Hi guys,
I'm working on the next update of the Aardvark theme and I've started completely from scratch (again). Obviously I will be transferring over bits of code and stuff, but I'm checking every line and adjusting or rewritting as necessary.
What I need from anyone who's used any of the previous versions is lists of any errors which need to be addressed or things you think would improve the theme.
So far the issues I'm trying to address are...
* Cross browser positioning (Fixed - just got to check IE7/8)
* IE6 menu errors (Addressed - requires testing)
* Background and colour issues in FF and Safari (Fixed)
* Remove all 'tables' from theme code - so old skool! (Fixed)
* Validate XHTML (pending)
at the moment I'm just tweaking a few bits and bobs, so comments, requests, etc, are most appreciated. Can't promise to address all of them, I'm learning as I go on. This is one of my first projects with CSS, PHP, XHTML, etc so code contributions are also welcome.
I've only just downloaded and installed your last version of Aardvark, so I haven't had that long to test it properly, but having just read your list of updates I'm impressed that you went for tableless code...nice one! I must admit I was a little shocked to see the use of tables in the header.html, but knowing now that it's gone is great news!
I look forward to seeing the new version soon.
Good look with the coding and XHTML validating.
Mary
I look forward to seeing the new version soon.
Good look with the coding and XHTML validating.
Mary
Thanks, yeah I was quite pleased with myself when I solved the table problem. The only real web designing I've done was back when I was a kid, just as a geeky hobby and that was in the days of Netscape Navigator Gold, frames, tables and that dog that runs backwards and forwards along a horizontal rule.
I used to do everything with tables. Whole page layouts, navigation menus, everything.
Fastforward 10 years and it was like I had to learn it all again with CSS, PHP, PNGs (aren't they awesome!) and the biggest thing of all DIVs! I still use tables but I'm slowly learning not to.
I've got a pretty good, but slightly out of date, book now but I'm thinking I should really take like a beginners web design class of something to teach me about these new fangled DIVs, CSS attributes, etc.
I used to do everything with tables. Whole page layouts, navigation menus, everything.
Fastforward 10 years and it was like I had to learn it all again with CSS, PHP, PNGs (aren't they awesome!) and the biggest thing of all DIVs! I still use tables but I'm slowly learning not to.
I've got a pretty good, but slightly out of date, book now but I'm thinking I should really take like a beginners web design class of something to teach me about these new fangled DIVs, CSS attributes, etc.
Hi Shaun,
Compatibility with Lightbox gallery would be great (if it's not already done).
Barbara had an idea here......
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=129054#p602993
"I think I have found the answer: in aardvark_top_menu.css the z-index values range from 1000 - 9999, but in the lightboxgallery files they range from 2 - 200. So I added 10000 to all the z-index values in the lightbox gallery. The files involved are lightbox.css, cropper.css, styles.php."
One other thing, with gradebook.
Is it possible to have the student names remain on screen at all times. At the moment, if courses have many quizzes, assignments etc as you scroll to the right all of the student names become hidden and I find myself scrolling back and forth to find who has completed what... does this make sense.
Cheers, (thanks for all the hard work).
Chris
Compatibility with Lightbox gallery would be great (if it's not already done).
Barbara had an idea here......
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=129054#p602993
"I think I have found the answer: in aardvark_top_menu.css the z-index values range from 1000 - 9999, but in the lightboxgallery files they range from 2 - 200. So I added 10000 to all the z-index values in the lightbox gallery. The files involved are lightbox.css, cropper.css, styles.php."
One other thing, with gradebook.
Is it possible to have the student names remain on screen at all times. At the moment, if courses have many quizzes, assignments etc as you scroll to the right all of the student names become hidden and I find myself scrolling back and forth to find who has completed what... does this make sense.
Cheers, (thanks for all the hard work).
Chris
Hi chris, I don't have or use lightbox so I'm afraid I'm at a loss on this one, wouldn't know where to begin. As for gradebook, on the standard theme does it keep the students names on screen when scrolling? I'll have to look at how it works, it works in theory in my head, but I've discovered my head doesn't always work the same way as a web browser.
I think the grade book is one of my beloved tables, so in theory if there was an attribute to fix the display of a column, that should do it. Hmm...
I think the grade book is one of my beloved tables, so in theory if there was an attribute to fix the display of a column, that should do it. Hmm...
Hi Shaun,
Thanks for all of your work on Aardvark.
With regard to Lightbox I think Chris was referring to the JQuery lightbox plugin.
http://leandrovieira.com/projects/jquery/lightbox/
jQuery lightBox plugin is simple, elegant, unobtrusive, no need extra markup and is used to overlay images on the current page through the power and flexibility of jQuery´s selector.
