Hot Lava AJAX Powered Theme Released

The first usable version (V3) of the "Hot Lava" theme is now available for download. This theme was a pet project for me, not only to use on our new website, but to develop a framework theme that opened the door to using AJAX functionality that I have not seen in other themes. Because it is a "Framework" I intentionally kept the graphics to a minimum. This should allow more flexibility for users to manipulate the look of the theme for their site.

One note of caution, it does use a lot of Javascript, and although it all degrades nicely, loading all that JS takes a chunk of bandwidth, but by keeping the graphics low, it should even out. And you can of course disable any AJAX/JS effects that you don't want in the theme. Eventually, I'd love to see the integration of a combine/compress technique for js & css, but that would most likely be a feature for icms than this theme, and is over my head anyway. Anyone interested in this can check this out:

I tried these two methods with no luck. I'm sure I was doing something wrong:
http://rakaz.nl/projects/combine/combine.phps
http://www.ejeliot.com/blog/72 (currently located in includes folder of theme)

CLICK HERE for a screenshot of our site running this theme...your content may vary.

CLICK HERE to download the theme!


DISCLAIMER:
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* THE THEME IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
* EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
* MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
* NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE
* LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION
* OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION
* WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

This theme is designed to work with XOOPS 2.0.14-2.0.17 and ImpressCMS v1. It MAY NOT function completely with other versions. This theme uses A LOT of Javascript to get the fancy effects. Javascript can definitely affect loading time, so any utilities not being used should be commented out or removed in theme.html. Utilities for the theme are all stored in the assets directory and left unmodified from the originals whenever possible. Modules or blocks with tables or large images may cause the layout to "break" or look funny.

Tested in the following browsers:
Netscape 4.79 (CSS Disables)
Firefox 2
IE 3 (CSS Disables)
IE 4 (CSS Disables)
IE 5.01
IE 5
IE 6
IE 7
Safari

Refer all support for this theme to:
http://community.impresscms.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=886&post_id=7871#forumpost7871


FEATURES:
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1) All-CSS layout which (Should) validate XHTML 1.0 Transitional by default, but it should also validate XHTML 1.0 Strict if you change the setting in the theme file and are crazy enough to want to used strict XHTML in the first place

2) Colors (colors.css) and fonts (fonts.css) CSS are stored in seperate files to make it easy to modify without worrying about layout stuff. New colors themes can be adapted from colors.css and used to overwrite the default to get different looks.

3) All Javascript degrades nicely when Javascript is turned off in the browser.

4) Utilities for the theme are designed to be easily overwritten when new versions of the utilities are released. All CSS overriding to theme is done in style.css.

5) AJAX/Javascript goodies include:
a) Scrolling randomly loaded left blocks with navigation
b) Right blocks have "accordian" effect
c) All media can be put into a lightwindow effect by simply adding class="lightwindow" to any tag. This includes images, movies, entire media galleries, external websites, local forms and pages. See DEV/LightWindow.txt for more info.
d) Notification options are hidden until clicked on to unclutter the layout (like http://community.impresscms.org).
e) Font size adjustment options for the user

6) Well documented HTML and CSS.

7) Integration with Mastop Publish's horizontal menu block (simply put it in the top-center block position. In fact, this theme will replace the default menu system with a better one! If no center-top block is present, the include/menu.html file is used instead.

8) Layout adjusts to display properly on non-home pages.

9) Block edit/add/delete icons from frontside for admin users for extra simplicity of editing.


CHANGELOG:
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2.29.08 - V3:
- Fixed Netscape 8 menu quirk
- Got LightWindow all working (Yay!)
- Now uses block IDs for styling rather than block titles, so it should W3C validate.
- Made home page scrolling block pick a random block on each page load
- Fixed bug so right column will not show on news submit page, which requires more room for some editors
- Fixed general formatting things
- Added theme support for several modules: News, xHelp, Info (Mastop)
- Added dynamic text size changes and search field
- Added button to "Add new blocks" in admin mode


1.14.07 - V2:
-V2 Added @import in theme.html for all CSS files to disable styles in REALLY old browsers
-Removed all inline CSS in theme.html for better old browser support

1.12.08 - V1: First release


CREDITS:
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Theme layout adapted from Luka Cvrk's public domain "Internet Hosting" css theme (www.solucija.com)

Adapted for icms/xoops and added yummy extra features by Daniel Trimpey (drummond) (www.pageprogressive.com)

Ruthsarian font resizing and CSS menu (http://webhost.bridgew.edu/etribou/layouts/)

Lightwindow Effects by Kevin Miller (http://www.stickmanlabs.com/lightwindow/)

Adobe Spry Framework (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/spry/)

Thanks to Marcan at inboxinternational.com and Joseph at MCM Web Solutions for help with this theme!




TO-DO:
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1) Need a way to combine/compress the loading of the CSS/JS. I tried these two methods with no luck. I'm sure I was doing something wrong:
http://rakaz.nl/projects/combine/combine.phps
http://www.ejeliot.com/blog/72 (currently located in includes folder)

2) Develop a hack for multimenu to use the Ruthsarian menu instead.

3) Develop alternate colors.css files to drop in and easily change the look.

4) Add styles for more common modules like smartsection, forums, etc.

5) Utilize lightwindow pop up windows for icms/xoops forms and utility blocks/pages (IE login, edituser).

6) Correct HTML and CSS validation errors that I'm sure I missed.

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