[pmwiki-users] It's time to change pmwiki default skin!

[Paul Giacherio]

>
> I wonder whether Paul Giacherio anticipated this dissection of his(?)
> design.
>

Ha, no I didn't. However, there's a lot of great feedback here that I think
is really valuable.

Just so there's no confusion, that design was never meant to be received as-
"this is what I think pmwiki should look like".  Rather, that was just an
internal site which I was working on that I wanted to show as a not-too-bad
example of default typographic styling. Almost everything about that site is
still in development. Having said that, there are a lot of elements (some of
which have already been pointed out) that I think could be considered for a
new default skin.

Form my perspective, I'd like to see a default pmwiki skin that:

1] Is centered, and has a flexible width to a point - the left-aligned, full
width current skin is difficult on big screens
2] Utilizes simple media queries to ensure the design is functional all the
way down to mobile sizes
3] Includes a css reset and solid standard typographic style
4] Moves all [and i mean ALL] standard style declarations into the default
css file - the current, occasional, header style injection can be maddening
to a first-time customizer
5] Is structurally table-less

I too am unsure about things like styling the page actions as buttons.
'Edit' is an action, which I'd rather style as a button but the other
actions I grouped just because they are uniquely wiki actions, and wanted to
set apart for my users.

There have been a few discussions about other CMSs [WordPress, etc.] and the
role of an appealing aesthetic for PmWiki. Personally I find PmWiki
extremely easy to use and customize. However, I don't think
the current visual style helps communicate that ease-of-use to new
audiences. The current default design feels outdated to me, and doesn't do a
good job of reflecting the software's simplicity.  While a direct comparison
with something like WordPress may be apples/oranges, before building an
intranet I considered force.com, wordpress, google sites and pbwiki as
viable solutions. I think that people evaluating pmwiki are likely drawing
on a much wider set of user expectations than just wiki/wiki comparisons.
Anything that can be done through design to position PmWiki as modern,
flexible and easy to use is a step in the right direction in my mind.


-- 
Paul Giacherio
http://paulgiacherio.com
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