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

[matgb]

Apart from the visual layout of elements mentioned above, what I found most lacking was a walktrhough of getting started hacking S2.

I just could not get my head around what I was supposed to do, I didn't know what "create a new layer" meant, etc.

So something that allows people to copy a core layer into the editor to create their own would be very useful.

Combine that with a list of most useful S2 code terms and how/what they're used for, and a clearer definition of what layers actually are.

I'm now comfortable with the basics of hacking S2, I've completely redone my CSS and taught others how to do it (theirs are always prettier than mine).

But what I'd like to do is create my own, fairly basic, custom layout from scratch--ideally I want all my sites, whether HTML, Wordpress, Joomla or LJ/Dreamwidth powered, to look fairly similar--and have the same stylesheet. So I'd like to know how to take a basic HTML template and then turn it into an S2 layer, in a way that I can define the names for my IDs, CLASSes, etc.

A very basic walkthrough of what a layer needs, what order to put it in, etc that's easily accessible would be very helpful, and open up a lot of potential for new designs and similar.