The whole styles thing...

[charmian]

Regarding the recent miscommunication about styles: I guess the reason that people are so irritable about the whole style system is that it's seemingly broken for no reason, while the rest of the site is mostly as functional as LJ. Obviously, this is open beta, so everyone ought to expect that things are under construction and continuously being improved, but some people don't know that, I guess. However, looks like DW is going to be really generous and allow free users to have advanced styles, so probably people won't be complaining as much about the styles in the future.

Most LJ-code using sites start with a fair amount of layouts available, even if they can't use the proprietary ones. DW is boldly creating a revised style system of its own. However, because of the complexity of the style system, many LJ users have never touched it, so it is difficult to explain to them the potential benefits of the revised style system.

Er... I include myself there. I don't really understand why the new style system is better than the old one, from the end-user perspective (someone who doesn't use Advanced Customization). I probably would understand if I created layouts, but I don't, I'm afraid.


As far as I can figure out, the main innovation is that the sidebar options will be either totally consistent between styles, or at least much more consistent, kind of like Wordpress's widget system. (What would be even cooler would be a drag n'drop interface like WP)

Possibly (though I'm not sure) all layouts will support the same options, so we won't have situations where some layouts support text boxes and sticky posts, yet others don't?

In the sidebar, you can now re-order the elements, whereas before you couldn't do so easily. (I think) This is called the Modules system.

However, how will this work for layouts where there is no sidebar at all, such as A Novel Conundrum? Everything goes in the bottom, I suppose? Hmm.

Comments

[synecdochic]

Possibly (though I'm not sure) all layouts will support the same options, so we won't have situations where some layouts support text boxes and sticky posts, yet others don't?

Yup indeed. Also, everything will be fully customizable by using CSS instead of having to wade into the depths of the style system, so if you (for instance) want to design a theme where your entries are over here and the comments are over there, etc, you can do that just with a stylesheet, not having to create a new layer for it.

That's going to make it really easy for people to create and share layouts -- long-term, we're going to build a repository where people can submit their stylesheets (like the CSS Zen Garden), where designers can just upload their designs and anyone who wants to use it can clicky the ticky that says "apply this to my journal".

[charmian]

Great to hear it! Thanks for the clarification.

Sounds like big changes are going to be coming down the line. A repository sounds like a great idea.

[synecdochic]

I want to go back in time and punch the originators of S2 in the face. (Or elsewhere.) I hate it so much. Yeah, sure, let's make people learn a custom programming language just to move the entry in their journal 50px to the left! Arrrrgh.

[charmian]

Yeah, I mean, even if someone bought a paid account on LJ, and was able to use the system, they would still have to go through all of that learning for something that could only be used on the site.

[synecdochic]

Yeah. The problem was always that brad and mart always brought out the absolute worst Architecture Astronaut tendencies in each other. :P

[dipping_sauce]

let's make people learn a custom programming language just to move the entry in their journal 50px to the left!

...

D:

Please tell me you're kidding.

[synecdochic]

I'm exaggerating slightly. But only slightly.

[ephemerides]

I have to admit, the part of me that likes learning new systems (the more baroque the better) never had a problem with S2.

The part of me that had was vaguely responsible about allocating my time (mostly to work) meant I never got a chance to do anything with it. Which frustrated the part of me that worries about human interface issues, and wanted to tweak some designs. (Honestly! Some designs! Don't people think about the semantic layout issues at all?)

If it ends up a simpler system where I could contribute designs to a CSS-like library? I'd enjoy that. (Whether I'd let myself dig up enough time to really work on some designs, that's another question—I just cut out newspaper reading of my day for the past two weeks.)