Wave Bye-bye To Themes... For Now
posted by Adam S on Wed 26th Mar 2008 19:55
Conversations As some of you will immediately notice, I've disabled themeing on the site. Very few users - fewer than 1% actually - use themes at all, and we are preparing to make some site structure changes that will make maintaining themes very challenging. As a result, we've disabled themes and we will be rolling out our changes in the coming weeks or months. When we're confident our output is stable, we'll look into re-introducing themes in a new, improved, and much more complete fashion. In the meantime, the site will only be offered with our default skin. Thanks.
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Real-time changes
by james_parker on Wed 26th Mar 2008 20:49 UTC
james_parker
Member since:
2005-06-29

You might want to consider making the changes on a "beta" version of the software using www4.osnews.com (or www5.osnews.com), so that you don't get bothered with excessive bug reports.

Reply Score: 1

RE: Real-time changes
by Adam S on Wed 26th Mar 2008 20:53 in reply to "Real-time changes"
Adam S Member since:
2005-04-01

There is no www4 anymore. It's an alias for the live site.

It's unlikely we'll see www5 for a long time, since that would imply rewriting the entire PHP framework.

I get your point, but the reality is that it's a very small percentage of our userbase who refreshes and participates frequently enough for large bugs to be present. I fix any critical errors, usually, within 30 seconds. Little things like adjustments to the sidebar or preferences can be done on the fly.

Reply Score: 1

RE: Real-time changes
by deathshadow on Mon 31st Mar 2008 12:51 in reply to "Real-time changes"
deathshadow Member since:
2005-07-12

Well, you have fairly decent separation of content from presentation now - so theming via just the CSS shouldn't be a big deal. Heck, with some simple changes to semantic markup you could axe off the classes and be able to do all the themes/effects you wanted without even touching the HTML.

After all, that is what CSS is supposed to be for. Separation of presentation from content and so forth.

The classitus and divitus for example - the 'otitle1' class and div, with the wrapping span for the star - there's no good reason for this to be so many tags... Just give it a H2. The subheader could even go in side the h2 as a classless span, you style it via inheritance.

Though - I'm still getting MY theme and customizations, since I'm already using a user CSS under Opera to override the page appearance so the fonts are a USABLE size and the page isn't locked into a tiny little stripe down the middle of the screen.

Reply Score: 2

waves
by Mellin on Thu 27th Mar 2008 10:55 UTC
Mellin
Member since:
2005-07-06

waves bye bye themes

Reply Score: 2

Bad
by vtolkov on Thu 27th Mar 2008 18:18 UTC
vtolkov
Member since:
2006-07-26

I've used themes to disable graphics. Can we at least add a feature to disable comics on top?

Reply Score: 1

RE: Bad
by mikesum32 on Fri 28th Mar 2008 04:35 in reply to "Bad"
mikesum32 Member since:
2005-10-22

I still like the old look. This yellowish green color scheme reminds my of pureed peas that a baby vomited up on a bib.

Reply Score: 2

Classic
by ohxten on Fri 28th Mar 2008 18:37 UTC
ohxten
Member since:
2008-02-17

I still use the Classic theme... I think the new one is ugly and bloated. Back before the site-rewrite, the stories stood out on the page. Now it's "Recent Conversations", "Recent Original Stories", etc, that stand out. The layout is terrible.

Not good at all.

Reply Score: 1

RE: Classic
by stestagg on Sun 30th Mar 2008 17:44 in reply to "Classic"
stestagg Member since:
2006-06-03

Well, you are statistically insignificant. so there.

On a more serious note, I think that the majority of users appreciate the new layout, unfortunately, satisfied people tend not to feel the need to publicise their satisfaction.

Reply Score: 2