Theme Customizer 5.7 Feedback
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I made a feedback post yesterday regarding Page Types in 5.7:http://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/customizing_c5/page-types...
To reiterate: I'm building a Theme and while doing so I stumble upon some things that give me problems or that could be improved in my opinion. I see this post as constructive criticism, I am not a CMS designer and my views are obviously based on my use case (building themes for clients and/or marketplaces).
##Creating Presets
1. You HAVE TO use Less to create Presets. I figure the customizer system is built around LESS, so there's not much that could be done to easily change this. BUT: In my case, I have all those neatly organized SCSS Components/Mixins/Placeholders etc. and am now forced to recreate Selectors and Variables in LESS to make my theme customizable. And I don't think I am alone here, so it might be worthwhile to simplify the systems by using a technology independent approach to hook into the theme customizer.
## Customizer Limitations
1. You can't choose custom Fonts that are not included in the current Preset (there was another post in this forum where someone from the core team said this would be improved)
2. It should be possible to save changes in the theme appearance as new Presets.
3. Presets should be divided in subcategories that can be changed independently. E.g.: Font Preset, Color Scheme Preset, Spacing Preset (Client says: I want the navigation background in corn blue but please keep comic sans as the default font).
4. When you change the theme appearance you have the choice to apply it to the current page or all pages. It would be great if some pages that have a distinct look could be "locked".
Greetings and thanks for listening
To reiterate: I'm building a Theme and while doing so I stumble upon some things that give me problems or that could be improved in my opinion. I see this post as constructive criticism, I am not a CMS designer and my views are obviously based on my use case (building themes for clients and/or marketplaces).
##Creating Presets
1. You HAVE TO use Less to create Presets. I figure the customizer system is built around LESS, so there's not much that could be done to easily change this. BUT: In my case, I have all those neatly organized SCSS Components/Mixins/Placeholders etc. and am now forced to recreate Selectors and Variables in LESS to make my theme customizable. And I don't think I am alone here, so it might be worthwhile to simplify the systems by using a technology independent approach to hook into the theme customizer.
## Customizer Limitations
1. You can't choose custom Fonts that are not included in the current Preset (there was another post in this forum where someone from the core team said this would be improved)
2. It should be possible to save changes in the theme appearance as new Presets.
3. Presets should be divided in subcategories that can be changed independently. E.g.: Font Preset, Color Scheme Preset, Spacing Preset (Client says: I want the navigation background in corn blue but please keep comic sans as the default font).
4. When you change the theme appearance you have the choice to apply it to the current page or all pages. It would be great if some pages that have a distinct look could be "locked".
Greetings and thanks for listening
You make some valid points here, but it ultimately depends on what you want to do with the CMS, e.g what your target audience as a web designer/developer is.
In the cheap & quick website creation business, page builder services like Squarespace already rule and will totally dominate in the near future. I don't see how it would be bad if Concrete5, goes in this direction while maintaining the capabilities to develop any kind of website/application with it. It already does have some similarities with the current theme customizer and the in context editing. Why not make these features great instead of mediocre?
If you have no need for these features, then don't enable them. In fact most clients will totally ruin their nicely designed websites if given too much power. But a website built with theme customization in mind can be a great tool for the DIY market. And if you should manage to create the "ultimate theme" where you can quickly adjust typography, colors, spacing etc., then you have at the minimum a tool to quickly test some design ideas with.
In the cheap & quick website creation business, page builder services like Squarespace already rule and will totally dominate in the near future. I don't see how it would be bad if Concrete5, goes in this direction while maintaining the capabilities to develop any kind of website/application with it. It already does have some similarities with the current theme customizer and the in context editing. Why not make these features great instead of mediocre?
If you have no need for these features, then don't enable them. In fact most clients will totally ruin their nicely designed websites if given too much power. But a website built with theme customization in mind can be a great tool for the DIY market. And if you should manage to create the "ultimate theme" where you can quickly adjust typography, colors, spacing etc., then you have at the minimum a tool to quickly test some design ideas with.
