Inline Cheers, Ruppert
On Oct 13, 2009, at 8:09 AM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hi Tim:I fully understand your point of view and the constraints we all labor under. Whether the old theme sucks or not is not in question here.First question I have for you is what "guidelines" are you referring to?
Take a look at BizznessTime and then at Flat Grey and let me know when you think each were designed from a look and feel perspective? That's the point here - first impressions of whether or not this project is stale or not. This is why it was developed and it can have a huge impact on the people that see it for the first time. Not to mention that as I said, my customers have custom themes built on BizznessTime and are happy with them ...
Secondly, why should a new user have to change a theme in order to use OFBiz applications. If, as you say its easy to change a theme, then it should be incumbent on the knowledgeable experienced OFBiz user to change themes and not the new user. New users have enough on their plate just learning how the applications work.
I'm talking about demo.ofbiz.org having a current looking theme so that when people want to see the application for the first time, they're not asking if we started with the backend design in 2001 and then forgot to update it :) If you guys want that to be a deployment setting for the demo store - I'm happy to do it that way - let's just not act like the old theme is what is making OFBiz happen.
Thirdly, please don't throw around "its easy" to do something without siting references. You insult my intelligence and every other reader on this list by implying that anything concerning recent releases of OFBiz is "easy".
Please Ruth - come on. If you're not sure where the themes are, then please use a browser tool to tell you where the CSS is that drives the theme and tinker with it. If I had the references for you in my hands - I'll lay them out like a towel - but since I didn't, I declined to send you to the wrong place. Me and the other readers (and my employees) dove in on the theme concept and tried our best to come up with something quickly that would make an impact in the release. I think we accomplished that in a big way. If it's not good, then please help to make it better rather than turning back to something that's not pushing forward (on the design front).
I'd much rather see these kinks worked out - since we're only talking about CSS - not the magic of the screen widget / form widget, etc. In this case, "easy" means that any web developer in the world that does "Inspect Element" on Safari or anything else - will be able to see where the CSS is - since that's 99% of how these themes are messed with in the first place.
Regards, Ruth ---------------------------------------------------- Ruth Hoffman, Author, Mentor & OFBiz Enthusiast [email protected] Looking for more OFBiz info, please visit my website: http://www.myofbiz.com Tim Ruppert wrote:We are all working within the constraints of _not_ redesigning the entire set of backend applications - which is really what needs to be done. The old theme sucks visually - has no spice, doesn't fit today's look and feel guidelines AT ALL, looks really old - so I'd say from someone who does this day in and day out - you're WAY off when it comes to the way that people react to it (be clear, this does not talk to using it on a day to day basis). We've been very successful in building themes off of Bizzness Time - please are reacting in a really positive way.There is nothing other than a visual change on the BizznessTime theme. There are no other extra widgets or the like. it's just a reorganization of the data that's there to help give it a facelift. I'm not talking to users - I'm talking to you and everyone else who has issues with it. Fix it ... or go back to the old theme in your own setup - don't doom the rest of us to have to go apply first impressions with that really lame setup.As for the documentation - I'm not sure - checkout Confluence - we just dug in and tried to bring the backend apps out of the early 2000s instead of letting it sit stagnant.Cheers, Ruppert -- Tim Ruppert HotWax Media http://www.hotwaxmedia.com o:801.649.6594 f:801.649.6595 On Oct 13, 2009, at 7:10 AM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:Hello Tim:If this a tool for convincing people to use OFBiz, then IMO, we are way off the mark. The backend applications where the BiznessTime theme has been applied are designed for end-users who may not and probably do not have any experience with HTML or CSS. Lets not forget who our audience is here.If the foundation, as you say is so solid (and I have not doubt that it is), then reverting back to a simpler yet more accessible theme should be the way to go. Fancier is not always better.On another note, could you point me to the end-user documentation covering creating new themes. I'd be happy to try this out and post my findings.Regards, Ruth ---------------------------------------------------- Ruth Hoffman, Author, Mentor & OFBiz Enthusiast [email protected] Looking for more OFBiz info, please visit my website: http://www.myofbiz.com Tim Ruppert wrote:We exclusively use the BizznessTime theme with clients because it's WAY easier to change, skin and adapt to everyone's liking / look and feel. I think it would be a huge mistake to roll it back to the Flat Grey as we have not had any of the same problems once everyone gets over the initial shock of seeing something different.If the community wants to roll it back - then go for it - but it isn't wise. FIX the problems that you don't like in the BizznessTime theme, or create one of your own - it's easy to do - this is a much more solid foundation to build on then the old (and looking really old) theme that's been in there since the beginning. Have any of you tried to edit the CSS to make any changes that might not make it so "large"? It should be pretty easy with this setup.Anyways, think on it and do what you will do, but remember this is still a tool for convincing people to use OFBiz. I'd leave this in place and change it to the ugly, ugly in your own installations before I wanted to go back to Flay Grey as a sales tool ....Cheers, Ruppert -- Tim Ruppert HotWax Media http://www.hotwaxmedia.com o:801.649.6594 f:801.649.6595 On Oct 13, 2009, at 3:40 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:Hi Hans, So far,* it seems that most people find things too large and prefer to zoom out. * it seems also that not much specific bugs were reported, and those reported should be easily fixed (not quite sure though...)I repeat myself about where to report about this subject : create a subtask at https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-2398In his 1st reply Chris Snow suggested a change. But I'm not sure it's enough for doing the same thing as a zoom out Maybe we could ask Ryan Foster if it's possble to shrink the size (of everything ) else we may vote for the "return of Flat Grey" as defaulttheme. What do you people think ? JacquesPS : Hans I saw you opened a subtask for the field size issue, thanks!From: "Hans Bakker" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected] >>Sure the Business theme looks good but..... The general problem is that the characters, fields and actuallyeverything is far too big....If i specify a field to be 2 characters, atleast 5 fit in....So set the default to flat_gray in general properties is perhaps better.Regards, Hans On Mon, 2009-10-12 at 16:19 +0200, Jacques Le Roux wrote:Hi,I'd like to know what the community thinks about Bizness Time as default theme.Do you use it? Do you change for another theme ? Which one fo you prefer? Did you find bugs in one of the theme but not another? Thanks Jacques--Antwebsystems.com <http://Antwebsystems.com>: Quality OFBiz services for competitive rates
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