[RFC|Merged] Removal of imagesets

[Kamahl19]

I finally downloaded 3.1 and started digging.. I thought images for buttons will be completely removed, but I see them in theme/images/en . There is written something about fallback in CSS. I dont get it. Why are there en buttons?

[hanakin]

these are for older browsers that do not render css3 such as IE

[nickvergessen]

these are for older browsers that do not render css3 such as IE

No, we just replaced the Big Posting Buttons so far, as we didn't find a font that looks sexy when being so small as the edit/quote buttons

[hanakin]

yes but he is referring to why the primary ones are still in the folder structure

[Arty]

Well spotted. Those images are leftovers that should be removed.

[nickvergessen]

Same for their CSS Code I see

[Kamahl19]

Great, I was afraid they stay

[EXreaction]

Please create a bug ticket if there isn't one already

[neuropass]

Introduction
Original purpose of imagesets was to allow users use different sets of images with different styles. Almost nobody used this feature. Imagesets are tied to styles, using imageset from one style in another style almost always results in issues. So imagesets are used only for dynamic images (such as folder) and images that include language specific text (like "quote", "edit"), the rest can be replaced by theme.

Proposal
Completely remove imagesets, replace all hardcoded images with CSS.

How will images be structured?
Images that are currently in style/*/imageset/ will be in style/*/theme/images/
Images that are currently in style/*/imageset/{lang} will be in style/*/theme/{lang}/

How will language specific imagesets be handled?
Language specific stuff will be theme/{LANG}/, like theme/en/ and there will be file theme/{LANG}/stylesheet.css that includes all dimensions. In overall_header.html code would look like this:

Code: Select all

<link rel="stylesheet" href="{T_THEME_PATH}/stylesheet.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="{T_THEME_LANG_PATH}/stylesheet.css">

Advantages of these changes

• Less style components to deal with, all images will be in one component.
• More control over the way folder images are handled, allowing style author use sprites and font changes instead of relying only on one folder image. Same applies to language specific buttons: style authors will be able to use sprites.
• No need to precompile stylesheets. All language specific stuff will be in a css file, so no need to insert imageset data in css file.
• Mod authors won't have to modify acp style management and execute sql queries in order to add one simple language specific button.
• Main stylesheet.css will contain fallback code for English language pack, so in case if theme directory for current language pack is missing, English buttons will automatically be shown.

Disadvanges of these changes

• Forum admin will no longer be able to easily switch images in admin control panel, he'll have to edit entry in css file instead.
• Logo file name will be hardcoded into overall_header.html

Tracker ticket
Ticket: http://tracker.phpbb.com/browse/PHPBB3-10336
Proposed patch (full removal): https://github.com/cyberalien/phpbb3/co ... cket/10336
Proposed patch (removal with backwards compatibility): https://github.com/cyberalien/phpbb3/tr ... -imagesets

Hi, I have read few pages and I'm still a bit confused regarding the patches. Can I follow the instruction to remove the imageset folder on phpbb 3.0.11? Also wouldn't be a good idea just to use {less to compile the css and use font icons instead? More modern and up to date approach?

[Arty]

This is for 3.1, not 3.0