Help, theme annoyances needed for checklist

[carl_galloway]

Hi all,

I'm trying to put together a theme designers checklist, which can be used by any theme designer to test their themes before releasing it to other s9y users. At the same time I am creating a new database which will be filled with dummy entries, comments, images etc to be thrown into any new s9y installation and used by theme designers to fully test their theme. This will be available as a zipfile with the sql dump, the uploads directory, the checklist, and anything else we think of.

The advantage of this is that designers won't have to test their themes on a live site, or on their own site which may not be used the same way another user would. So by putting together a checklist and new database, the theme designer shouldn't have to anticipate how other users will use their theme, they can simply view the test database and know for certain that it will cover 90% of all users needs.

What I need though, is as much detail from other users about problems they have with different themes so we can see if the theme is missing a style, or whether the users have found different ways of using their s9y that the designer didn't anticipate. Please, no theme or author bashing - every designer put a lot of work into their design and deserves the credit for doing so. By getting your feedback, I can create the dummy pages that demonstrate why these problems need fixing, and this will allow the theme designer to incorporate this into their design. Existing themes could also then be tested and updated.

Hope this turns into a useful project, and thank you in advance for your help. If anyone already has something similar they would like to share, please post it or email me
webmaster [at] carlgalloway [dot] com

Cheers
Carl

[judebert]

Carl, this is an amazing idea. Programmers call this kind of thing a "test suite" -- several exist for CSS, but I never even considered writing one for Serendipity themes. Brilliant. Don't you have a wishlist somewhere? You deserve a reward.

The biggest problems I've seen with themes are failure to support multiple browsers (not something we can do with the test suite, I'm afraid; developers will just have to visit it on their own) and failure to support particular plugins. Usually, this is the next/prev plugin, static pages, or extended properties (like sticky entries).

Come on, everybody else! If you want it tested in the future, put it in here!

[carl_galloway]

judebert, when you say next/prev, are you referring to the page footer that counts the number of entries and links to the previous or next page? If so this is just one example of an error in the default theme (entries.tpl). This part of the page should have its own style, instead it is lumped in with the 'entryfooter', and the code;

Code: Select all

 
     <div class='serendipity_entryFooter' style="text-align: center">
    {if $footer_prev_page}
        <a href="{$footer_prev_page}">« {$CONST.PREVIOUS_PAGE}</a>& #160;& #160;
    {/if}
    {if $footer_info}
        ({$footer_info})
    {/if}
    {if $footer_next_page}
        <a href="{$footer_next_page}">» {$CONST.NEXT_PAGE}</a>
    {/if}

    {serendipity_hookPlugin hook="entries_footer"}
    </div>

should read

Code: Select all

<div class='serendipity_pageFooter' style="text-align: center">
    {if $footer_prev_page}
        <a href="{$footer_prev_page}">« {$CONST.PREVIOUS_PAGE}</a>& #160;& #160;
    {/if}

    {if $footer_info}
        ({$footer_info})
    {/if}

    {if $footer_next_page}
          & #160;& #160;<a href="{$footer_next_page}">{$CONST.NEXT_PAGE} »</a>
    {/if}

    {serendipity_hookPlugin hook="entries_footer"}
    </div>

Simply replacing this code in the default theme, and any theme with a custom entries.tpl would fix that problem. Note that I have created a new style .serendipity_pageFooter, and to the best of my knowledge this does not appear anywhere else so should be a safe update.

EDIT: how interesting, the forum won't accept the & #160; in the code. I've put a space between the & #, so anyone using the amended block of code MUST remove the space to get the code to work as intended.

Carl[/b]