Documentation questions!

[ysobel]

Now that the styles overhaul is closer to complete, the styles documentation team, led by ysobel, is starting to write up documentation for various aspects of customization, ranging anywhere from basic ("I don't know HTML or CSS or S2 but I want my journal to be pretty, how do I do that?") to complicated ("I want to create a completely custom style, what all is S2 capable of?") and various points in between.

Obviously, this won't all be ready by open beta. However, since a lot of the documentation is being created from scratch anyway, we decided that it would be a good idea to get input from the people who will actually be using said documentation.

So. Please feel free to answer any of the following questions, or provide any other comments that might be useful! We don't promise that everything everyone suggests will be used, but we will listen to what you have to say.

...with one exception, and I probably don't have to make this explicit but am just in case: A lot of the people who are working on Dreamwidth styles and documentation were also involved with LiveJournal support and documentation. This isn't to say that you have to pretend that everything is perfect -- I will be the first to admit that LJ's S2 manual is (shall we say) less than ideal -- but please be respectful of the people on the other side of the screen. :)

(In other words: we want your feedback, because we want Dreamwidth to have Awesome Documentation [tm], but politeness is always appreciated.)

* What aspects of LiveJournal's styles-related documentation did you find particularly good or useful?

* What did you wish LiveJournal's styles-related documentation had? (particularly, what did you have to figure out for yourself, or ask someone else for?)

* What level of customization are you comfortable with, what would you like to be able to do, and what documentation could Dreamwidth provide to help with transitioning between the two?

* Are there (relevant) questions that you have? What (styles-related) things have you always wanted to know? What else do you want to tell us?

Comments

[wistfuljane.livejournal.com]

I agree with the above comments about style CSS guides. I've heard talks about how Dreamwidth will including an id class for every function/feature for each style so users can customize their layout to the littlest details? But that will sort of be useless if the average users don't know which id class corresponds with which function/feature or what each id class does.

Also, I found one of the biggest problems concerning customizing journal style that most users had is that they don't know where to start and I wrote a guide once about it (outdated now): Where To Start: Jane's Informal Newbie's Guide To Choosing and Customizing Your Journal Layout - http://wistfuljane.livejournal.com/200761.html. So I think, to start, Dreamwidth's styles documentation should at least dedicate one section to style jargons, ironing out what the various jargons will mean. What do we mean by theme? Layer? Style? Because I found the changing/interchanging jargons at LiveJournal to be confusing at times and frustrating when I want to refer to one thing and unable to grasp the appropriate term.

Also, another section on explaining the various customize journal style interfaces, e.g. Select Journal Style, Customize your theme, Edit Your Theme Layer/Advanced Customizations, and what interface does/allow you to do.

Can I also mention how the styles are categorized in Select Journal Style to be the least intuitive? If possible, I would suggest they be reorganized by width > flexible width, fixed width; columns > one column, two columns (sidebar), three columns (2 sidebars), color > white, black, red, blue, green, etc.; available unique options > um, I don't know enough about Dreamwidth's styles to comment; theme (for lack of better word) > holiday, minimalism, writing, photo, etc.

Otherwise, I would suggest another section dedicated to having a brief description on each style, because LiveJournal's original style preview was not really helpful, I don't think.

[wistfuljane]

Having tinkered around with style customizations, I would suggest some other categories for styles: sidebar > left, right, bottom; available unique options > collapsible entries.

The customizations themselves. I'm using Zesty and I'm confused about some of the options under Text. Basically, anything after Title that goes in the HTML concerning comments and including the quoted option and this: Non-linked reply link text. %1 is replaced with the link. What do they do?

Also, note: I think the options to set # of journal entries under Miscellaneous repeats those under Basic Options?

[denise]

Zesty was committed before it went through the cleanup by the Styles team, so it hasn't been standardized yet -- the options are rather obscure. (I actually don't even know what that means myself, heh.)

[wistfuljane]

Oh, okay. Hopefully, the options will make more sense once it has been standardized then. =)