Update.

These are the plans I have for the new default templates. Nothing is definitive ofcourse. Please let me know what you think of this.

This is the list of requirements as it is now:

• remove all inline css from templates
• remove all head tag css from templates (except maybe for css for page layouts and positioning of complex assets)
• remove all table layout that is used for positioning
• replace template vars that are incorrect or not working
• decide where to use which standard tag
• come up with a number of standard classes, which are used consistently in every template (like the "pagination" class, as it is used now)
• use IDs where appropriate (to be able to target specific assets/divs/whatevers)
• come up with a set of rules for templates of new contributions
• compliant with XHTML 1.0 strict, WCAG Priority 1, Section 508 (US) =~ Webrichtlijnen (NL)

The plan:

1. strip all unneccesary stuff from templates (working on it now)
2. replace template vars that are incorrect or not working
3. use standard html tags consistently (asset title is always h3 etc.)
4. make the templates in a way that they look decent without any css
5. add standard classes and IDs
6. document the standard classes and IDs

What about YUI?

I don't think we should use the YUI grids css "as is", for the following reasons:

• Does not validate.
• Extra divs required that don't do anything except making YUI css work.
• Classnames are not informative: we want a left column to be called “left column” and not something like “yui-g”.
• Do we want to force WebGUI users to use YUI?

But besides that it is quite good:

• Scalable.
• Cross browser compatibility.

Proposal: I would like to use parts of YUI css to make simpeler layout css, with understandable classnames. The css will be specific to one template, instead of being one file that covers all. We can put this positioning css in the HEAD block of the respective templates.

Where to put CSS?

Only external stylesheets imported with the link tag. Exception: positioning css for complex assets and layouts can be in a <style> tag in the HEAD block of those assets.

What do we do with inline styles?

There are some inline styles that are necessary, for example the css for a file icon image (attachments) and the thumbs up/down in the CS. Lets find all of these, put them into a separate stylesheet, webguistyles.css. The elements where the inline css is removed will then need a class, e.g. wg-attachIcon and wg-ratingThumb, with a “wg” prefix to make clear this is a WebGUI standard class and that you shouldn't remove if you are editing the template.

CSS hacks

We would like to minimize the use of css hacks, for reasons of code readability and forward compatibility. Putting IE only stylesheets within conditional comments is an option, but I would suggest the following approach. Put this code at the top of the body in the style template:

<!--[if IE 7]> <div id="ie7only"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 6]> <div id="ie6only"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if lte IE 5.5000]> <div id="ie5only"> <![endif]-->

And this all the way at the bottom:
<!--[if IE]></div><![endif]-->

As described here: http://www.positioniseverything.net/articles/cc-plus.html. Then you can use one stylesheet and use these IDs as selectors for specific IE versions, e.g.:

#content {
    width: 900px;
    padding: 30px
}

#ie5only #content {
    /* fix box model for IE5 */
    width: 960px;
}

Rogier | United Knowledge
www.unitedknowledge.nl · www.webgui-help.nl

> Well the hr brought us to a whole different issue: do you really  
> want the templates to be backwards compatible? Those sites might  
> also need the table layouts in the CS - which we want to remove  
> because it is not considered good practice. Or rely on loose  p>tags for spacing, etcetera.I was thinking more about "what would  
> you want the html to be, if you were going to design a theme" and  
> making good html, but maybe we need to think about this some more:  
> do we want to replace the old defaults right away or maybe make both  
> old and new defaults available? How many sites are there out there  
> that use default templates anyway?
>
It doesn't need to be 100% backward compatible, but at the same time I  
don't want people's site's going all googlyeyed either.

There are over 10,000 WebGUI installations out there, and some of  
them, especially hosting companies, have many sites per installation.  
So we're talking about a lot of sites in existence. And those are just  
the ones I know about. There are, I'm sure, thousands more that have  
never talked to us, or never downloaded WebGUI from plainblack.com  
(but rather a mirror), etc.




JT Smith
ph: 703-286-2525 x810
fx: 312-264-5382

Create like a god. Command like a king. Work like a slave.

Maybe, the new templates could be included as part of the install SQL but are not automatically updated during an upgrade (include package files for the brave). Or they have a different naming convention so that the two sets can happily co-exist in an upgraded environment.

Just a thought.