Updates, updates, updates (we have a style!)

[afuna]

Hi! So with the latest code push, styles has gotten some much needed love.

The most visible change is that we have a style! Negatives was written by phoenix for the 2005 LiveJournal styles contest, and was rewritten by the styles team to be compatible with core2, which means it supports "newer" features (expand, tracking, tags, proper alt text for userpics) for free!

Other things that went out:

• everyone who was using the default style has been moved over to Negatives. This does not mean that Negatives is going to be the default style! We'll revisit that question once we have more styles on the site.


• bullet point above fixed the problem with the customize page


• renamed the sidebar variables to use "modules" in their names -- this may break existing layouts which were ported to core2


• tweaks to core, to solve some issues that were reported to us from the first run (closing tags, etc). Note that this does not fix everything -- we still have a few issues reported to us that we are looking at.


• tag cloud module


• some additional rel links (next, prev, help), for accessibility and people with browsers smart enough to do something with these


• ETA: we've made the items in the entry management links (track, memory, etc) a <ul> (thanks, janinedog for reminding us!)
  

We're still working on:

• more styles (of course!)


• documentation, guides


• exposing variables through the wizard


• and an idea for improving the wizard. Details once we have something we can show you!

Still have no wizard, but we're getting close to the point where we can open up. The main problem with the wizard is that it establishes expectations that it's safe to play with the variables and we're not ready for that. Almost, but not yet.

We have one more major change in mind, to make the module names easier to read/write. They're currently "primary", "secondary", "tertiary", "quarternary". Or is it "quaternary"? I don't know, and I've been working with this code for ages. So we're thinking of renaming them to primary module_group_one, module_group_two, module_group_three... and so on. Easier to read, easier to remember, easier to expand upon.

(ETA I mashed together combine two separate things that Abby and I were talking about. To clarify:

Previously, module groups in S2 were named module_group_primary(), module_group_secondary(). In HTML, these were laid out in #primary, #secondary, #tertiary. #primary contained the entries, #secondary contained module_group_primary(), and so on, and it was confusing.

So we're renaming module_group_primary() to module_group_one(), etc. HTML layout will continue to use #primary to indicate the main content.)

Please report any new issues through your usual bug-reporting channels. If you don't know what those are, feel free to comment to this entry! But first, check the list of open styles-related bugs and the list of all styles-related bugs. (Note: we still have some issues reported through comments that aren't in bugzilla. We'll be going through those and opening up bugs as appropriate, soon).

Currently known issues:

• Negatives sidebar is pushed to the bottom when fonts are too large / window sizes are too small - Fix committed
  
• Negatives header overlaps the navstrip - Fix committed
  
• Negatives currently lacks a <title>
  
• Negatives defined text for properties should be removed, to fall back to core
  
• Need to clean up Negatives commentbar arrangement / text
  
• Links in the black/bottom bars are difficult to read, posing an accessibility issue (will revisit after we have color schemes)
  
• Summary links in the sidebar don't actually bring you to the entry (comments are okay)
  
• in Negatives openid comment poster links are weird
  
• IE6 showing the header links vertically, because it uses display:inline-block - Fix committed
  
• html syntax errors causing display problems for comments in IE and Opera
  

Comments

[forthwritten]

This is really cool, go team!

Couple of issues:

- I'm finding the bottom links (to comment, edit entry, edit tags, etc) difficult to read. This is probably a combination of small netbook screen and my shitty eyesight, if there is an accessibility issue there it may affect whether or not you run with this as a default style.

- module_group_one, module_group_two etc sounds more intuitive and easier to remember.

[aveleh]

The CSS is still a work in progress; so it used a particular default. We'll definitely check on sizes before they get finalized. In the meantime, are you okay with it, or was basic core2 easier for you to read and do you need instructions for how to make that your default? (Aka, we want to make it easier for everything to be accessible, but we know it won't be yet. So do let me/us know if there's anything we can do to make your experience accessible even if the style itself isn't going to be accessible asap.)

Yes, the module notes were a mashed-in-afuleh-translation and they will be called something more sequence-y :)

[forthwritten]

I'll see how this looks on my main monitor, but if there's still an issue I'd really appreciate being able to switch back to core2. Do you want screenshots or anything (not sure how useful they'd be, but at least it might identify whether it's a screen size issue)? I'm using a 10.2" screen, 1024 x 600 resolution. I think it's the combination of small font, light grey on black, spacing and jagged edges that are making it difficult for me to read.

[afuna]

Screen shots would be helpful, to see how different it is from what we're seeing. Though I do see what you mean by the light grey on black being difficult to read -- it may turn out that the best way to fix this is to provide new color themes (or get someone interested in putting up pretty colors to play with it and give us a greater variety! *G*)

To switch back to core2, go to the all styles category in the select journal style page, and then choose "Core 2 Testing".

[forthwritten]

Screenshot. I should have got one that showed some numbers because those are particularly hard to read, but hope this helps anyway.

Thanks for letting me know how to change it back to core2.

[aveleh]

Also, eeek, THANK YOU <3