On Feb 15, 6:56 am, Alex Hough <[email protected]> wrote: > I am put off using themes because I find the workflow more complicated > than changing stylesheet, PageTemplate and ViewTemplate. Making > changes to a theme requires a browser refresh where as changes to > StyleSheet can be seen imediately.... > > My question is to theme developers : do you have a workflow that could > help me speed up theme development so that I might start packaging > things up as themes?
A theme is a tiddler containing a table with specific slice names that refer to the various tiddlers (or tiddler sections) that define the TW document appearance (templates and stylesheets). When the TWCore setting for <<option txtTheme>> is blank (or undefined) (i.e. config.options.txtTheme=""), the standard TWCore default appearance is controlled by *seven* separate tiddlers: StyleSheet PageTemplate ViewTemplate EditTemplate PageTemplateReadOnly ViewTemplateReadOnly EditTemplateReadOnly Editing any of these tiddlers will change the appearance (layout and styles)... aka, "theme", of your TW document. This is the familiar "TW Classic" method of customization and works reasonably well if you only want a single theme for your document. Note: the "ReadOnly" templates do not exist by default. If present, they are only applied when the document is viewed in 'readOnly' mode; otherwise, the TWCore standard templates are used. You can create alternative templates/stylesheets by copying the TWCore defaults and adding a prefix (e.g "MyTheme"). For example, you might create [[MyThemePageTemplate]] and [[MyThemeStyleSheet]] containing alternative layout and CSS definitions. Then, to apply the alternatives, you could 'juggle the tiddlers', renaming the current PageTemplate and StyleSheet to something like TWCorePageTemplate and TWCoreStyleSheet, and then removing the "MyTheme" prefix from your alternatives. Obviously, this is a VERY awkward, inconvenient, and potentially error- prone manual procedure. To address this, the TWCore provides a "theme switching" mechanism based on a simple 'slice table' definition that lets you specify which tiddlers (or tiddler sections) contain the desired layout/style content, so you don't have to rename the customized theme tiddlers to have them applied by the TWCore. The TWCore's default theme can be described by this 'bare- bones' [[DefaultTheme]] definition: |StyleSheet|StyleSheet| |PageTemplate|PageTemplate| |ViewTemplate|ViewTemplate| |EditTemplate|EditTemplate| |PageTemplateReadOnly|PageTemplateReadOnly| |ViewTemplateReadOnly|ViewTemplateReadOnly| |EditTemplateReadOnly|EditTemplateReadOnly| If you set <<option txtTheme>> to "DefaultTheme" you won't see any change in appearance because each slice refers to the standard TW template/stylesheet tiddlers. To apply an alternative theme, you edit the theme slice table so that it refers to your alternative template/stylesheet tiddlers: |StyleSheet|MyThemeStyleSheet| |PageTemplate|MyThemePageTemplate| |ViewTemplate|ViewTemplate| |EditTemplate|EditTemplate| |PageTemplateReadOnly|PageTemplateReadOnly| |ViewTemplateReadOnly|ViewTemplateReadOnly| |EditTemplateReadOnly|EditTemplateReadOnly| Note: you only need to defines slices for the parts of the theme that you are overriding. The rest of the theme will fallback to using the TWCore defaults. Thus, to define your custom [[MyTheme]], you actually only need a slice table like this: |StyleSheet|MyThemeStyleSheet| |PageTemplate|MyThemePageTemplate| Of course, manually editing the slice table is still inconvenient and error-prone, and certainly not suitable for use by non-technical 'end users'. Fortunately, to make things even simpler, you can create a separate theme tiddler, e.g. [[MyTheme]], containing the modified slice table, and then simply set <<option txtTheme>> to "MyTheme" to apply your customizations. As a further user-level enhancement, you can install my plugin: http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#SwitchThemePlugin Then, tag [[DefaultTheme]] and [[MyTheme]] with 'systemTheme', and embed the <<switchTheme>> macro into your document (e.g., in [[SideBarOptions]]) and you can quickly and smoothly switch between themes just by selecting from a droplist of choices! Lastly, if you don't want the *tiddly-clutter* of having to maintain separate tiddlers for each custom template/stylesheet, you can use tiddler *sections* instead of separate tiddlers, and use section references in the theme slice table, followed by sections with the actual custom theme definitions, like this: ------------- |StyleSheet|##StyleSheet| |PageTemplate|##PageTemplate| |ViewTemplate|##ViewTemplate| |EditTemplate|##EditTemplate| |PageTemplateReadOnly|##PageTemplateReadOnly| |ViewTemplateReadOnly|##ViewTemplateReadOnly| |EditTemplateReadOnly|##EditTemplateReadOnly| !StyleSheet /*{{{*/ ... /*}}}*/ !PageTemplate <!--{{{--> ... <!--}}}--> !ViewTemplate <!--{{{--> ... <!--}}}--> !EditTemplate <!--{{{--> ... <!--}}}--> !PageTemplateReadOnly <!--{{{--> ... <!--}}}--> !ViewTemplateReadOnly <!--{{{--> ... <!--}}}--> !EditTemplateReadOnly <!--{{{--> ... <!--}}}--> ***/ ------------- Take a look at: http://www.tiddlytools.com/#DefaultTheme It defines a theme slicetable that references sections within the same tiddler, where each section just includes the standard TWCore templates and stylesheets. This makes a good starting point for defining a new theme. Simply copy DefaultTheme to another name (e.g., MyTheme), and then start editing the sections. Note: the above content is a draft version of material for "TiddlyTech: An Author's Guide to Customizing TiddlyWiki", the *book* that I hope to finally get written this year... assuming I have enough time and funding (hint, hint). enjoy, -e Eric Shulman TiddlyTools / ELS Design Studios ---- WAS THIS ANSWER HELPFUL? IF SO, PLEASE MAKE A DONATION http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#Donations note: donations are directly used to pay for food, rent, gas, net connection, etc., so please give generously and often! Professional TiddlyWiki Consulting Services... Analysis, Design, and Custom Solutions: http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#Contact -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. 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