On 10/12/2010 10:50 AM, Walker, David wrote: > This is a very reasonable proposal, Tim. > > I feel compelled to put my development time where my mouth is -- and at least > get something started. Although we need a cooler name than QuickStart theme. > ;-)
Fine by me -- that's just a "codename" :) > However, DSpace is not my main area of work. Given my other > responsibilities, I definitely don't have time to complete a project of this > scale by myself. It essentially means re-writing the interface from scratch. > > Also, if we are going to rewrite the interface, I think it would be *well* > worth our time and effort to also redo the Manakin CSS, which IMO needs an > overhaul as much as the XSLT. I was assuming this new "QuickStart" theme may have its own CSS, as CSS goes alongside the XSLT to make up the theme. So, I think the "QuickStart" theme designers could decide to build the CSS however they want. There's no requirement/expectation that all themes need to use the same CSS. > All that being said, I think the *last* thing the DSpace community needs is > Yet Another Interface. Obviously, I think Manakin needs to be redesigned. > And, equally obviously, a change of that scale would need proceed in parallel > to existing efforts. > > But if the long-term outcome here is just an alternate Theme (albeit one that > is fundamentally different from all the others), then I think we've just > created more (and duplicate) work for everyone. > > At some point, it would be good if the developers, or the community as a > whole, evaluated this alternate approach and actually made a "yeah" or "nay" > decision on it. Long term, IMO, it either needs to replace the > structural.xsl approach or just go into the recycle bin. I don't think it's > sustainable otherwise. Agreed it would be good to hear if others think this is a good approach to try another type of Theme (what we've been tentatively calling "QuickStart" theme). As for longer term maintenance, there's actually two sides to this story. :) We obviously cannot just do away with the structural.xsl, as every current Manakin user is using it (unless they rebuilt all their local XSLT from scratch). So, I'm all for competition between multiple theme "models" (e.g. the DRI2XHTML model vs. a "QuickStart" model). In the end, one may win out over the other. Or, it's also possible that they'd both survive for a while (if there are interested parties maintaining each of them), and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing if they did (as long as we have the volunteers to manage each). It's just too early to speculate. - Tim ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Beautiful is writing same markup. Internet Explorer 9 supports standards for HTML5, CSS3, SVG 1.1, ECMAScript5, and DOM L2 & L3. Spend less time writing and rewriting code and more time creating great experiences on the web. Be a part of the beta today. http://p.sf.net/sfu/beautyoftheweb _______________________________________________ DSpace-tech mailing list DSpace-tech@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dspace-tech
