Jeff Robbins wrote:
On Aug 29, 2006, at 6:25 AM, Neil Drumm wrote:
These themes need to be somewhere between "looks like Drupal" and "clean enough to build off of." What I see here looks like a full palate competing with the Drupal branding and the themer trying to find the shortest way to their own color scheme. It does look good, but too far from bluemarine to be a good default.
Please see: http://drupaltheme.lullabot.com/node?theme=zen-beach
I've hated bluemarine from the first time I saw it years ago right up to today. I only ever use it because it works. It's ugly. It looks like something from the web in 1996. If that's Drupal's branding, then Drupal is apparently well-known for having an ugly, out-of-date visual brand. IMHO, of course.
- Styling form fields. These are notoriously inconsistent across platforms and I think are best left as-is anyway since form fields should always look like form fields.
I'm not sure I totally agree on this point. Some browsers ignore styling on form fields, so it is important to test on many browsers to see what is truly happening. But I think that a little bit of styling, particularly on form buttons can show a sense of style and maturity. Certainly they can be styled out of the realm of usability, but I think with a bit of testing, we can improve upon the nasty default button styling of browsers like Firefox.
-jeff
Some day, all browser builders will get an f'ing clue, and allow controls to be styled properly. Until then, I agree with Jeff -- some improvement on some browsers is better than none. The one biggest thing that differentiates a well-written web application from a "real" binary application these days is the fugly form fields and controls. Also, IMHO. Respectfully yours, Curmudgeonly GUI developer since 1977 ..chrisxj