[pmwiki-users] Setting Skins for Individual Groups

[Hans]

Saturday, March 11, 2006, 1:34:33 PM, Patrick wrote:
> - Currently SetSkin() aborts processing altogether if the requested
>   skin does not exist.  This means that someone entering
>   (:skin badskinname:) effectively blocks the page from being
>   displayed at all.  We would probably need to change things so
>   that an invalid skin request simply has no effect (which
>   would make it slightly more difficult to troubleshoot situations
>   where setting $Skin doesn't seem to be having an effect).

I don't see this as a big issue. We can insert bad skin requests in
numerous ways, using ?setskin=badskin in the address bar or a link,
which really makes you wondering what happened. If these cases can be
fixed as well it would be great, otherwise I am happy to live with
bad skin requests.

> - The (:skin:) directive won't affect page editing; i.e., 
>   if someone edits a page containing the (:skin:) directive, they'll
>   see the page's default skin.  However, pressing "Preview"
>   would cause the skin to be loaded, and then the edit page
>   *would* appear with the new skin, which could confuse authors.
>   I'm not sure how important this is, or what a good solution would
>   be.  It may be that the site will want a special EditFunction 
>   that checks the markup text for a (:skin:) directive and
>   processes it.

This is a little bizarre. Still I think of the use of (:skin xyz:)
more as a cosmetic thing, to change the look for a particular page. If
all the skin's functionality is required then it is better the admin
does a local customisation.

With Gemini and Fixflow I added  a cosmetic (:theme :) directive,
which changes color and font schemes, without changing any
functionality. But functional change by users is also possible via
config pages on a group level.

So I think if the (:skin :) directive can be made smart enough to do
the job fully and properly it would be a good thing, a consistent and
powerful tool. Even if it is used only occasionally.


Best, 
~Hans