Styles and Skins

[mritter]

I have been updating the themes yet again for 8.0.0. I have made them cleaner for the end user to update/modify, easier for me to update/modify, just all around better. Then it dawned on me after I updated the first 5 themes: these themes are redundant and a pain in my butt!!!!!

There are only 4 "kinds" of theme styles: Windows, and my 3 styles: euDock, CorporateIT, and Accordion.

Of the 44 themes there are: 1 Accordion, 1 Corporate, 6 euDock, and the rest Winows's style.

So why am I busting my butt updating 44 themes over and over and over......?????? Talk about getting old QUICK!

Here is my proposal:

With the new upgrade for the DHX modules, they have merged all the skins into one file using a new Style Editor (coming soon to a WPI near you). This makes perfect sense to me: pick a color (skin), say SkyBlue, and all the components will then be SkyBlue. Can eliminate 7 of the combo boxes on the Style tab. 7 items will still be customizable. Pretty much every one does all black, all blue, all the same anyway since it matches main theme bg color.

Why not do that with the themes? Make 4 "universal" theme files in a common location, look at the actual theme folder for the images and style sheet, and voila! Instant themes.

This will make my life SOOOOOO much easier for updating. AND make your life easier since you will never have to update your themes manually.

All themes will look "alike". Now don't whine just yet. 95% all of skinnable programs just allow basic image/color replacement anyway. The image locations will all be the same, but still unique images/colors to every theme.

And if someone comes up with a new theme style, it can be added lickity-split.

Want to make a new theme? Pick a style, make new folder, throw in images, edit style sheet (basic colors), and you're done!

So..........I want opinions, ideas, complaints, whatever. For me, this is the way to go.

[chaoticyeshua]

I really appreciate all your work on this project... If there's anything you can do that would make things easier on you, then I'm all for it. WPI already soars well above and beyond my expectations. I've seen this project grow enormously since I started using it a few years ago. Thank you for everything you and Kel do.

[mritter]

Thanks, chaoticyeshua!

Since no one has an opinion, I went ahead with my idea. Working out beautifully! One theme done, copy and paste to the others. Going to be nice to only have to update the theme code 4 times instead of 44 times.

The nice thing is that you will never know the difference. Everything, well, 98%, will look and work exactly the same.