Outlining a New Theme

[hanakin]

Creating a new theme for phpBB is a daunting task especially given the small number of individuals on the team and the fact that most of us have day jobs.

In order to help drive this thing and generate community involvement both in discussions and development, I wanted to put together a sort of outline of what we need to help steer the individual topics as well as provide a sort of table of contents for reference and ultimately a checklist/progression chart.

Before we start let me preface how this is laid out for better understanding.

There are four main stages or areas of focus each with their own sub task. They are listed in order of requirement/workload.

1. StyleGuide ( GUI for editing, maintaining & documenting themes )
2. Themes Code
3. Themes Design
4. Any Core Improvements/fixes

Each task/subtask should have its own dedicated discussion thread to avoid confusion

sub task will be defined and added/linked appropriately as we progress.

This should also allow for community involvement with the actual development in an easier to follow manner

KEY
Have not started working on it or still in discussion

Working on it, still in progress

Needs reviewed/discussed

Merged or completed

[status] [disscussion link] [pull-request]

EXP: How to handle icons (#ticket-18273)

PLEASE KEEP DISCUSSION IN THIS THREAD RELATED TO IMPROVING, CHANGING OR UPDATING THE LIST ONLY

1. StyleGuide
2. Theme Code
   • 1. What browsers should we support?
   • 2. Why is a framework so usefull? (https://github.com/hanakin/base-l)
   • 3. Lets talk grids
   • 4. Lets talk JS frameworks & approaches
3. Design
4. Core Changes

[Meis2M]

Hello any news !

[hanakin]

Sorry have not been keeping this up to date as things have gone through so many changes since I created this. Also it takes time away from working on it to main the post. I have been working hard to get more and more components out. And internally we discussed some ways to speed up the development of everything we just need to handle some logistics of it. Look for more information on .com

[Ger]

From the JS topic:

If you are familiar with the progress of the new theme you will know that I am wrote from scratch our own custom framework for handling the CSS.

And here:

Look for more information on .com

I have looked, but really I cannot find anything indicating a status, some code, some docs, nothing. Not on Area51, not on .com, not even on Github. This was supposed to be implemented in 3.3 at some point, but is it still? Nobody seems to know.

If someone is interesting in assisting in any way, any motivation would probably vanish in the search for a starting point. Some people (like me) know you are the one doing all the work and that's really appreciated, but I doubt anybody except some elite team members has a clue about the status or the direction. Some regulars even make jokes about this thing being here in about 5 years, or perhaps 5 years after that. But for all I know, you may have finished the whole thing for 99%...

TL;DR: where can we follow the development?

[GanstaZ]

If i understand it correctly, it is based/default on the framework that is located in hanakin github repo?

[hanakin]

Yes and the codepen more can be found in this topic viewtopic.php?f=131&t=50326

Not sure where the second quote came from but it’s sort of out of context. Essentially we are working on some formal posts and announcements that will be coming to .com in the next couple months.

[Ger]

I see, it's base-l? I've looked at your Github repo's but didn't recognize it as having anything to do with phpBB. Seems like a starting point.

Not sure where the second quote came from but it’s sort of out of context.

The post right above my previous, from last December.

Essentially we are working on some formal posts and announcements that will be coming to .com in the next couple months.

Looking forward!

[neufke]

I have been seriously looking into this @hanakin, and have been seriously looking at what your repo, your base-l would contribute next to some of the standard libs out there (and i am on purpose not mentioning any of them, so without prejudice) and while i am not against any good and new lib, it's starting to feel like you are re-inventing the wheel again. I am really looking forward, as Ger above me, what the end result will be but for now it is your own project in your little corner of github and it is what it is.

I think there are a lot of great coders here that can help putting together a great new theme with (for instance but not limited to) bootstrap, just an example which has grown exponentionally the last few years. I am getting that kind of feeling that you were on a fork in a road, took the left turn and now are stuck on that road and think you can't go back and change that choice, we have a saying over here:

better half-turned than completely gone astray

It's a translation so i hope the essence is getting through. Maybe it's time to do some really deep reconsidering and rethinking if this was the best choice since you are already working on it for the better part of 6 years now and i haven't seen anything spectacular in your repo.

Mind you, this isn't about critisism, i applaud you very much for the effort and have the upmost respect for the work you've put into it but it's kind of a blocker that keeps coming back here on area51.

It's just my honest 2 cents though. As always, keep up the great work you do guys, appreciate it!