[pmwiki-users] Skins documentation

[Bronwyn Boltwood]

On 8/15/05, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 15, 2005 at 12:36:10AM -0400, Bronwyn Boltwood wrote:
> > On 8/14/05, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
> > > Since we have a number of excellent skin designers here, perhaps
> > > someone could draft up some initial text for this page?  It doesn't
> > > have to be polished -- just give us something to work with.
> >
> > Have a start.  I think the next step is for someone to amalgamate or
> > redistribute the content in the pages under More Information.  There's
> > enough information about how to write a skin that it deserves at least
> > one more page.
> 
> Wow, great start!  This will be a huge help.  I agree that the skin
> documentation will ultimately need more than one page.

Thanks!  Maybe three pages would be appropriate:

- how to make a simple skin
-- minimum requirements 
-- good things to do
- how to make a more complex skin 
-- references simple page for basics
-- explains how to do various more complicated things, like 
--- show or hide chunks of the template
--- include custom code
--- bundle custom wikipages
--- allow skin to be re-themed or have multiple configurations
- skin code reference
-- explains what all the various <!--skincommand--> sequences mean,
and how to use them successfully
-- variables commonly used in templates

etc.
 
> The demonstration of skins at the beginning of the page won't work
> for a distribution, though, because it assumes that the skinchange
> recipe and related skins are loaded on the system.  But I like
> the idea of making it easy for someone to see the differences--
> perhaps those could be pmwiki.org links (opening in a new window)?

They now are.  When writing, it seemed best and easiest to show rather
than tell, and then point out the kinds of changes they just saw.

Bronwyn