Patrick Malley
Aportación realizada por Patrick Malley
Tim,
First of all, this statement is a bit condescending:.
I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but I read it as saying that designers shouldn't be trusted with the code, therefore we should take it away from them.
I don't really care what a lot of themes do wrong. I don't write them. What I do care about is increasing the amount of flexibility in Moodle so that more good designers will want to work with Moodle. That is what Urs has been pushing for all along.
Here's a more practical reason why:
Designers work with XHTML and CSS. That is the language that they feel comfortable with. That is the area they have the most control. By taking control of «head» away from designers, you add another layer of complexity that is unnecessary.
You may argue that control is not being taken away. That javascript and other bits could be added via some PHP method. I add:
Imagine a great designer, one who has never worked with Moodle, is hired to create a theme, and he wants to add some custom meta tags, some javascript, and perhaps an alternative style sheet. He will soon realize that the tools he knows how to use to get this work done have been taken away from him by programmers. He will have to search the documentation and the forums for a method for including these items.
You have to ask yourself why systems like Wordpress have so many great themes being contributed, while Moodle has so few? Certainly, Wordpress has a wider user base, but another reason is because Wordpress takes things like designer choice simplicity into consideration when making programming decisions.
I want to see greater freedom in Moodle Themes. Not less. Taking something away, and adding more complexity is completely undesirable.
First of all, this statement is a bit condescending:.
by the way, quite a lot of themes omit the doctype declaration, or other things.
I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but I read it as saying that designers shouldn't be trusted with the code, therefore we should take it away from them.
I don't really care what a lot of themes do wrong. I don't write them. What I do care about is increasing the amount of flexibility in Moodle so that more good designers will want to work with Moodle. That is what Urs has been pushing for all along.
Here's a more practical reason why:
Designers work with XHTML and CSS. That is the language that they feel comfortable with. That is the area they have the most control. By taking control of «head» away from designers, you add another layer of complexity that is unnecessary.
You may argue that control is not being taken away. That javascript and other bits could be added via some PHP method. I add:
Imagine a great designer, one who has never worked with Moodle, is hired to create a theme, and he wants to add some custom meta tags, some javascript, and perhaps an alternative style sheet. He will soon realize that the tools he knows how to use to get this work done have been taken away from him by programmers. He will have to search the documentation and the forums for a method for including these items.
You have to ask yourself why systems like Wordpress have so many great themes being contributed, while Moodle has so few? Certainly, Wordpress has a wider user base, but another reason is because Wordpress takes things like designer choice simplicity into consideration when making programming decisions.
I want to see greater freedom in Moodle Themes. Not less. Taking something away, and adding more complexity is completely undesirable.
As long as there is an opt-out, I don't see this as a problem. Otherwise, we'll just be placing more restrictions on what designers can do.
Something that struck me in your screenshot above was that the two dropdown menus that appear in every section should be on separate lines at smaller window sizes. Do they collapse one atop the other when you reduce your window size?
Hi Art,
I appreciate this question. It's been asked via email quite a bit today so I will have to post something about it on my site. I will continue to support my themes against bugs (via email in the short term, and via a new support system on my site in the future).
I will tackle the Parchment menu issue this evening, for sure.
For tweaks, feel free to ask your questions here.
I appreciate this question. It's been asked via email quite a bit today so I will have to post something about it on my site. I will continue to support my themes against bugs (via email in the short term, and via a new support system on my site in the future).
I will tackle the Parchment menu issue this evening, for sure.
For tweaks, feel free to ask your questions here.