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    • What bundled themes work best in 2.0?

    Posted by Darren on Tue 12 of Aug, 2008 02:04 GMT-0000 posts: 4 United States

    I've recently updated (a few hours ago!) from 1.9.11 to the much anticipated 2.0, but am now faced with somewhat of a quandry. I customized the default2 theme, but it seems partially 'broken'. Broken is really a bit harsh, more that some elements are not visually pleasing (like the module headers are much too large).

    I'm sure I could easily fix it but I'm feeling like I would I be better choosing a "newer" theme that is more in line with the version 2 way of doing things i.e. not using tables for layout. So the question/s are is this a better long term approach for ensure better compatibility for future Tiki releases and if so, what should I choose as my base theme from which to begin my customization? I noticed that there seem to be a couple of new bundled themes like nornia and thenews, so would these be a good choice?

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    Posted by Gary Cunningham-Lee on Tue 12 of Aug, 2008 07:09 GMT-0000 posts: 254 Japan

    First of all, Nornia isn't a new theme. It's an old theme that was deleted from the 1.9 branch but was overlooked for removal from 2.0. I'd stay away from that one.

    New to the bundle are Darkroom, Feb12, The News, and Tikinewt. These all use the *litecss method for layout (divs only for main page layout, etc.) and so are more modern in that sense. There'll be more info on modifying *litecss themes soon (I hope), but for now just be aware that column widths and margins are sensitive and must stay in synch with each other. This is indicated in the CSS file for the theme. These themes, having no main tables to "sandbox" stray div tags, are vulnerable to breaking up like a cubist painting if there is an extra /div tag in the wikitext or somewhere, so care is needed in that way.

    Also look at the alternative themes for 2.0: absE, Andreas08, Andreas09, Fluid Index, CandiiClouds, Faulkner, Kubrick, and so on. There are download links on the New_themes page. Of these, some — the last three listed for example, use a table for layout, mainly because IE7 doesn't cooperate with a centered box loading content of wide sizes, etc., using divs only.

    All the themes I listed were made new or updated for Tiki 2, so should provide good starting points for customizing.

    -- Gary

    Posted by Darren on Tue 12 of Aug, 2008 12:38 GMT-0000 posts: 4 United States

    First of all, Nornia isn't a new theme. It's an old theme that was deleted from the 1.9 branch but was overlooked for removal from 2.0. I'd stay away from that one.

    New to the bundle are Darkroom, Feb12, The News, and Tikinewt. These all use the *litecss method for layout (divs only for main page layout, etc.) and so are more modern in that sense. There'll be more info on modifying *litecss themes soon (I hope), but for now just be aware that column widths and margins are sensitive and must stay in synch with each other. This is indicated in the CSS file for the theme. These themes, having no main tables to "sandbox" stray div tags, are vulnerable to breaking up like a cubist painting if there is an extra /div tag in the wikitext or somewhere, so care is needed in that way.

    Also look at the alternative themes for 2.0: absE, Andreas08, Andreas09, Fluid Index, CandiiClouds, Faulkner, Kubrick, and so on. There are download links on the New_themes page. Of these, some — the last three listed for example, use a table for layout, mainly because IE7 doesn't cooperate with a centered box loading content of wide sizes, etc., using divs only.

    All the themes I listed were made new or updated for Tiki 2, so should provide good starting points for customizing.

    -- Gary


    So, tables aren't a bad thing for layout in the case of Tiki (because of width issues and/or Internet Explorer)? I've certainly encountered broken layouts through CSS only, in my basic attempts at web design, but have always felt obligated to steer clear of tables.

    I'll have a look at some of the newer themes you suggested and thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

    Posted by Gary Cunningham-Lee on Tue 12 of Aug, 2008 15:31 GMT-0000 posts: 254 Japan

    Well, the objections to tables are mainly that they were never actually meant to be for layout, bur rather to hold tabular data, and also that they make the page hard to understand for screen readers or other nonstandard web clients. So in an ideal world we wouldn't want to use them for layout. But for some types of visual arrangements it's hard to avoid at least one. For a theme like Kubrick, where the content is in a center rectangle with three columns and margins on each side, in my experience there's no way to do that without a table, and have the center column be able to widen to accomodate large data tables or images, etc. Also screenreaders are apparently able to cope with a table used like this.

    TikiWiki probably has some of the most demanding requirements for the layout method due to its expected flexibility. Not only does the center column change width dynamically, but also either or both of the side columns can be turned off by the user on any page. This makes it pretty hard to have a visual design that works nicely in every configuration and isn't to heavy with overhead. I think the Faulkner theme is probably the most complex due to its page background images.

    -- Gary

    Posted by dsbach on Sun 21 of Sep, 2008 01:54 GMT-0000 posts: 1

    First of all, Nornia isn't a new theme. It's an old theme that was deleted from the 1.9 branch but was overlooked for removal from 2.0. I'd stay away from that one.

    New to the bundle are Darkroom, Feb12, The News, and Tikinewt. These all use the *litecss method for layout (divs only for main page layout, etc.) and so are more modern in that sense. There'll be more info on modifying *litecss themes soon (I hope), but for now just be aware that column widths and margins are sensitive and must stay in synch with each other. This is indicated in the CSS file for the theme. These themes, having no main tables to "sandbox" stray div tags, are vulnerable to breaking up like a cubist painting if there is an extra /div tag in the wikitext or somewhere, so care is needed in that way.

    Also look at the alternative themes for 2.0: absE, Andreas08, Andreas09, Fluid Index, CandiiClouds, Faulkner, Kubrick, and so on. There are download links on the New_themes page. Of these, some — the last three listed for example, use a table for layout, mainly because IE7 doesn't cooperate with a centered box loading content of wide sizes, etc., using divs only.

    All the themes I listed were made new or updated for Tiki 2, so should provide good starting points for customizing.

    -- Gary