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Posted to dev@roller.apache.org by Greg Hamer <ro...@gmail.com> on 2005/12/26 23:40:12 UTC

Themes: Contributing

Dear Devs,

I am on the advisory board for a design school.  I would like to propose as a  student project for upcoming semesters that students create Roller theme pages (e.g. Weblog.vm, _day.vm, etc.)

My question to you is does Roller accept new stock themes that would be included in the future Roller release distributions?  If so, could you please sketch out for me what process students should follow to submit their themes?  Also, could you sketch guidelines that might be used in determining if a theme might be acceptable or unacceptable?

Thank you again for your great work.  I hope that you are having an enjoyable holiday.  Best regards for good health and prosperity in the new year.

                g

Re: Themes: Contributing

Posted by Allen Gilliland <Al...@Sun.COM>.
On Thu, 2006-01-05 at 14:09, David M Johnson wrote:
> Greg,
> 
> Some of our design gurus at Sun are interested in helping out with  
> some implementation pointers help you get started with theme  
> development. Would you be interested in a having a short tele-con to  
> kick things off?
> 
> Regading guidelies: the only guidelines we have now are in the user  
> guide about packaging themes, I think that's about all we have. See  
> section 6.4.
> 
> http://people.apache.org/~snoopdave/doc_drafts/roller-user-guide-210.pdf

I sent a response back before Christmas about some aspects of our themes implementation that could probably use some additional thought.  I don't think it will really affect how the themes are created, but we may want to think about themes are packaged and deployed.

> 
> There are also a couple of proposals on the table:
> 
> I believe this one is already in Roller (right Allen?)
> http://rollerweblogger.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp? 
> page=Proposal_StandardizedPageNames
> 
> And this one is still pending?
> http://rollerweblogger.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp? 
> page=Proposal_StandardizedTemplates

actually, those are the same thing and yes, i've already commited that code.  I actually scaled back the implementation so that we only do 2 things ...

1. manually force all weblogs to use "Weblog" as the default page link.  this is done via the Roller 2.1 upgrade procedure.

2. lock certain templates so they can't be changed.  those include Weblog, _css, _day, _decorator.  As of Roller 2.1 a user can only edit the contents of those templates, not the name, description, or link.  Users also can't delete those templates either.

this shouldn't affect anything either, just as long as they don't deviate from our standard template names.

-- Allen


> 
> - Dave
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Dec 26, 2005, at 5:40 PM, Greg Hamer wrote:
> 
> > Dear Devs,
> >
> > I am on the advisory board for a design school.  I would like to  
> > propose as a  student project for upcoming semesters that students  
> > create Roller theme pages (e.g. Weblog.vm, _day.vm, etc.)
> >
> > My question to you is does Roller accept new stock themes that  
> > would be included in the future Roller release distributions?  If  
> > so, could you please sketch out for me what process students should  
> > follow to submit their themes?  Also, could you sketch guidelines  
> > that might be used in determining if a theme might be acceptable or  
> > unacceptable?
> >
> > Thank you again for your great work.  I hope that you are having an  
> > enjoyable holiday.  Best regards for good health and prosperity in  
> > the new year.
> >
> >                 g
> 


Re: Themes: Contributing

Posted by Greg Hamer <ro...@gmail.com>.
Dave,

Regarding a telecon, no problem.  With a day or two's advance notice, I can clear my schedule for whatever time is convenient for the rest of the participants.  fyi ... I am on Pacific Standard Time.

Ultimately, I think the result of our effort could be an expanded version of the current User Guide section on "Customizing your weblog's theme".

My target audience is design students.  For them I believe that Roller themes present a unique but valuable challenge.  Unique in that from a design perspective, designing with Velocimacros and multipage templates (Weblog, _day, etc) adds a level of complexity design students may not have yet encountered.  Valuable in that designing for dynamic sites is an important skill (versus, say, the designs at the highly regarded csszengarden.com which uses static content), and contributing to an open source project will get work from their portfolio into the public domain (i.e. a nice reference).

btw ... both Allen and Matt's comments from last week would definately be reflected in process.

Please let me know when will be a convenient time for the call.

            Best regards,

            g

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David M Johnson" <Da...@Sun.COM>
To: "Greg Hamer" <ro...@gmail.com>
Cc: "Linda Skrocki" <Li...@Sun.COM>; <ro...@incubator.apache.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 2:09 PM
Subject: Re: Themes: Contributing


Greg,

Some of our design gurus at Sun are interested in helping out with some implementation pointers help you get started with theme development. Would you be interested in a having a short tele-con to kick things off?

