[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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