With regard to CSS the single best book I have read is
CSS: The Missing Manual by David McFarland
I am now half way through his book on JavaScript
JavaScript: The Missing Manual by David McFarland
Incidentally the JavaScript book starts with IE & Mozilla JavaScript but then focusses on the use of JQuery. It covers the lightBox plugin pretty comprehensively.
Both books are in my opinion exceptional in their clarity of explanation. As far as CSS / XHTML goes I have read about 10 books (incl O'Reilly ones) over the years and David McFarland's is the best!
~thomas
PS I don't have shares in the Missing Manual series, JQuery or in David McFarland ; )
PPS My next JQuery step will be:
Learning JQuery 1.3 (Paperback)
by Karl Swedberg (Author), Jonathan Chaffer (Author)
Hi Shaun,
Ended up on here via Google looking for an IE6-compatible menu fix... looks like you're on it already :D
1.2 is looking good from the screenshot, was just wondering if there will be support for a wider top banner image as I've put into the 0.4 theme here...
http://moodle.myvle.org/redbridge2
I was changing various bits of the header and CSS to get that image on there, is it being designed in the same way as before with the small square or can we put a background image the length of the header with transparency?
The JQuery hasn't been an issue for me since the 0.3 aardvark as it was removed in 0.4? Lightbox is working fine for me at the moment...
Only issues for me have been...
- menu goes haywire in IE6 (nasty browser!)
- I seem to be getting scrollbars on 800x600 but I think that's something I've done as your newbury site seems to display OK
- need full width banner image at the top rather than the small rectangle on there at the moment. Edit: just looked in the CSS on the 1.1 Pro theme and this might already be there but knocks the login form to the right?
- Would be nice to have the menu dropdowns with 3D effect like I've somehow managed to put on our site (again playing with the CSS and using background images on each menu item). This might already be there on the new menu though?
I've also got a pix folder with the best free icons I've been able to find so far that covers practically every mod I've come across, let me know if you want the ZIP to incorporate into the package...
Looking forward to the new release!
Hi Gerrard,
I think I've solved the IE6 problem, can't guarentee it but fingers crossed. The banner width thing is fixed/being fixed. I think it's to do with Z-index.
Would it be possible to send me a zipped copy of your version of the theme to s-daubney@newbury-college.ac.uk
so I can have a little fiddle and see if there's anything which can helkp me.
Thanks
Fixed the top totally now. Wasn't the z-index, was just the placement of my DIV tags in header.html, silly me.
Depending on how much I do tonight, there may be an updated screenshot.
Depending on how much I do tonight, there may be an updated screenshot.
Thanks for the book recommendations, the one I have is Eric Meyer - it's good but a little out of date now (2004), still it was good for addressing the IE6 issues, I just need to test it but I'm on a Mac.. no IE.
The JQuery issue has gone, no longer using JQuery for this theme so lightbox (which I looked up earlier and think is great) should work.
The JQuery issue has gone, no longer using JQuery for this theme so lightbox (which I looked up earlier and think is great) should work.
Shaun, if you need any help at all testing this on IE6/PC, let me know if I can help, very keen to get the IE issues fixed, have been routing through the code, and came to the conclusion that IE6 needs some extra javascript for the menus to work. I tried adding it into your theme, but made a right royal mess of it.
I noticed also that this page (moodle.org) has similar menu system that works fine in IE6, but can't find this theme anywhere, maybe somebody at moodle.org could help?
I noticed also that this page (moodle.org) has similar menu system that works fine in IE6, but can't find this theme anywhere, maybe somebody at moodle.org could help?
Hi Shaun, how's it going with 1.2, did that IE6 fix work in the end?
No, the IE6 stuff I'm giving up on. Sorry to all of those with IE6 but as I'm still learning all this stuff and my organisation doesn't even have IE6, it's now way down the bottom of the list which means I'll never get around to it, unless there's a christmas miracle. Sorry.
OK that's enough for one night. Header fixed and just the calendar and footer away from completing the front page. So getting there...
The layout looks nice. Just for fun, I installed the 1.1 Pro onto a Moodle 2.0 installation to see how well it worked.
Missing images:
theme/aardvark_pro/pix/i/unflagged.gif
theme/aardvark_pro/pix/mod/page/icon.gif
Footer issues:
The text %%ENDHTML%% shows.
Duplicate lines "You are logged in as ..." when in course but not frontpage.
Header
Header disappears when editing quizzes (this doesn't happen with my default theme)
I'm not sure if any of this helps - but you've designed a lovely theme. Best of luck.
