Could we kindly bump this conversation to groups.drupal.org? A tables vs. css debate is out of line for the development mailing list. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with any position -- let's just argue them elsewhere. Thank you, -Mark On 7/11/06, Laura Scott <laura@pingv.com> wrote:
I would like to pipe in here with a dissent. While it's a nice idea that design is 100% CSS, the simple fact is that is not the case, and never will be, with any dynamic CMS. You need other coding skills in order to call up the content, or simply manage the content that is pushed at you.
Not only that, until we have 100% CSS-compliant browser usage out there, the real world will not cooperate with 100% CSS themes except for the kinds of layouts that lend themselves to the CSS logic in ways IE doesn't break. (I'll just leave alone the religious arguments about CSS-only layouts.)
I agree 100% that Drupal needs some sexy themes.
I also agree that Drupal needs to focus on code base and implementing a really smart theming system (phpTemplate2?) as was hinted at in the global skypecast echofest.
As I see it, these are two very important goals that are equally important, imho, each for its own reasons -- sharp design because, right or wrong, design is the #1 way people judge a website's credibility, and solid code because we want to have a theming system that provides for the most flexibility, modularity and theming power for the designer -- but these are goals that do not come from the same place, and therefore can only converge in a kind of development tango dance.
In other words, it will take some cooperation and communication while pushing in both directions. Pushing on one while ignoring the other would be nothing but missed opportunity, in my view.
Aside: Getting beyond the One Theme To Unite Them All notion, I would even suggest that we consider opening up the theme garden (or some variant on it) to enable non-CVS contributions to Drupal, in order to make it easy for designers to contribute all sorts of designs. (In other words, design the theme development side to afford design contributions.)
Laura
On Jul 11, 2006, at 2:34 AM, Fouad Riaz Bajwa wrote:
Content Management Systems are separation of content from design. Design is always managed through CSS. All designers should be aware of this fact in case of Drupal. This gap will always exist between designers and developers and the only way to overcome this gap may be that the design should be 100% controlled by CSS and that is already being done through phptemplate, what you can control through phptemplate is that what shows what and where and how can you be more specific with certain areas or spice em up.
Your dream will always be a bit of imagination. Drupal is hitting that mainstream activity where designers do their design part and programmers or configures connect the the UI to Drupal.
CSS us the only way forward otherwise learn PHP and API Callups/ Callbacks!
Regards ----------------------- Fouad Riaz Bajwa www.fossfp.org
-----Original Message----- From: development-bounces@drupal.org [mailto:development- bounces@drupal.org] On Behalf Of sime Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 7:53 AM To: development@drupal.org Subject: [development] Patches 4.8 - New Theme
(First rant)
While everyone is discussing whether a "3-column CSS layout template for developers" is achievable - I think this development process arse-up. Discussing implementation issues in absence of something to implement is wasting time.
Our trialling users, Fantastico users, non-techie administrators, they want a new "sexy" theme as one of the defaults. For that reason, the focus has to be on the design first, and therefore we the tools are Photoshop, Fireworks or GIMP - *not* CSS and HTML. I'm sure we'd have 10 great candidates designs within a week if an announcement went in the forums. Or let's just expand on a great looking Wordpress theme. Or let's just have a vote on the best looking contrib theme.
After we have the design, we can knock ourselves out with the implementation. Until then the clock's ticking, and rehashing ALA articles is not going to get us anywhere.
Cheers, Simon
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