What should and shouldn't go into official themes?

[ninetydegrees]

I've already asked this question before but never got a clear answer so I'll ask again: it was my understanding that themes were just about colors, fonts and images and, until very recently, there was nothing else in themes.s2 files. However, now we have some themes which change text, presentation options, module positions and maybe even the modules which are displayed and those which are hidden. I simply wanna know if all options are considered themeable because I need guidelines when patching. Besides, I think it would be nice for designers to know that too.

Comments

[branchandroot]

Changing text and some positioning, or the pre-sets for what modules are shown, seem like reasonable things for themes, to me. Changing the presentation options is dicier, but if it's just adding something, then that also seems quite reasonable. The theme style sheet function was implemented specifically so that themes could have more options than just colors, fonts, and images, after all.

I do think that, if a theme is sufficiently changed that it's not readily recognizable as a child of its parent layout, then the theme author should be encouraged to make it a new layout, but that's a case-by-case sort of thing. For general guidelines, I'd be very inclined toward "anything that's provided for within the S2 core is allowable".

[momijizukamori]

I lean towards not setting module positions or presentation options, because I feel like it should be a user decision, and if a theme hides a bunch of modules I suspect people are going to think the theme doesn't style them. Also, no font-size changing other than header size - I think we should stick by main body and module text being 1em

Management link type (text vs icons) and icon positioning aren't such a big deal, imo.

[weber_dubois22]

I would love a header option for the layouts and the ability to add text or visuals into the sidebars honestly. Pages look terribly naked otherwise.

[ninetydegrees]

Hi there! I'm talking about a completely different thing in my entry but to answer your comment, you can already do that to some extent: all or most of our official styles have a header background image option you can find at http://www.dreamwidth.org/customize/options?group=images, and you can add whatever text and visuals you want via the Custom Text module (http://www.dreamwidth.org/customize/options?group=modules to enable it, and http://www.dreamwidth.org/customize/options?group=text to enter text and HTML into it). We also have a banner feature planned but haven't implemented it yet. If you have other suggestions http://www.dreamwidth.org/site/suggest is the place to submit them. You can also browser past suggestions to see which ideas have already been submitted. Otherwise http://www.dreamwidth.org/support is there to help you with any questions you have.