As we progress onward, one of the things we're looking to do is add more site schemes!
The site scheme is the look-and-feel of the "application" pages (as opposed to the user's own journal). Part of the changes we've made to the codebase as a whole will make it even easier to maintain multiple site schemes, and we'd very much like to have at least one alternate site scheme ready by the time we're inviting more people to move in. This isn't just to offer users more choice, either. Right now, the red site scheme that's the default when you visit www.dreamwidth.org (known as Tropospherical Red) is in our dw-nonfree source tree, because we need for our default site scheme to be unique to us (in order to help maintain our identity and our 'branding'). The code as- is ships with a number of other site schemes as well, but all of them are older ones that LiveJournal used over the years, and many of them are awkward and bare-bones-looking. For instance: http://www.dreamwidth.org/?usescheme=woais http://www.dreamwidth.org/?usescheme=opalcat http://www.dreamwidth.org/?usescheme=bluewhite http://www.dreamwidth.org/?usescheme=lynx Look familiar? The 'bluewhite' scheme is the one that's set as default for a new installation of the LiveJournal server code, so many LiveJournal clone sites use a site scheme that's related to it. We want to have at least one or two newer-looking, more modern design that we can include in the dw-free source tree, so anybody else running the Dreamwidth code will have a pretty, shiny design that they can use and extend. So, we're looking for people who are interested in making us alternate layouts. You don't need to do the work to turn it into an actual template for the site to use. You can do one of two things: either provide us with a detailed, high-resolution mockup in .png format, or provide us with a HTML and CSS template. (We greatly prefer the HTML and CSS, but if you can't do it for some reason, that's fine too.) All designs must: * use minimal graphics, and only those to which you hold the copyright or those that Dreamwidth owns; * fully comply with all accessibility guidelines and recommendations (see also: http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/notes/Accessibility_Testing ); * use our existing menu options, without change (see also: http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/notes/Dreamwidth_navigation ); * be fully functional and reasonably identical-looking in at least Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 7, and Safari 3.2.1, with Opera support as a useful bonus; * degrade gracefully in older versions of those browsers to the greatest extent possible, so that the site is at least usable even if it doesn't have all the bells and whistles; * function reasonably well at both high and low resolution, so as to reach as broad an audience as possible. We are particularly looking for designs that have a vertical navigation bar (on either the left side or the right side of the page content), designs that present all the material on the page in as simple a fashion as possible, and designs that really wow us with clever and original use of HTML and CSS. (I should note, however, that since this is a design for the site scheme itself, the focus should be more on the contents of the page than on the layout around it, especially since in many cases people will be using it to read others' entries.) To submit a design, please do your mockup or your sample HTML/CSS as an entry page, showing what it should look like with at least two comments. If you're just submitting a single .png mockup, you can mail that directly to me ([email protected]); if you're doing HTML-and-CSS, please make a zipfile with your .html page, your .css file, and any graphics you're using and mail that to me. If you have questions about what can and can't be changed by a site scheme, what you should and shouldn't be designing for, or anything else that I've failed to think about or address, you can ask on-list or mail me privately! --D -- Denise Paolucci [email protected] Dreamwidth Studios: Open Source, open expression, open operations. Coming soon! _______________________________________________ dw-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.dwscoalition.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dw-discuss