Regarding guidelines: the only guidelines we have now are in the user guide about packaging themes, I think that's about all we have. See section 6.4.

http://people.apache.org/~snoopdave/doc_drafts/roller-user-guide-210.pdf

There are also a couple of proposals on the table:

I believe this one is already in Roller (right Allen?)
http://rollerweblogger.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Proposal_StandardizedPageNames 

And this one is still pending?
http://rollerweblogger.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Proposal_StandardizedTemplates 

- Dave


On Dec 26, 2005, at 5:40 PM, Greg Hamer wrote:

> Dear Devs,
>
> I am on the advisory board for a design school.  I would like to  
> propose as a  student project for upcoming semesters that students  
> create Roller theme pages (e.g. Weblog.vm, _day.vm, etc.)
>
> My question to you is does Roller accept new stock themes that  
> would be included in the future Roller release distributions?  If  
> so, could you please sketch out for me what process students should  
> follow to submit their themes?  Also, could you sketch guidelines  
> that might be used in determining if a theme might be acceptable or  
> unacceptable?
>
> Thank you again for your great work.  I hope that you are having an  
> enjoyable holiday.  Best regards for good health and prosperity in  
> the new year.
>
>                 g

Re: Themes: Contributing

Posted by David M Johnson <Da...@Sun.COM>.
Greg,

Some of our design gurus at Sun are interested in helping out with  
some implementation pointers help you get started with theme  
development. Would you be interested in a having a short tele-con to  
kick things off?

Regading guidelies: the only guidelines we have now are in the user  
guide about packaging themes, I think that's about all we have. See  
section 6.4.

http://people.apache.org/~snoopdave/doc_drafts/roller-user-guide-210.pdf

There are also a couple of proposals on the table:

I believe this one is already in Roller (right Allen?)
http://rollerweblogger.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp? 
page=Proposal_StandardizedPageNames

And this one is still pending?
http://rollerweblogger.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp? 
page=Proposal_StandardizedTemplates

- Dave




On Dec 26, 2005, at 5:40 PM, Greg Hamer wrote:

> Dear Devs,
>
> I am on the advisory board for a design school.  I would like to  
> propose as a  student project for upcoming semesters that students  
> create Roller theme pages (e.g. Weblog.vm, _day.vm, etc.)
>
> My question to you is does Roller accept new stock themes that  
> would be included in the future Roller release distributions?  If  
> so, could you please sketch out for me what process students should  
> follow to submit their themes?  Also, could you sketch guidelines  
> that might be used in determining if a theme might be acceptable or  
> unacceptable?
>
> Thank you again for your great work.  I hope that you are having an  
> enjoyable holiday.  Best regards for good health and prosperity in  
> the new year.
>
>                 g


Re: Requiring email address at signup

Posted by "Matthew P. Schmidt" <ma...@javalobby.org>.
Unfortunately, the paperwork hasn't come back yet.  So its a patch for 
now :)

Matt Raible wrote:

>On 12/29/05, Matthew P. Schmidt <ma...@javalobby.org> wrote:
>  
>
>>Hi everyone.  These days, having an email address is mandatory for most
>>types of services.  At JRoller, we had to hack the
>>UserNewAction.validate method to throw an error if the username is
>>already in use or the email address is missing.  I would like to propose
>>that we add these two validation requirements to the core.  Any
>>objections?  If not, I can send the patch.
>>    
>>
>
>No objections here.  Do you have commit rights yet?  If so, just
>commit the change - no need for a patch. ;-)
>
>Matt
>
>(uh, oh, 2 Matt's - I'm going to have to start going by "Raible",
>which I do at most places with 2 Matt's)
>
>  
>
>>-Matt
>>
>>    
>>

Re: Requiring email address at signup

Posted by "Matthew P. Schmidt" <ma...@javalobby.org>.
Hmm, it appears that my other suggestion (check existing username) also 
exists, but its buried  in UserManager.addUser which bubbles up a 
RollerException and is turned into an ActionError.  A little out of the 
way, but still gets the job done. 

-Matt

Matt Raible wrote:

>On 12/29/05, Matthew P. Schmidt <ma...@javalobby.org> wrote:
>  
>
>>Hi everyone.  These days, having an email address is mandatory for most
>>types of services.  At JRoller, we had to hack the
>>UserNewAction.validate method to throw an error if the username is
>>already in use or the email address is missing.  I would like to propose
>>that we add these two validation requirements to the core.  Any
>>objections?  If not, I can send the patch.
>>    
>>
>
>No objections here.  Do you have commit rights yet?  If so, just
>commit the change - no need for a patch. ;-)
>
>Matt
>
>(uh, oh, 2 Matt's - I'm going to have to start going by "Raible",
>which I do at most places with 2 Matt's)
>
>  
>
>>-Matt
>>
>>    
>>

Re: Requiring email address at signup

Posted by "Matthew P. Schmidt" <ma...@javalobby.org>.
Actually, it looks like UserBaseAction already handles the missing email 
address.  Bad on me for not checking the superclass :)  I'll still 
provide the patch for the existing username.

-Matt

Matt Raible wrote:

>On 12/29/05, Matthew P. Schmidt <ma...@javalobby.org> wrote:
>  
>
>>Hi everyone.  These days, having an email address is mandatory for most
>>types of services.  At JRoller, we had to hack the
>>UserNewAction.validate method to throw an error if the username is
>>already in use or the email address is missing.  I would like to propose
>>that we add these two validation requirements to the core.  Any
>>objections?  If not, I can send the patch.
>>    
>>
>
>No objections here.  Do you have commit rights yet?  If so, just
>commit the change - no need for a patch. ;-)
>
>Matt
>
>(uh, oh, 2 Matt's - I'm going to have to start going by "Raible",
>which I do at most places with 2 Matt's)
>
>  
>
>>-Matt
>>
>>    
>>

Re: Requiring email address at signup

Posted by Matt Raible <mr...@gmail.com>.
On 12/29/05, Matthew P. Schmidt <ma...@javalobby.org> wrote:
> Hi everyone.  These days, having an email address is mandatory for most
> types of services.  At JRoller, we had to hack the
> UserNewAction.validate method to throw an error if the username is
> already in use or the email address is missing.  I would like to propose
> that we add these two validation requirements to the core.  Any
> objections?  If not, I can send the patch.

