yabdab, I think I understand your frustration, but from what I can tell your case is far from the primary way people use ThemeRoller. If I'm incorrect in my assumptions, let us know more about what you're doing with it.
The primary intended use of ThemeRoller is for a designer or developer to design jQuery UI widgets to match their website's design. This allows our widgets to blend into existing design environments with incredible ease compared to the other solutions out there. For power users, we also offer theme scoping, and folder name customization to facilitate multiple theme usage, but these features are not the primary focus of the framework. It seems you are using themes as a sort of user customization within your specific application. I'm excited to hear you've adopted our framework for this purpose (I too run a website that will be adopting custom theming using this framework). However, your and my method of using of the framework is an edge case - a jQuery UI power-user scenario. If we supported your case as our default, a lot of users would be left in the dark. If you take a glance through the message boards, you'll notice that the previous way we had it was very confusing to jQuery UI users - particularly those getting started with the library. Since we made the updates to the Download Builder, we've had very little confusion concerning the ZIP hierarchy. This is a huge win compared to the previous setup where we were flooded with questions due to its cryptic structure and limitations on where you needed to go to get each part of the library. Q. "I figured that much out, but I am developing an app that will use the themes, and I am worried noobs will not find it as easy. It was better before IMO. Any chance on bringing back the easier method? " A. I'm assuming the noobs you are referring to are noobs to your application, not jQuery UI. We can't cater our download builder experience to that user group. It's hard enough to make the zip easy to parse for our most common users: jQuery UI designers and developers. Q. "I could even include this (via WebView) *inside* my app and make it super easy for users to get themes. That would be awesome! " A. Indeed that sounds awesome. I'd say you have the tools at your disposal already to make this happen. We can't build our app to cater to individual implementations though. Q. "Furthermore, the directions on this page... http://jqueryui.com/docs/Theming/Themeroller Seems to be outdated and incorrect? " A. Yes, that docs page needs to be updated. I'll fix it up but in the time being, check out our Getting Started Guide for info on the download builder's folder structure. http://jqueryui.com/docs/Getting_Started Q."Just tested the FF Bookmarklet and it is jacked up as well. " A. It's the exact same structure as all downloads on the UI site now. It just goes straight to zip and assumes a 1.7 version number. This is something we can not safely support in themeroller app, nor would we want to because users would not have the ability to decide which widgets to include with their theme (a common confusion point before). Q."As it is, the page is now further borked up as the "theme naming" feature refuses to let me over write the value. It seems to have some sort of auto-complete kicking in. So if I enter "s" it finishes it as "smooth". " A. What you describe sounds like a bug, though I can't reproduce it. Theme naming is an "advanced", optional feature of the builder. I'd suggest not using it unless you have to support many custom (non- gallery) themes in a single directory. The theme name field does have a little auto-suggestion functionality, but you can always override it with your own name. Basically, it'll default to the theme name you've chosen in the select menu (lowercase, _ for spaces, etc). If you type a CSS scope, it'll suggest a name based on that instead. But you can still just type your own in there too. Again, unless you're using multiple custom themes in a directory, you probably don't need that field. As it is, the current zip gives you the most common directory structure on the web: index, css, images, and js. This could not be any more familiar to noobs who are trying to get started with jQuery UI, yet all of the tools for advanced users are in there as well. The root folders are production-ready files, combined and minified to your custom download preferences. As for the development_bundle folder, you can leave this one alone if you want, but it provides an uncompressed version of your download, as well as docs, demos and more. In the future, we may have a check box on the builder to specify whether you want the uncompressed files or not, but for now at least they are all contained in one folder. I hope I've adequately addressed your concerns. We realize the zip structure has changed a few times and we apologize it took so long to figure out the most usable hierarchy. I invite you to read up on the new structure and consider the benefits that it brings to all of our users - in particular developers new to jQuery UI. Thanks Scott --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "jQuery UI" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/jquery-ui?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