In addition to my original Post:
When customizing a background image it's not immediately clear how to remove it. You have to NOT SET a new one and save. It would be better to add an option to clear the current image.
A nice addition to the customizer would be an option to add predefined classes to the body or page wrapper, like custom block or area classes. Use case could be to switch between "boxed" or "full width" layout types or set other global options like rounded corners for images, link styles etc.
Edit: Also, unless I am missing something, there doesn't seem to be a way right now to set background image properties like repeat/no-repeat, background-size etc.
When customizing a background image it's not immediately clear how to remove it. You have to NOT SET a new one and save. It would be better to add an option to clear the current image.
A nice addition to the customizer would be an option to add predefined classes to the body or page wrapper, like custom block or area classes. Use case could be to switch between "boxed" or "full width" layout types or set other global options like rounded corners for images, link styles etc.
Edit: Also, unless I am missing something, there doesn't seem to be a way right now to set background image properties like repeat/no-repeat, background-size etc.
I am not sure if I follow.
Were you able to find a way to clear background images?
Were you able to find a way to clear background images?
Yes, I am just saying the method to remove an image is somewhat counterintuitive. Once you have set an image, what you do to remove it, is click on the background image property again, not select a new one and save. Instead of clearing the current image you overwrite it with an "empty" one. This logic might be fine for programmers but for most users it isn't.
I still can't manage to clear an image.
I am working on some very cool free themes. They rely on being able to remove and switch between images. Not being able to choose "no image" restricts the theme flexibility.
I am working on some very cool free themes. They rely on being able to remove and switch between images. Not being able to choose "no image" restricts the theme flexibility.
Sorry I didn't see this reply earlier. Like I said it works for me, I don't think I can help you there but if you post a screenshot of your problem I can at least verify that we are talking about the same thing, and then you can assume it's a problem with your installation.
See attachment
See attachment
Weird, I can't get it to clear.
Even if I could get it to work, this would be very confusing for most users.
It should be submitted as an issue on Github.
Even if I could get it to work, this would be very confusing for most users.
It should be submitted as an issue on Github.
Btw. I tried your svg social media block earlier today. For some reason no icons showed up in Chrome. It worked fine in Firefox. That's not meant to be a "bug report" since I didn't dig any deeper, just saying that I saw no icons.
What version of Chrome?
Are you using an ad blocker in Chrome?
Ad blockers will block all or some of the icons.
Are you using an ad blocker in Chrome?
Ad blockers will block all or some of the icons.
Chrome Version 40.0.2214.91 (64-bit) on Elementary OS (Linux) with µBlock Ad Blocker.
I guess it was the ad blockers fault then, but why would it block the icons?
I guess it was the ad blockers fault then, but why would it block the icons?
I assume that the ad blockers are looking for file names/character combinations of known ad and social networking sites.
An example, the Github and e-mail icon in my block do not get blocked.
As an experiment, I changed the facebook icon name from facebook-round-logo.svg to fb-round-logo.svg. The ad blockers still blocked it.
An example, the Github and e-mail icon in my block do not get blocked.
As an experiment, I changed the facebook icon name from facebook-round-logo.svg to fb-round-logo.svg. The ad blockers still blocked it.
Are you constantly changing your site? Because what you suggest sounds like you want the ultimate theme that can be used for any site or what you're doing is to much work. Me personally, I wouldn't want that because each site I build is unique with the stability of Concrete5 and the theme of my choice. Building, designing, creating the "look" and impressing my customers is all part of the fun and if creating presets and feeling like I'm limited by customizations begins to creep in, well then I must be getting lazy and probably should just pay someone who loves it to do it for me.
Concrete5 is phenomenal right out of the box and to me has an awesome core for any site. Top that off with one of the best site editors around and a good theme and your options are limitless. Although there are some site tweaks that can be made with the "Customizer". Ultimately. Site design and customization is left to the theme. As it should be.