I think it would be a good idea to think about the standard layout style of ikiwiki, the current layout used in a standard setup and on ikiwiki.info as well looks a bit old-fashioned to me. I guess that a nice modern layout would attract more new ikiwiki users and boost the ikwiki community...
FWIW, I agree. The actiontabs theme would be a better default, but something which showed what ikiwiki was capable of (or more precicely: that ikiwiki is as capable as other popular wiki softwares) would be better still. — Jon
As an author of plugins that interact with the UI, I think it's good that a minimal ikiwiki has a minimal anti-theme, and that plugins are developed against the anti-theme - it's a "blank slate" for themes. ?trail was much easier to get working in the default anti-theme than in actiontabs and blueview.
Technical detail: all the standard themes are done by appending to the anti-theme's CSS (albeit in ikiwiki's build system rather than during the wiki build), rather than by replacing it - so themes that haven't been updated for a new UI element end up using the version of it from the anti-theme. Comments and ?trail both need some tweaks per-theme to make them integrate nicely, but most of the design comes from the anti-theme.
That doesn't necessarily mean the anti-theme should be the one used on ikiwiki.info, or used by default in new wikis - from my point of view, it'd be fine for either of those to be actiontabs or something The important thing is to have a "blank slate" anti-theme that looks simple but sufficient, as a basis for new styles (either themes, or wikis that want their own unique stylesheet), and derive the other themes from it. --smcv
Ikiwiki's minimal theme is not modern. It's postmodern. I like it for the reasons described here. http://kitenet.net/~joey/blog/entry/web_minimalism/ " The minimalism sucked you in, it made the web feel like one coherent, unified thing, unlike the constellation of corporate edifices occupying much of it today."
I see an increasing trend back toward these principles, driven partly by limits of eg, smartphone UI. So I certianly won't be changing the look of any of my ikiwiki sites, including this one.
auto.setupandauto-blog.setupcould have different defaults, or allow a theme to be picked as Branchable does. Perhaps actiontabs for auto-blog and default for wikis? --Joey
Is it still Joey's opinion that ikiwiki.info should remain using the anti-theme?
I'd like to make one last, clear petition to move ikiwiki.info to using the actiontabs
theme. Rationale below.
I wanted to just ask one last time if that was still the case. I've been considering
picking back up my ikiwiki hacking efforts, as well as thinking about my personal use
of ikiwiki, and I was privately pondering on the health of the project. IMHO, it's not
great unfortunately, and we could use more contributors. I feel that the anti-theme on
ikiwiki.info is putting off potential users and thus potential contributors. The
actiontabs theme would be a better "advert" for ikiwiki: a better demonstration of what
you could do with it, and I think that's an important function of the site. I think
people might come across ikiwiki.info whilst looking for basic information on the project
and be put off by the anti-theme.
Honestly, I also find it hard to read information on the site due to the anti-theme (yes,
the default font face and size etc. are my own brower's preferences, but I sometimes use
browsers on other machines that I have not configured), including the wide (lack of)
content margins, and prefer to interact with it (generally) using local clones.
(I've just made this edit this way, but actually because the login process via email
seems to be broken for edit/preview workflow. I might investigate/file about that later.)
I wonder if someone feels the same, since you defaulted to actiontabs on branchable.
Thanks, Jon. (2017-12-28)
9 month ping, does Joey or smcv have any kind of opinion on this matter, subsequent to my last comment? I ask because both of your takes on the issue are from way back in 2011. — Jon (2018-09-24)
saw this "typesetter CSS" and was reminded of the anti-theme (and my 18 month old appeal to revisit that decision): typesetter-css:
HTML is a semantic markup language, but web-browsers' default presentation of semantic HTML is more based on compatibility with decades-old browsers than with readability. There are browser-addons that will take a page, strip out the presentational markup and try to present the result in a readable format, but that shouldn't be necessary if you've got sensible semantic markup to begin with.
Typesetter.css is a custom stylesheet designed to present generic, semantic HTML in the most readable way possible.
The readability problems with unstyled HTML that this project talks about are exactly why I think the anti-theme as default for the main site should be revisited. — Jon (2019-08-16)