[geeklog-devel] New GL default theme

[Vincent Furia]

On 10/22/07, geiss at midnightforce.com <geiss at midnightforce.com> wrote:
>
> "Well for a start the layout authors create the most HTML and I am not
> sure I want to force them to the one or the other."
>
> ...well, I'm a layout author, and I'm giving some input asking for XHTML.
> :-) I don't presume to be *the* layout author, but I've been pretty active
> in generating themes for GL, and feel that I've earned the right to give
> some reasonable input. Again, I like the idea of having switchable doctypes,
> but with that choice, I would go with XHTML over HTML every time. I may be
> missing something, and if so, please enlighten me, but like I stated
> earlier, can anyone provide an example of why they would go with HTML over
> XHTML?
>
> "There have been already quite some updates to the code. Also, I think
> despite the fact that it is a lot of work, a careful replace action on
> ">" would be doing the job at any point in time."
>
> I'm honestly confused. It sounds like, on the one hand, that it would be a
> big job, but yet the comment above makes it sound like no big deal. Thoughts
> anyone?
>
The real problem here, which we've confronted on and off again for
years, is the fact that there is markup in the code.  I think it was
two or three years ago we had a big push to get the markup generated
in the code so that it would meet w3c html 4.01 strict.

I think our real target here should be to figure out a graceful way to
get all the markup out of the code and into templates.  As has been
discussed before, this may take using an entirely different template
library as the current one doesn't scale well for the types of small
templates we would need to replace the instance of HTML in the code.

Eric, we understand where you're coming from, but there are a number
of themes right now the meet w3c html 4.01 strict.  If we updated the
code to reflect XHTML we'd break these themes.  I understand your
question, "why HTML over XHTML?" My question in response would be:
What does XHTML get us that HTML 4.01 does not get us?

> "hmmm... good from the graphical quality point of view, not so special
> from the creativity/recognizability point."
>
> Thanks for the feedback! If I understand you correctly, you're saying it
> looks good, but... I'm not sure where you're going with the
> creativity/recognizability comment. I can understand that you don't think
> it's creative (for ie. lots of graphic designs replace letters with
> pictures, or use grey-ish silver lettering, use drop shadows, etc.) I'm ok
> with that comment. I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel. :-) But for
> recognizability, I'm not sure what you mean. Can you clarify? Thx! :-)
>
The logo looks great from an aesthetic standpoint.  But it doesn't
reflect anything about Geeklog.  The original logo, "The Geek",
reflected that Geeklog was build by Geeks for Geeks.  When we wanted
to expand our customers bit and update to a more "professional" theme,
we went with the paper clip logo to showcase both Geeklog's ability to
organize data and to reflect the new professional focus.

If the logo must (or should) be updated, part of me would like to see
an updated version of the geek.  Barring that, a logo design that
somehow reflects Geeklog is important.

> "I see there some conflict with the menu points on top of the page
> (calendar twice, whats the logical separation?)"
>
> I understand your confusion, let me clarify. :-) Right now, I have both
> menus up, for the sake of discussion. I chose to repeat some of the links
> because I wanted to show what it looks like both ways. Since the top blue
> menu is generated as just links, and the bottom black menu is generated with
> list items, I couldn't easily just have both menus pull from the same
> {menu_elements} code.
>
I think you can loose the first menu.  I think the second one fits in
with your theme must better.  For the second menu, I'd loose the
"Home" link.  The logo right above it and the Topic Navigation block
right below it both have links to the same place.  It seems a bit
redundant.

Overall I really like this theme.  It is softer than the current
professional theme and it gives the site a more polished look.  The
colors balance each other really well and the form itself flows
nicely.  You obviously put a lot of work into this theme, and shows in
the detail.

Thanks!
-Vinny