Flaws of Xoops and modules [Theme designer talk]

1

Flaws of Xoops and modules

2004/10/14 17:27
incama
Friend of XOOPS
Posts: 513
Since: 2003/10/24

Hello everyone,.

Because I like XOOPS alot I want to bring a few things to the developers attention, because I think, and others with me, XOOPS has some flaws.
There are some parts of XOOPS which are very nasty, for example the bbcode. When having a fixed width theme, it continously mess up the whole theme. Responsible are codes like img quote code. We can't get a grip on it (at least as long people don't want migrate to Moz) isn't there an other option for this all? With thanks to StudioC I got rid of the misbehaivor of bbcode code, but it took him a while.

When looking into the standard module templates, it is one mess. Some are made up with stylies others with tables, why?

Another nice example is the new newbb module, I know it is a rc, but who made up to put the stylie into the includes directory??

Uniformity is what I'm looking for, this is not a nag to the developers, but they must know that there are people who just want to make themes (which is a hard job to) without digging into core code.

As a Dutch company once said: "let's make things better"

Your reaction please

Dave

2

Re: Flaws of Xoops and modules

2004/10/14 18:15
JasonMR
Just can't stay away
Posts: 655
Since: 2004/6/21

We are working on it....

3

Re: Flaws of Xoops and modules

2004/10/14 18:42
ackbarr
Posts: 1449
Since: 2002/10/2

Quote:

incama wrote:

When having a fixed width theme, it continously mess up the whole theme. Responsible are codes like img quote code. We can't get a grip on it (at least as long people don't want migrate to Moz) isn't there an other option for this all? With thanks to StudioC I got rid of the misbehaivor of bbcode code, but it took him a while.

sounds like you are referring to the lack of a max-width css rule in IE. If so, you may be interested in seeing a javascript that implements this and many other missing CSS selectors/rulesets for IE 5+. The project is called ie7. I have used this in several internal projects, with good results.

If you are referring to a different issue with bbcodes, please include a screenshot of the problem so we can understand the problem better.

On the template note, I think it is fair to say that most programmers are not designers, and do not design templates with theme developers in mind. While unfortunate, this is solvable. We do need a coordinated effort to improve the default template sets provided by modules. I personally will be looking for a professional UI designer soon to help with the layout of xhelp, any takers?

4

Re: Flaws of Xoops and modules

2004/10/14 19:14
Anonymous
Posts: 0
Since:

Hi dave,

first of all I like your themes and the themes other designers like 7dana and studioC and think this is also a hard job.

I´m a Coder and no designer, so first issue for me is the code and put everything i could into the templates.

We are now on a point where we are tolking about the templates of the newbb 2.0 and the current way isn´t the best, so we will work on this and hopefully make them tableless.

btw. I was the one who put the newbb.css into the include folder

is now back on the newbb root and the css file also will be otherworked the have as less color as possible.

We have a lot new improvements in the newbb 2.0 so we won´t stop at the templates, maybe with help of a designer we can work with more success, so other Module developer can follow this example.

Greetz

5

Re: Flaws of Xoops and modules

2004/10/15 4:53
incama
Friend of XOOPS
Posts: 513
Since: 2003/10/24

Thank you guys for the reactions.

@Ackbarr,
indeed I'm refering to the width of several bbcode, and for the time being, is there an option to disable the bbcode, just like you could disable html. Thanks for the link btw

@Predator,
This is not a flame towards the module developers, I know you people are working very hard to make the code as clean, safe and stable. I just wanted to express my feelings which is shared with alot of people. Programmers and designers should work more together, which could resolve into a more complete guideline for making modules and themes. For starters, maybe xoops.org should open a new forum where module developers could meet designers.

Again, thank you all for the reactions, and I hope we all are going to work together more often in the future.

Regards

Dave

6

Re: Flaws of Xoops and modules

2004/10/15 14:52
Anonymous
Posts: 0
Since:

Quote:

...maybe xoops.org should open a new forum where module developers could meet designers.

What about a nice Bar in Bavaria

7

Re: Flaws of Xoops and modules

2004/10/16 3:16
JasonMR
Just can't stay away
Posts: 655
Since: 2004/6/21

Too Cold!

8

Re:Flaws of Xoops and modules

2004/10/16 6:52
Draven
Module Developer
Posts: 337
Since: 2003/5/28

Haha, this is were I become the bane to all the XOOPS developers existence, I am first and foremost a designer, and on the side I enjoy coding. I work in the opposite direction as most of my fellow developers and I assure you, I'm always pushing the design issues on them.

Unfortunately the problem lies in the fact you have so many different people designing/developing in their own way. No matter how many standards we throw out there, it's still up to the module developer to abide by them. This is why the module team, in conjuction with the QC (Quality Control) team, will be signing certain modules as "Xoops Approved" modules (Or whatever we are calling them) as a way of recognizing those modules that DO follow the standards set forth. However, those standards are still evolving and due to this not everyone can keep up with the changing times. We have to have a bit of patiences and wait out some of the growing pains XOOPS is currently going through.

Hope that all makes sense, it's 3am and I'm a wee bit drunk :)

9

Re:Flaws of Xoops and modules

2004/10/16 7:28
vinit
Just can't stay away
Posts: 530
Since: 2004/1/10

Some things that i would like to bring into notice is "Module Naming Conventions". At XOOPS modules are named as one desires to have. Not looking into the aspect what overall sense it makes. At times the urls looks so abnoxious with this module names. Examples

1. Newbb (sugested name Forums) this would make it more clear to understand.

2. Removal of tag "xoops" infront of many modules like
a. XoopsFaq == FAQ
b. XoopsMembers == Members
c. XoopsGallery == Gallery
d. Xoopsheadline == headline
e. xoopspartners == partners
f. xoopspolls == polls
and many more.

it would be nice if there could be a option to give a name to module while installing it. Thus this will give the admins there one way to use modules. For example if i want to use wfsection for articles. i should be able to install it name "articles" and thus my url should be mysite.com/articles/

3. Putting in the filenaming conventions also so that page ranking can be easy. many files are <xoops>modulename.php Pages like this would not give benifit in page ranking.

This are few basic ones....
Can i hear some feed back.

10

Re:Flaws of Xoops and modules

2004/10/20 16:51
nbwork
Just popping in
Posts: 10
Since: 2004/10/13

if i am not mistaken you could change the folder name when you install it.

also i changed the partners to affiliates, i changed all the language files to reflect this change, works great, all the database stuff is still partners, but displaying has all been changed.

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