[pmwiki-users] Move sidebar menu to the header, basically

[Petko Yotov]

Thank you for your efforts and for the link. I like the skin -- I think 
you meant on this page:

   https://www.kirpi.it/z/pmwiki.php?n=Main.QuickSkin

and one should click on a button near the top of the page to activate 
it.

I agree simpler one-column skins with a smaller number of top-bar 
navigation links, no search box, more spacing, a background cover photo 
instead of a company logo, and an inverted footer, appear more modern, 
even if they are less functional.

Less functional for a large website, yes, but one could argue that a 
2-column skin is less functional than a 3-column skin. Remember those?

But less is more and worse is better, especially when more than 50% of 
your visitors are looking at your website through the tiny screen of a 
phone, and stay for less than 2 minutes.

Maybe we can add a new 1-column core skin that looks like this. The 
top-bar navigation links could open group sitemap pages, and a search 
page.

One of the goals for the core skins is to be easy to customize and build 
upon by new wiki admins, people who don't have a lot of experience with 
HTML/CSS/JS and PmWiki. So they should be relatively simple and somewhat 
obvious with any complexity like dark mode or mobile/desktop layout 
switching moved away but available.

I would also recommend to move any inline CSS and JS from the HTML 
template and from $HTMLStylesFmt or $HTMLHeaderFmt into separate CSS or 
JS files. This would be in line with the current recommendations for 
website security. (Also a big todo for me regarding WikiStyles.)

Petko


On 04/04/2024 21:50, kirpi at kirpi.it wrote:
> It may well be very naive, but I can't help wondering if PmWiki could
> gain any (much) wider adoption by offering, ceteris paribus, a more
> modern look out of the box.
> 
> I should emphasise two points: the first is that the default skin[1]
> is wonderful, honed over the years, and personally I would never ditch
> it; the second point is that the skin system in PmWiki is very well
> working, easy and flexible.
> Yet when I try to show some friends PmWiki, as a general, easy tool to
> build a website also for noninitiates, the main reaction I get is: "it
> is old-looking, it looks stale". Most of them end up falling into the
> Wordpress net, only because the look of the main themes available out
> of the box.
> I feel it is a pity.
> 
> At the same time, as I am far from an expert in the field, I guess
> that building a new skin (and especially keeping it up to date over
> the years) would be too challenging for me: Petko is steadily evolving
> and perfecting PmWiki-responsive skin, and any new development in
> PmWiki is made keeping this very skin as a reference; so, I asked
> myself if a solution would be to just re-arrange PmWiki-responsive
> skin on the fly, by means of a few lines of javascript (or a similar
> quick approach).
> 
> I tried just a dirty hack[2], and the feedback was: "This is nicer!
> Not like that stale PmWiki you suggested me to adopt!"
> Now, I ask myself if such an approach would make sense, so that any
> newcomer realizes in a second that PmWiki allows to have a "modern
> looking" website with no to little effort.
> 
> I made my test here[2], to better show what I mean.
> There might be issues though, that my gross ineptitude prevents me from 
> seeing.
> 
> Luigi
> 
> ----
> [1] De facto, Petko's "PmWiki-responsive" skin.
> [2] https://www.kirpi.it/z/pmwiki.php - default skin slightly twisted
> to mimic a "standard" look of a "modern" website.
> 
> _______________________________________________