Wishlist/Feature Request: Customise page themes (skins)

Hi Teresa,

Gregor is working on skins support for Mahara which we hope to make available in Mahara core. Please see https://mahara.org/interaction/forum/topic.php?id=4404 for more information.

Cheers
Kristina

I think for usability purposes, it's essential that we provide some default skins. Currently there aren't any, and so if a user creates a new page there's this whole "skins" tab there, but it doesn't do anything and doesn't really provide an indication of what it could do.

It would also be excellent if you could create and edit skins directly on that skins tab... but I think we can save that for a later iteration. Although it might be a good idea to at least add a link from the skins tab to the page that lets users review their skins.

I would also like to see a config-defaults.php option to enable/disable this feature. It adds a whole lot of new controls to Mahara, which already has a pretty complicated interface, so it would be good to let admins disable it. I'll go ahead and implement that, since I'm already doing some work on a dwoo tag that does "if/else" based on a Mahara config setting.

Cheers,
Aaron

Aaron that's OK.

And I'll play a bit and try to create some skins.

It would also be a good idea to "tell" users that when they create skins
and they enter custom CSS on 'Advanced' tab this CSS is not reflected on
skin preview image. Hope that it makes sense to you what I wanted to say
and at the same time it is reminder for me to add e.g. description under
textarea on that Advanced tab...

Cheers, Gregor

2013/8/1 Aaron Wells <email address hidden>

> I think for usability purposes, it's essential that we provide some
> default skins. Currently there aren't any, and so if a user creates a
> new page there's this whole "skins" tab there, but it doesn't do
> anything and doesn't really provide an indication of what it could do.
>
> It would also be excellent if you could create and edit skins directly
> on that skins tab... but I think we can save that for a later iteration.
> Although it might be a good idea to at least add a link from the skins
> tab to the page that lets users review their skins.
>
> I would also like to see a config-defaults.php option to enable/disable
> this feature. It adds a whole lot of new controls to Mahara, which
> already has a pretty complicated interface, so it would be good to let
> admins disable it. I'll go ahead and implement that, since I'm already
> doing some work on a dwoo tag that does "if/else" based on a Mahara
> config setting.
>
> Cheers,
> Aaron
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1168213
>
> Title:
> Wishlist/Feature Request: Customise page themes
>
> Status in Mahara ePortfolio:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> - exact version of Mahara: 1.5.7
> - operating system: Redhat Linux 5.6
> - database: MySQL 5.0.xx
> - Chrome 26, IE9, FireFox 20, Safari 5
>
> I am not registering a bug, but a wishlist/feature request.
>
> I have had a lot of users (approx 95% I talk to) mention that they
> would love the ability to have the choice to customise their page
> themes.
>
> I realise this is no small undertaking, and it looks as though some
> site themes can be customised via the admin/institution pages - is
> this possible for configuring page themes?
>
> I have attached an image with a rough idea for implementation.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/1168213/+subscriptions
>

--
----------
Gregor Anželj, prof.
Gimnazija Bežigrad, Ljubljana

Another idea Aaron...

Maybe we could add Skin functionality to demo.mahara.org and during testing
(beta) phase nvite users to test that feature and create some skins. And
then use those skins on their pages.

The skins that would be most used / voted best / added to favourites most
times would be added to Mahara 1.8 as default skins.

What do you think? I know that there a more talented designers from me out
there ;)

Cheers, Gregor

2013/8/1 Gregor Anželj <email address hidden>

> Aaron that's OK.
>
> And I'll play a bit and try to create some skins.
>
> It would also be a good idea to "tell" users that when they create skins
> and they enter custom CSS on 'Advanced' tab this CSS is not reflected on
> skin preview image. Hope that it makes sense to you what I wanted to say
> and at the same time it is reminder for me to add e.g. description under
> textarea on that Advanced tab...
>
> Cheers, Gregor
>
>
>
> 2013/8/1 Aaron Wells <email address hidden>
>
>> I think for usability purposes, it's essential that we provide some
>> default skins. Currently there aren't any, and so if a user creates a
>> new page there's this whole "skins" tab there, but it doesn't do
>> anything and doesn't really provide an indication of what it could do.
>>
>> It would also be excellent if you could create and edit skins directly
>> on that skins tab... but I think we can save that for a later iteration.
>> Although it might be a good idea to at least add a link from the skins
>> tab to the page that lets users review their skins.
>>
>> I would also like to see a config-defaults.php option to enable/disable
>> this feature. It adds a whole lot of new controls to Mahara, which
>> already has a pretty complicated interface, so it would be good to let
>> admins disable it. I'll go ahead and implement that, since I'm already
>> doing some work on a dwoo tag that does "if/else" based on a Mahara
>> config setting.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Aaron
>>
>> --
>> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
>> report.
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1168213
>>
>> Title:
>> Wishlist/Feature Request: Customise page themes
>>
>> Status in Mahara ePortfolio:
>> Confirmed
>>
>> Bug description:
>> - exact version of Mahara: 1.5.7
>> - operating system: Redhat Linux 5.6
>> - database: MySQL 5.0.xx
>> - Chrome 26, IE9, FireFox 20, Safari 5
>>
>> I am not registering a bug, but a wishlist/feature request.
>>
>> I have had a lot of users (approx 95% I talk to) mention that they
>> would love the ability to have the choice to customise their page
>> themes.
>>
>> I realise this is no small undertaking, and it looks as though some
>> site themes can be customised via the admin/institution pages - is
>> this possible for configuring page themes?
>>
>> I have attached an image with a rough idea for implementation.
>>
>> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/1168213/+subscriptions
>>
>
>
>
> --
> ----------
> Gregor Anželj, prof.
> Gimnazija Bežigrad, Ljubljana
>

--
----------
Gregor Anželj, prof.
Gimnazija Bežigrad, Ljubljana

Okay, I've opened a separate launchpad bug for adding some default skins. I think we can take care of that after we've got the basic skins patch approved and merged: https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/1207535

You've got a good idea, we can put it up on master.dev and ask the community to create some. I'll also ask our designer Evonne.

