New Theme- Simpleblue

New Theme- Simpleblue

by Christopher Phillips -
Number of replies: 20

Hello,
I just finished a new theme for Moodle- the look and feel isn't that revolutionary (or even that great yet), but I did remove all of the tables from both the header and footer (replaced by CSS formatting) and pulled all of the hard-coded colors out of the style sheet and into the config file, so if you can easily change all of the colors from config.php.

I've only tested this on my Mac, so if anyone wants to look at in with PC browsers, you can see the theme here. There is a demo course there where you are free to look around- The only thing that isn't working isn't related to the theme, but happened when I upgraded to 1.2.1, my user pics aren't showing up (See this post- any ideas are appreciated!)

I would like to now go into some of the other files and work on replacing some of the tables with CSS positioning and setting up the menus as lists, but would like to do so in a way that is inline with future releases. Being fairly new around here still, I'm not sure the best way I can help- any suggestions are appreciated.

Please let me know if you have any questions or come across any problems with the theme as it is- Thanks!

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In reply to Christopher Phillips

Re: New Theme- Simpleblue

by Ray Lawrence -

Looking good but a few funny bits - see attached.

Also no pics and now can't log in to site (only a test bed).

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In reply to Ray Lawrence

Re: New Theme- Simpleblue

by Christopher Phillips -
Thanks Ray- I appreciate the attached screen shots, those will help iron out the quirks - Can you tell me what Operating System and Browser you were using when you saw those errors?

Also, what site are you having a problem logging into- the theme on your site or my demo course? What error did you encounter?

I'll work on getting a version 2 of this out soon, as soon as I get some more feedback and get some more problems worked out- Thanks!
Christopher
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Re: New Theme- Simpleblue

by Ray Lawrence -

XP Pro

IE6

My site. Error meesages were too quick to read or capture.

Ray

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Re: New Theme- Simpleblue

by Christopher Phillips -

Here's a snippet of what it is looking like on my machine, anything different please let me know- thanks.

simpleblue.gif
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In reply to Christopher Phillips

Re: New Theme- Simpleblue

by W Page -
Hi Christopher,

Nice theme overall and appears easy to customize.

I think I found a problem in "WEEK" format. - see attached  image.  Should the "Active" week display with that brown-orange color in the main window?

WP1
Attachment simpleblue_wk_01.gif
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In reply to W Page

Re: New Theme- Simpleblue

by Christopher Phillips -
Thanks WP1, looks like I definitely should have done some more testing- I made my best guess as to what some of the classes in the Style Sheet affected and it looks like I guess wrong on that one. I've just fixed that orange-brown and will include the fix it in version 2 of the theme, hopefully soon- much appreciated. Let me know if you come across anything else.
Thanks,
Christopher
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In reply to Christopher Phillips

Re: New Theme- Simpleblue

by W Page -
Hello again Christopher,

What did you do to correct that problem?

WP1
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Re: New Theme- Simpleblue

by Christopher Phillips -
WP1,
Sorry it has taken me awhile to get back to you-

The hardest thing for me in this theme business is knowing exactly what elements the different styles pertain to- in this case, the element that was causing the background of the current week to show up in orangy-brown was weeklyoutlinecontenthighlight (on line 427 of styles.php), I changed the background to the theme variable cellcontent2 instead of highlight and that changed the bg of that element from orangy-brown to white. I have attached the revised styles.php if you want to take a look- I'm happy to explain further as well, just let me know, the next version will probably have some other changes as well, but there it is for now-
Christopher
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In reply to Christopher Phillips

Re: New Theme- Simpleblue

by W Page -
Hi Christopher,

Thanks for the explanation and information

It is appreciated.

WP1
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In reply to Christopher Phillips

Re: New Theme- Simpleblue

by Steven Day -
It looks very good. I like the clean and simple design. Although Ocean Blue is very soothing, it's heavy looking at times. Your theme is light and visually much easier to process, IMHO.

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In reply to Steven Day

Re: New Theme- Simpleblue

by Christopher Phillips -
Thanks Steven- were there any errors in the layout for you at all? One advantage to using CSS instead of tables for layout is that it also offers faster load times- it'll be great when the entire system relies a lot less on tables.
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In reply to Christopher Phillips

Re: New Theme- Simpleblue

by Steven Day -
No real problems, save for a tight top border. The login information displays too close to the top of my browser window. It is still accessible, however. Perhaps it's my browser? Safari and replicated it in OmniWeb. But overall, it looks great. Oh, "Moodle" displays instead of my site name upper left. That is easy enough to change, I would guess. But I'm new to this. CSS is great and obviously the wave of the future in web course design.

Thanks for your contribution.

Steven
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Simpleblue Take 2

by Christopher Phillips -
Thanks to everyone who offered feedback when I release this them last week- much appreciated. I think I have been able to fix all of the quirks that were pointed out (plus a couple of other things), but please let me know if you come across anything else and I'll work on it. There is also a brief explanation of how to make changes in the config file.

Again, you can see the theme in action at:
http://www.communityinclusion.org/learning/moodle/
Go to the demo course if you want to try out the theme.

Christopher

(Now that I have this newer version, should I go back and delete the original post with the older version in it?)
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Re: Simpleblue Take 2

by Ray Lawrence -

See att. file for screenshots.

Ray

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Re: Simpleblue Take 2

by Christopher Phillips -
Thanks again Ray- much appreciated. I'm having a hard time replicating a couple of the errors, but will go and find access to a PC tomorrow so I can see what is happening better- Do those same errors still show up if you've cleared your cache?
Also, my user pictures haven't been showing up either, but for my it is a system-wide issue- not specific to this theme- do your user pcitures work in all of your other themes? Thanks- this will be a big help to make sure a final release if final across all browsers, I'll work on tying these things up as soon as I can-
Christopher
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In reply to Christopher Phillips

Re: Simpleblue Take 2

by Steven Day -
Hi Christopher,

On my system (Mac OS 10.3.3 with Safari browser), the top section still had some problems. Now my site name displays instead of "Moodle" but the site moniker also ran into some things on the right-hand side of the page, such as login name, since the title is rather long.

But it looks great overall! I epsecially like the border around some of the frames.

Thanks for your contribution.

Steven
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In reply to Christopher Phillips

Re: Simpleblue Take 2

by Ray Lawrence -

Search box now same size a others in column

Have you sortened the course name?

Search fields same colour as box. I this what you wanted? See attd.

Ray

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In reply to Christopher Phillips

Re: Simpleblue Take 2

by Chardelle Busch -
Picture of Core developers

Hi Christopher,

Your theme looks great--I especially like the bold section headings.  One thing I noticed is that your header is very high--forcing the course down too far on the page--other than that, nice job. 

Keep sharing,

Chardelle

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In reply to Christopher Phillips

Re: Simpleblue Take 2

by Chardelle Busch -
Picture of Core developers

Christopher,

I really like your theme--especially the bold section headings.  One thing I noticed, your header and breadrumbs nav bar are very high/tall--with a lot of open space--forcing your course area down on the page.  Other than that, nice job!

Keep sharing,

Chardelle

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In reply to Christopher Phillips

Re: Simpleblue Take 2

by Mike Carollo -
I found a problem, but not sure how to fix it... maybe you can.  If you have an event in a class... say for instance an assignment.

One the main moodle page you will see on the calendar that day highlighted that the assignment is due, but when you roll your mouse over the day it does not respond like most themes.  Most themes a new box would appear with a link to the event.  In your theme it just displays the text overlaying the calendar dates.  It is hard to read like that.

Any solutions?
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