No objections here.  Do you have commit rights yet?  If so, just
commit the change - no need for a patch. ;-)

Matt

(uh, oh, 2 Matt's - I'm going to have to start going by "Raible",
which I do at most places with 2 Matt's)

>
> -Matt
>

Requiring email address at signup

Posted by "Matthew P. Schmidt" <ma...@javalobby.org>.
Hi everyone.  These days, having an email address is mandatory for most 
types of services.  At JRoller, we had to hack the 
UserNewAction.validate method to throw an error if the username is 
already in use or the email address is missing.  I would like to propose 
that we add these two validation requirements to the core.  Any 
objections?  If not, I can send the patch.

-Matt

Re: Themes: Contributing

Posted by Allen Gilliland <Al...@Sun.COM>.
I'll second that motion.  We are definitely looking to add to our theme 
collection, so we'd love to get whatever you guys can come up with.

I think Matt's criteria sound right.  One semi-neat suggestion would be 
to try and get all the themes to use the same basic html/css framework, 
that way it's easier to mix and match css/javascript widgets between themes.

On a bit of a side note, this may also be a good time to make sure our 
approach to themes is flushed out.  a couple minor things that I don't 
particularly like in some of our current themes are ...

1. some themes reference static files (css, js, images).  this makes it 
very hard to ensure that when someone customizes a theme they are 
getting a local copy of all the theme's resources.  what ends up 
happening is that people have 2 year old themes with links to css and 
images which could become broken/changed in the future.  it would be 
nice if we had a way to keep this from happening.

2. some themes use shared resources (css, js, images).  i think this is 
even slightly more problematic than #1.  i prefer that themes be self 
contained.

3. i think we should keep the number of templates to a minimum and avoid 
using the "_decorator" template.  in my mind, more templates = more 
confusing for users.

Also worth considering is our theme distribution system.  Would it not 
make a bit more sense to move the themes directory outside the webapp 
and allow Roller admins to download themes individually or in bundles?  
this would make it easier for admins to control what themes are 
available on their site without having it tied to the webapp, so app 
upgrades would be easier.

Anways, just some thoughts.

-- Allen


Matt Raible wrote:

>I think I can speak for the team and say YES - this sounds like a *great* idea!!
>
>On 12/26/05, Greg Hamer <ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Dear Devs,
>>
>>I am on the advisory board for a design school.  I would like to propose as a  student project for upcoming semesters that students create Roller theme pages (e.g. Weblog.vm, _day.vm, etc.)
>>
>>My question to you is does Roller accept new stock themes that would be included in the future Roller release distributions?  If so, could you please sketch out for me what process students should follow to submit their themes?  Also, could you sketch guidelines that might be used in determining if a theme might be acceptable or unacceptable?
>>    
>>
>
>I think the very basic criteria should be:
>
>1. XHTML 1.0 Transitional compliant
>2. CSS 2 Compliant
>3. Good lookin' ;-)
>
>There are validators for the first two.  In addition, it should be
>possible for us to convert Photoshop images to XHTML/CSS - but
>obviously the whole ball of wax would make it easier to integrate.
>
>Of course, I'm just one voice in a growing community. ;-)
>
>Matt
>
>  
>
>>Thank you again for your great work.  I hope that you are having an enjoyable holiday.  Best regards for good health and prosperity in the new year.
>>
>>                g
>>
>>    
>>

Re: Themes: Contributing

Posted by Matt Raible <mr...@gmail.com>.
I think I can speak for the team and say YES - this sounds like a *great* idea!!

On 12/26/05, Greg Hamer <ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Devs,
>
> I am on the advisory board for a design school.  I would like to propose as a  student project for upcoming semesters that students create Roller theme pages (e.g. Weblog.vm, _day.vm, etc.)
>
> My question to you is does Roller accept new stock themes that would be included in the future Roller release distributions?  If so, could you please sketch out for me what process students should follow to submit their themes?  Also, could you sketch guidelines that might be used in determining if a theme might be acceptable or unacceptable?

I think the very basic criteria should be:

1. XHTML 1.0 Transitional compliant
2. CSS 2 Compliant
3. Good lookin' ;-)

There are validators for the first two.  In addition, it should be
possible for us to convert Photoshop images to XHTML/CSS - but
obviously the whole ball of wax would make it easier to integrate.

Of course, I'm just one voice in a growing community. ;-)

Matt

>
> Thank you again for your great work.  I hope that you are having an enjoyable holiday.  Best regards for good health and prosperity in the new year.
>
>                 g
>