Skins »

Blog Skin

Overview

This is a relatively low-frills skin for PmWiki 2 that was created with usability in mind. This skin emphasizes the content with a nice big easy-to-read default font size and few graphical frills. The layout is designed to work well for a a wiki or a non-blog web site, not just a blog. The appearance can easily be changed using CSS, with some samples provided.

The default layout width is optimized for 1024x768 or greater resolution, however the content is easily readable at 800x600 because the sidebar is on the right side. Your 800x600 visitors will need to scroll to see the sidebar menu, but they're probably accustomed to scrolling. The width is controllable with CSS so you can change it to suit your taste.

This skin works well with an as-yet-unreleased version of the CMS Mode recipe. Visitors without edit authorization see a "site view" of the layout that has the look of a normal website. Authors see a "wiki view" that includes the GroupName and wiki-related action links.

Some feature highlights:

• The HomePage link can be a logo or plain text.
• The skin has a "favorites icon" (favicon) enabled by default.
• Some demo CSS is bundled for customization inspiration.
• Easy-to-copy link text is displayed for a selected upload.

For a blog or CMS installation, your site can look like it's not a wiki.

See the effect...			fresh-install	compact-demo
...with borders...			fresh-install	compact-demo
...or sans gray.			fresh-install	compact-demo

The version installed on this page is BlogSkin 0.01.0.

Files

gzipped tarball: BlogSkinForPmWiki-0.01.0.tar.gz (16K)
zip archive: BlogSkinForPmWiki-0.01.0.zip (20K)

Installation

Place the blog/ directory in your skins directory (pub/skins/) and add the following to your local configuration file:

$Skin = 'blog';

Changelog

See also: PlainBlog

Ver. 0.01.0

• Initial release

Notes

The skin is designed for PmWiki v2.1.27 or newer.

This skin uses tables for layout because doing so causes the pages render as consistently as possible in a wide variety of browsers. No transition to a CSS-only layout is planned.

Making a Logo

The skin's $EnableBlogLogo setting allows you to have a graphical logo rather than text.

One easy way to create a logo is to go to http://cooltext.com/ and make one. Here are some starter suggestions:

• Choose the "Cutout" logo style.
• Type in your logo text.
• Change the background color to match yours (247/247/247 is the skin's default).
• Select a foreground color (try DarkGray 169/169/169 to get the general idea).
• Set a text size (try 40).

Once you have your logo, put it in ''pub/' somewhere (e.g. pub/logos/my_logo.jpg) and set PmWiki's $PageLogoUrl setting accordingly (e.g. $PageLogoUrl = "$FarmPubDirUrl/logos/my_logo.jpg"; ).

Comments / Feedback

• I'm a wiki novice. I can't easily see how to install this skin with the borders on. What parameter needs changing, and where? Thanks. -- Carl Schmertmann, Tallahassee FL
• blog.tmpl needs <!--HTMLFooter--> adding after <!--/PageFooterFmt--> for compatibility with some recipes. I had problems when I also added <!--HTMLHeader--> perhaps due to the recipes I have -- David Pilling

Author

• Hagan Fox

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Sandbox

See also the test page.

H1 heading (not recommended)

Section heading

Subheading

Sub-subheading

Small text. Normal text. Large text.
Large monospaced. Normal monospaced. Small monospaced.
Strong text. Emphasized text. Super^script and Sub_script.

1a	1b
2a	2b