a clear distinction. Groups to me offer a very very high level of categorisation, categories a lower and a bit more flexible. I am changing my mind about where skins should live on the wiki, and agree that the Cookbook group is the right place, but with some additional work to make skins a bit more apparent, and possibly some additional effort to expose the distinction for new people looking for information (although already having a separate entry in the side bar I would think should be enough). _______________________________________________ pmwiki-users mailing list pmwiki-users@pmichaud.com http://www.pmichaud.com/mailman/listinfo/pmwiki-users
