Organizing layouts

[denise]

We've been talking a bit about how the Select Style page should be categorized and laid out as we get more and more styles added (and OMG, I am loving the styles that we've been adding!), so it is time to discuss how we should categorize things.

afuna and I have already been talking about a few options, but I wanted to throw it out to the community at large to see what you guys think first, before we talk about what we've been thinking, to see if anyone has any great ideas that we would have missed!

To that end, a poll:

Poll #1158 Layout choice

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 313

View Respondents

When looking for a design for your journal, how do you expect to be able to browse/select one?

View Answers

By color family
171 (54.6%)

By color contrast
37 (11.8%)

By font size
23 (7.3%)

By base layout
282 (90.1%)

By header image content
66 (21.1%)

By something else (explain in comments!)
15 (4.8%)

Discussions, ideas, pros-and-cons, and other thoughts go in the comments. :)

Comments

[nonniemous]

There are only four layouts with light-dark-color schemes, and only five light-on-dark color schemes total. Those that still need that option are:

Funky Circles
Drifting
Boxes & Borders
Sunday Morning
Colorside
Negatives
Tranquility III
Blanket
Tabula Rasa
Bases
Zesty

Thank you!

[cesy]

I'm gradually working through these (up to Sunday Morning so far) and posting them in dreamscapes. Would you mind testing them to see if they look okay to you?

[nonniemous]

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by test them. I'm very, very clueless when it comes to design and layout or computer code. (What can I say; I flunked algorithms way back when--twice.)

[cesy]

You should be able to apply any of the layouts in Dreamscapes to your journal like this:

Go to Styles: http://www.dreamwidth.org/customize/advanced/styles
Scroll down to the bottom and Create a new style (with whatever name you like).
In the Layout drop-down at the bottom, select the layout that's being used (i.e. Funky Circles or whatever). Leave everything else, and just click Change.
In the theme drop down menu, select Other. Enter the Layerid from the post in Dreamscapes (e.g. 76707). Save changes.
Note which style you're currently using.
Click Use for the new style, and then look at the results on your journal.
You should be able to go back to your old style by clicking "Use" for it.

(tell me if I've missed a step and that doesn't work)

And then just tell me if there's anything obviously wrong, or if I could make the colours better so it's more readable for you, or anything like that.

[cesy]

I've now managed to set up some easy previews, all listed at http://dw-accessibility.dreamwidth.org/6429.html, so you don't have to go through all those steps to test them.

[cesy]

I've now drafted themes for all of those except Tabula Rasa, which is just a base for other styles, and Zesty, which is still on the old style system. It'll be a while before they're live on the site, particularly as several of them have shown up other bugs in the style system, but the styles team are working hard and they'll get there eventually.

Also, I've gone for high-contrast for all of these. Is that right, or would you also like low-contrast light-on-dark schemes?