[pmwiki-users] it's time to change pmwiki default skin!

[Petko Yotov]

On Saturday 17 September 2011 23:49:43, Carlos AB wrote :
> if skin writers should use
> the prefs page/mechanism for skin preferences and even to choose a skin.
> 
> That could be used for a lot of things like defining a preference for
> fonts (size, family, weight), styling option for links, etc ...
...
> Some skins use a different page for skin options. Should we use a
> prefs page, an exclusive page for skin options or both? What would be
> best?

Should the skin preferences be accessible to site admins and editors or to 
readers too?

I don't have an answer now, but I added this and other ideas from the 
discussion in the PITS so we don't forget about them:

  http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PITS/01265

I've been thinking about an admin interface for some time now. It could be 
used to configure the skin preferences among other things.

Most wiki owners I worked with are not very comfortable editing PHP files. 
PmWiki could be made easier to configure and administrate via some in-wiki 
interface like the ?action=attr function, or like the about:config window in 
Firefox.

For example, a skin or a cookbook script could be just dropped onto the 
server, then enabled and configured from the in-wiki admin interface. Such a 
mechanism will not allow the flexibility of the farm/config/Group/Page php 
files we have now, and everything cannot be configured this way, but many 
things *could* be configured this way. 

Less features could look simpler and easier, and could be enough for people 
who just need a tool for collaborative or faster maintenance of websites 
(rather than a framework for running complex web applications). Most of the 
wikis listed at PmWikiUsers or at SuccessStories are such wikis.

Accidentally, making a software simpler and easier isn't simple or easy. :-) 
Some planning and discussing will be needed about the feature selection, about 
the new API for the recipes. Backwards compatibility should probably be 
preserved, etc., etc...

But this was not the subject of this thread. :-)

Petko