[Pmwiki-users] CSS layout in pmwiki-0.6

Patrick R. Michaud pmichaud
Mon Jan 26 09:58:04 CST 2004


On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 11:09:35AM -0500, J. Perkins wrote:
> First a word of warning: IMHO the table-oriented layout of classic 
> PmWiki a fundamentally flawed design. It's a fine idea in theory, but in 
> practice it is difficult to implement, as you can tell from all the 
> discussion surrounding the issue. 

Actually, I think the vast majority of the discussion has centered 
around problems with *non*-table oriented layouts, or people's desire to
use a non-table-oriented layout but not being able to make it work properly.  
And I'm in agreement that I didn't like the design of classic PmWiki--I've
just been looking for alternatives.  The ones you're providing are great.

> The root of the problem, I think, is 
> that the design is not browser-friendly, and more importantly, it 
> doesn't scale well as new features are added. I also believe that it is 
> excessively complex.

Which design are you talking about here--the classic PmWiki table layout,
or the new one put together in the 0.6-beta?  

> I've put together a prototype page at http://www.sim8.com/pmwiki-proto/. 
> This is not a functioning wiki, it's just an HTML mockup.

It looks great--I'll consider it.

> The "controls on the left" paradigm is a pretty standard web convention 
> that most users will be comfortable with. This design is popular because 
> it makes efficient use of screen space. Moving the controls to the left 
> also allows room for the category titles and longer link descriptions.

I conceptually disagree here.  The standard web convention tends to be
that *site navigation* goes on the left, and "controls" such as login, 
preferences, help, edit, etc. are either in the top banner or the upper-right.  
This is certainly the case with Yahoo!, Amazon, Google, CNN, New York Times, 
Wired, Tucows, and just about every site I've come across.  So, while I
agree that having some sort of sidebar on the left is becoming quite standard,
I disagree that this is the appropriate place for page controls.

And although these later comments appeared to have come from a prior
message (which I must have missed in the earlier discussions, sorry)...
some other responses...

> The CSS tags now have more
> understandable semantics: "wiki-text" and "wiki-menu". 

The new layout scheme does use "wikitext" for the text area, so we're
in agreement there.  However, I don't like imposing content semantics on 
WikiAdministrators--the sidebar on the left shouldn't have to be a menu--
it could contain a number of "article excerpts" or "headlines".

> Don't put the layout ahead of the content. Don't set a fixed body width
> or font size. Assume the layout will be resized drastically in the browser.

The newer layout schemes in the beta do not set any fixed font size, and
they only set a fixed body width (easily overriden in the CSS) as a
default suggestion to get reasonable layouts.  

Pm



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