Oh, somehow the gerrit URL never got posted in here:

https://reviews.mahara.org/#/c/2356/

Added a patch for an admin option under config-defaults.php, to allow enables to enable/disable the feature sitewide: https://reviews.mahara.org/#/c/2392/1

Kristina also suggested that it might make sense as a per-institution setting. I'll look into whether that would be easy to do.

Hi Gregor,

Demo always runs on the latest stable version of Mahara, but we always update master.dev.mahara.org with the RC.

Cheers
Kristina

Okay, we finally pushed all the patches for this to master!

https://reviews.mahara.org/#/c/2356/
https://reviews.mahara.org/#/c/2383/
https://reviews.mahara.org/#/c/2392/
https://reviews.mahara.org/#/c/2503/

I've also had the first bug report, from Kristina, which I've patched here:

https://reviews.mahara.org/#/c/2510/

After a little googling, I have confirmed that allowing arbitrary CSS is an attack vector. For instance, you can put Javascript in a CSS block, and IE will execute it.

So, I've pushed a patch to sanitize the "custom CSS" field of potentially malicious code: https://reviews.mahara.org/2511

And another patch to fill in some blank spots that show up when you make your browser wide enough (in the Default theme anyway): https://reviews.mahara.org/2512

It occurs to me that we ought to let the Theme override what goes in style.php, so that it can identify which bits are the "body", the "view", the "header", etc. Maybe for Mahara 1.9?

Reviewed: https://reviews.mahara.org/2510
Committed: http://gitorious.org/mahara/mahara/commit/799431782e793000e7b03370c377731dc936ac8d
Submitter: Robert Lyon (<email address hidden>)
Branch: master

commit 799431782e793000e7b03370c377731dc936ac8d
Author: Aaron Wells <email address hidden>
Date: Fri Sep 20 15:23:30 2013 +1200

Skins: Fixing bug in the raw theme editviewtabs.tpl

Bug 1168213

Change-Id: I7d65ff28707eec9f88742486dc5e524096772e62

Okay, while fixing other issues I changed skin/style.php to use a page template (skin/style.tpl). So now themes can override the skin stylesheet. Theme developers can use this to try to make the skin stylesheet be compatible with their particular theme.

https://reviews.mahara.org/#/c/2518/

Hm... it's actually probably not compatible with Page Themes... but that's a matter for another day.

Reviewed: https://reviews.mahara.org/2527
Committed: http://gitorious.org/mahara/mahara/commit/164a6dfe8d51a03e8b5e25c4cc33548a585b336c
Submitter: Robert Lyon (<email address hidden>)
Branch: master

commit 164a6dfe8d51a03e8b5e25c4cc33548a585b336c
Author: Robert Lyon <email address hidden>
Date: Thu Sep 26 08:54:05 2013 +1200

Skin title showing escaped chars (Bug 1168213)

When viewing skins on the Portfolio -> Choose skin page the title
is shown as escaped eg
Bob's test
is shown as
Bob&#039;s test

As the data comes from the database and is not resaved to the database
- it is only displayed to screen - the data should be safe and not
needing escaping.

Change-Id: Ic157c4a07664c13688fb8822340fbcffcb9e3c70
Signed-off-by: Robert Lyon <email address hidden>

Reviewed: https://reviews.mahara.org/2519
Committed: http://gitorious.org/mahara/mahara/commit/e6ba937163c86a29e245acda7ec27eaaad0937bc
Submitter: Robert Lyon (<email address hidden>)
Branch: master

commit e6ba937163c86a29e245acda7ec27eaaad0937bc
Author: Robert Lyon <email address hidden>
Date: Tue Sep 24 08:50:13 2013 +1200

Skins: importing skin and not being allowed to view bg image Bug 1168213

- the importation was bringing across the fileid for the background
image and if that id happen to match one on the new site you could
not access your own file

Change-Id: I885a9fe11fa6eeb886d590ee940f9aa8fe1eac60
Signed-off-by: Robert Lyon <email address hidden>

Another patch for skins: https://reviews.mahara.org/#/c/2549/

Reviewed: https://reviews.mahara.org/2549
Committed: http://gitorious.org/mahara/mahara/commit/7e9d975fe111f4e9006493320c1bc4244e76dfc4
Submitter: Aaron Wells (<email address hidden>)
Branch: master

commit 7e9d975fe111f4e9006493320c1bc4244e76dfc4
Author: Evonne Cheung <email address hidden>
Date: Tue Oct 1 12:11:06 2013 +1300

Adding new header logos for skins and getting correct logo to show (bug #1168213)

Have adjusted the skin page header mahara logo image options
to allow for default theme logo, light coloured logo, and dark
coloured logo options.

Change-Id: I40703578f546a071ea96363b32d39a3bd7c2b51a
Signed-off-by: Robert Lyon <email address hidden>