Codexed.com

Rachael · Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 3:58 am

*sneezes* My goodness, is it ever dusty in here! ;D

So, I had another look over the Milestone Roadmap, and the next release, which is scheduled for sometime in July, mentions pre-fab templates, but alas, we have none!

I wouldn't want for the Codexed project to lose any momentum, so I think we should all do what we can to assist Daniel and bean-with-bacon (aka Elliot) in making sure each bullet on that list can become a check mark.

For this forum and that particular set of goals, that means we need to work on some pre-fab templates, so those who aren't so code-savvy can have something to liven up their journal.

I am not sure where we ought to begin with this, or what kind of standards, both graphic and code-wise, we should have in place, so I am going to wrap up this post by looking to our fearless leaders and asking, "Where do you think we should start?"

Daniel · Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 4:11 am

Here's a few guidelines, off the top of my head:

Simple. For prefabs, it's best for the templates to be simple (which will allow users to easily edit). Simple does not mean ugly, which ties into...
Aesthetically pleasing. Something that people will want to use!
Image free. For now at least. Codexed is not offering image hosting at the moment, and we don't want to make usage of a prefab rely on the user having hosting space. There are plenty of stuff that can be done with just text, html, css (and even javascript if desired).
Customizable. Think of how DX did prefabs. We want to provide users with options for customizing colours at least.
Resolution non-specific. While it is not necessarily a bad thing to hard code an element to be n pixels wide, make sure that it will look good in any resolution the user chooses to use. Percentage based layouts are useful for this.
Browser compatible. While it's pretty hard to make sure a page works in every single browser, we want to try to ensure everything is as accessible as possible. The important browsers to cover are Firefox 2/3, IE 6/7, Opera and Safari. If, for whatever reason, your prefab uses javascript, make sure it works cross-browser.

If you are submitting a prefab, please follow the guidelines listed in this post.

Rachael · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 2:51 am

Excellent, thanks for a great response! I will see what I can get started on; my skills at coding a template with those requirements probably don't really reach that far, but if we can get people in here to work on this all together, maybe we can all do bits and pieces and fill in the blanks other people might be unable to fill themselves.

karen · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 12:39 pm

I'm glad DarkestJourney started this thread. I wanted to start working on some templates, too. Smile

Daniel · Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 4:55 pm

Just wondering, has any progress been made with this?

breathe · Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:51 pm

I made a prefab and sent it to you, Daniel! ^^

eskeemo · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 3:39 am

It's been awhile since I've posted anywhere on these forums, though I do lurk from time to time to see how things are doing. Templates are my favorite, and I slapped on up here. It's incredibly simple, and the personal links could be removed and the main title updated to the default [journal_title]. I loved making templates back in the day (and am now making themes for Tumblr to make up for that, heh), and I'd love to help out wherever I can in that department. (:

Tim · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:26 am

That's a great template eskeemo. Clean, intuitive, great use of typography. I love it. Smile

Daniel · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 10:28 am

I agree, I like that one a lot, eskeemo! Clean and simple. Smile

Perhaps the only issue is that it seems to be missing navigational links?

For the people who are contributing prefabs, could you please email me the template code (admin at codexed), give me a name for the template, and tell me how you'd like to be credited for it (username or full name; obviously you'd have to give me the name, too Wink

).

breathe · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:27 am

Daniel · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:40 am

eskeemo · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:36 pm

Daniel · Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 5:02 pm

To make things simpler for me, when submitting a prefab, could you please also give me a short, succinct description of your template (5-10 words).

This means, to submit a prefab, please email me the following:

The template code (with Codexed markup).
Your name, nickname, or username -- how you'd like to be credited for your design. You may also give me a url if you want, but I haven't decided yet if I am going to be showing links.
A short description of the template.