Missing images:
theme/aardvark_pro/pix/i/unflagged.gif
theme/aardvark_pro/pix/mod/page/icon.gif
Footer issues:
The text %%ENDHTML%% shows.
Duplicate lines "You are logged in as ..." when in course but not frontpage.
Header
Header disappears when editing quizzes (this doesn't happen with my default theme)
I'm not sure if any of this helps - but you've designed a lovely theme. Best of luck.
Any thoughts on testing with latest Moodle version.... 1.9.7 (I think).
Cheers
Cheers
Hi, any estimate on when this theme will be available? I would love to have the chance to work on this over the Christmas break if possible.
Will do my best to get it ready for the xmas break, but keep getting distracted by the Food Network, Christmas prep and friends. Damn social life!
Have been trying a brand new menu system to solve the IE6 issues, but in the end I just rewrote the old one to make it prettier and thought "to hell with IE6". Bit more to do, but getting there though.
Have been trying a brand new menu system to solve the IE6 issues, but in the end I just rewrote the old one to make it prettier and thought "to hell with IE6". Bit more to do, but getting there though.
I hope you have dropped the HTML <font> tags from the footer! 
Not started on the footer yet, but I'm sure they won't be back.
Hey Shaun,
I know this is kind of late.... but any thoughts to include sub-menu items as you had in the Newbury theme. (Do you know what I mean?)
I found that this makes the menu bar much more functional.
Just a thought! Cheers
Chris
I know this is kind of late.... but any thoughts to include sub-menu items as you had in the Newbury theme. (Do you know what I mean?)
I found that this makes the menu bar much more functional.
Just a thought! Cheers
Chris
Hi all,
I bring you good news
Seeing as it's been too cold to do anything useful outside this weekend I thought I'd have a bash at the IE6 menu issue and have managed to bring in a compatible menu I found and recoded it to match the 3D look I have on my Redbridge site at the moment.
Been testing on IE6, IE7, Firefox and Google Chrome - all displaying nicely so far... keep an eye out on http://gshaw0.spaces.live.com as I'll be uploading the modified theme package in the next day or so.
And to grant the wishes above, with a bit of work you can use 3rd level menus! I didn't code those in as I needed to sort the IE6 layout but it is possible and will work...
I bring you good news
Seeing as it's been too cold to do anything useful outside this weekend I thought I'd have a bash at the IE6 menu issue and have managed to bring in a compatible menu I found and recoded it to match the 3D look I have on my Redbridge site at the moment.
Been testing on IE6, IE7, Firefox and Google Chrome - all displaying nicely so far... keep an eye out on http://gshaw0.spaces.live.com as I'll be uploading the modified theme package in the next day or so.
And to grant the wishes above, with a bit of work you can use 3rd level menus! I didn't code those in as I needed to sort the IE6 layout but it is possible and will work...
Hey Shaun,
I'm was recommended here from this topic: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=140727
I'm had the idea to include the user's profile pic into a theme I'm working on and I was reffered to you. Can you offer any help or advice as far as the code required to display the user's profile picture in the header? I'm not sure whether you've used custom code or moodle code to do that. So far I've modified user/view.php to show the user's picture successfully, but can't figure out how to include that in the header. I also didn't want to look at or copy what you've done until I had permission
Thanks
Hey, we are just installing moodle for the first time at our College in Lancaster and i came across your theme. Any news on when 1.2 will be available or any chance of a beta?
Cool!!! Love the new look...
but...I think you could lose the font tags in the footer now!
<P><font size="1">
<P><font size="1">Original theme created by <a href="http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=26&rid=2618">Shaun Daubney (Newbury College)</a>.</font></P>
but...I think you could lose the font tags in the footer now!
<P><font size="1">
<P><font size="1">Original theme created by <a href="http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=26&rid=2618">Shaun Daubney (Newbury College)</a>.</font></P>
Cool. Already Using On Our Site. Best Moodle Theme Ever.
So Easy Too Use.
So Easy Too Use.
Just wanted to say thanks for the theme, we're going to be changing to this theme after the Easter holidays. We think its got a really fresh feel and fits in with the type of environemnt we're trying to provide for our students.
Quick question though, can some-one please tell me what font the Aardvark logo is in (logo attached).
I'd like to use this font to create a new logo for our moodle - Citybit.
Cheers,
Mike
http://moodle.org/file.php/5/moddata/forum/29/619550/christopherhand.zip
Someone asked the same question in the original Aardvark Pro release thread in this forum. It's called Christopherhand
Someone asked the same question in the original Aardvark Pro release thread in this forum. It's called Christopherhand