[pmwiki-users] patch: tweaks to main wiki theme

Sat Jul 23 03:40:17 CDT 2005

>>  <!--HeaderText-->
>></head>
>><body>
>>+<div id='globalwrapper'>
>>    
>>
>
>Here I would typically style the <body> tag directly, rather
>than add and use a separate div.  (Although I can conceive there might
>be a need or desire to have additional margin control beyond the 
>margins/padding of the body tag itself.)
>  
>

I think this is a fairly common browser bug workaround.  I think the 
idea is that you style the body to use really small text (knowing that 
browsers aren't supposed to go below 8 point font), then you use the 
globalwrapper to scale back up from the known font size.  A couple of 
big themes seem to use it, including the wikipedia engine I think?

>>@@ -24,8 +25,9 @@
>>        <!--wiki:$Group.SideBar $SiteGroup.SideBar--></td>
>><!--/PageLeftFmt-->
>>      <td id='wikibody' valign='top'>
>>+        <div id='wikimaincontent'>
>>    
>>
>
>Most styles that could be applied to #wikimaincontent here can just
>as easily go to #wikibody.  I'm not sure that I know of any that
>wouldn't work in this instance.
>  
>

I saw this as a big limitation.  The wikibody tag is styling the cell 
that contains the text, the wikimaincontent is styling the text itself.  
Consider in particular when you want some kind of border around the 
text, say a drop shadow or something.  In this case you need the cell to 
hold back the rest of the theme, but you can't (as far as I know) then 
easily put another border around the text content itself.  (Imagine a 
style where you have some colourful borders that hold the top and side 
nav bars, then some kind of formatting or background around the text itself)

Certainly it seems to offer more flexibility for the sake of a few extra 
characters

>><!--PageTitleFmt-->
>>-        <table width='100%' cellspacing='0' cellpadding='0' border='0'><tr>
>>+        <table id='wikibodynav' width='100%' cellspacing='0' 
>>cellpadding='0' border='0'><tr>
>>    
>>
>
>Adding id='wikibodynav' is a good idea here, since there's
>not an easy way to otherwise get at this table.  (However, in the new 
>skin I'm hoping to get rid of this particular table altogether, so... :-)
>  
>

Yeah, sure, you could get rid of all the tables here from what I have 
seen of peoples' CSS abilities.  However, it's easier for me (a css 
novice) to work with a partial table site.

I find big DIV's around logical blocks of content useful.  You can use 
firefox's live CSS editor to quickly play with the site style.  If there 
are a bunch of individual divs, but no wrapper divs then it's a pain 
putting top borders on the top div, side borders only on the middle divs 
and then bottom borders on the bottom div.... 

Anyway, the current theme seems pretty flexible.  I think it's just a 
CSS change that would transform the look of the standard PM theme.  Look 
forward to seeing what you come up with!!

Ed W
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