[request] Pre-release testers of new theme framework

Announcing: Boiler - an HTML5, CSS3, Mobile friendly, 960gs, etc etc etc theme framework.

The goal of Boiler is to reduce the overhead required to roll out new designs. It does this by doing all of the heavy lifting for you.

To create new designs you just create a new skin - tweak the theme settings and/or the skin settings - style it - override as needed and go.

As an example of how beast it is - the default skin was accomplished with just over 200 lines of css - spaced all out like a mofo.

Anywho - I am looking for people who want to try it out before it is 'officially' released.

So, download - play - let me know how it goes - your responses will help me form the documentation.

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Nice piece of work - and it's rather a neat theme as well.

I have tested on several browsers: All usual on desktop, on android sony-browser and firefox and on a smartphone browser (android). Great work! I like the way of your theme. Most themes to work great. some "bugs" I found were more module related, not t your theme I think.. Thanks for sharing! A lot of good ideas for a theme.

Funny to reading, I'm working on a theme with the same framework. I like the 960gs, thats the best from the best

Nice. Very nice.

Thanks, Will!

I can follow the structure, but wouldn't know what to do to customize it - that's not my cup of tea.

One thing I like to do for my sites is make those nav links at the top a custom tag that can be edited from admin. A simple list is easiest, but anything is better than having to edit the HTML directly and reupload.

I'd like us to include a new default theme with every major release - kinda like the new desktop backgrounds for each new OS version.

In another post, David J mentioned all the core templates need reworking for HTML5 - any thoughts on that?

This is fantastic! A merge between HTML5 Boilerplate and a Grid system which remains compatible with the theme system as it is right now.

Impressive.

The structure is a bit more involved than the current themes, but that's the price to pay for the added functionalities. For documentation, it would be very interesting to have step-by-step descriptions in a 'howto' style.

How is it structured (very important but boring)
How to add a dropdown menu
How to add a table style
How to style blocks
How to style an entire page

Impressive. It is The Beast. A new level for ImpressCMS themeing.
Using this Framework the job is make only with a new skin: pure CSS and a little HTML.
The key seems for me in theme_setting.html file. If someone dev could help to you making a module allowing to the end user select his own theme options and adding custom block positions in theme settings....
If I am right, if I make a new theme using this Framework I must to do a new skin and adjust the values in theme_setting.html (head, header, blockzones, etc). Changing those values needs modify the file and I am thinking in a bridge between the settings theme and the Control Panel.

And the "bridge" you mention could be done by adding a lot of the "setting" code to a customtag as well... :)

A way to handle options and settings for themes would be a very nice and useful addition to ImpressCMS.

That means some standardised way of storing and retrieving theme data (API classes, please no more direct access to DB tables).

To be discussed how this can be opened up to the theme, without requiring lots of code or processing.

Thanks everyone for testing - I have an updated version coming soon with some bug fixes.

My issue with customTags - and block position for that matter - is that there is no way to to create them from the theme - you rely on the user to set them up and populate them. With the theme settings file - I can at least ensure that the theme will look decent when it is installed.

A theme configuration interface would be exceptional - especially if it was dynamic and provided options based on the theme. For example - the admin panel for boiler would be far more advanced than the admin panel for iTheme.

The idea behind boiler is that you should really never have to touch theme.html or even theme_settings.html. Everything can and should be done in a skin via skin_settings.html. This is the ICMS override-not-overwrite logic at work.

If you look at the default skin - at its settings file you will see that this is where I am doing things like adjusting grid width based on what content areas live on the page - and telling the banner to only show up on the home page. However, any value that exists in theme_settings.html can be overridden in skin_settings.html.

As the theme matures I would like to make this more user friendly - and even more simple to make a new skin, I hope that boiler can finally get some excitement behind the potential of a theme admin panel too.

More importantly I hope boiler facilitates some new energy behind themes for this system. I made a new skin last night in about 45 minutes, there really won't be an excuse once it is stable. :)

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Agreed - and this is something I would like to look at us improving if possible.

If it was possible to either set up a Customtag - or a custom block position - by another way ... then they could be used in other themes or modules.

I think, with the newly written system module (which is based on IPF), the possibility of creating those elements programatically is there. It might take some careful looking at the class structure to verify that it will work in those cases.

The theme interface would be high on my wishlist, as well as a theme installation routine, where you create (and remove, on deinstall) the required elements in the ImpressCMS instance.

This may be slightly relevent - but one nice feature in the Sprocket toolkit module is the ability to edit css files from the admin area.

If we could provide themes with a standard "config" type file, and allow this to be edited in much the same way - it could allow us to create and set up values to control the whole theme from an admin side.

it might serve an intermediate purpose true - but I wouldn't call it an end-all solution.

The question is - is the time it would take to implement such a feature better spent advancing the core?

I don't believe editing files on the web server from a web interface is something that needs to be in the core. Most people won't use it. It's tricky securty-wise as well.

You could offer it in a ACP-only module for example.

I didn't mean add it to the core. I meant instead of adding something like that to the module - spend that time on making a theme ACP interface