Tersus Needs Style

[cdharrison]

Tersus is designed to be simple, but it doesn't need to be ugly. I'd like to suggest we improve how things look at least a little bit. Any ideas/comments/suggestions on what we should do?

[derrickpelletier]

Personally, I don't think any aesthetics would serve a purpose in the theme. Generally when I'm using framework themes it's only for absolutely rudimentary structure. Especially in themes like Starkers, I've found myself purging all the extra styles it comes with.

I'm really pleased with how bare-bones it is right now. This is only my first look at it, but from what I see I'll probably be using it moving forward.

[cdharrison]

Point taken. I was just thinking we could introduce some basic typographical improvements to help people get started. I know the point of the them is to eliminate cruft, and a big part of me hates the idea of adding things that don't need to be there from the beginning. I think at least defining a default font stack (like Helvetica,Arial,Serif) versus relying on a system default (Times New Roman, Serif) would be a decent improvement.

[cdharrison]

At the very least, I wonder if there'd be any interest in the theme having an optional base stylesheet?

[derrickpelletier]

I wouldn't be opposed to a default Helvetica/sans-serif stack, now that you mention it.

If you're doing an optional stylesheet, are you thinking something like alternative-layout.css that can just be swapped with layout.css. Or a small set of rules within layout.css, clearly marked for easy removal if desired?

[cdharrison]

Yep. I went ahead and set the default stack and added an advanced-layout.css to the theme. We'll need to think through what all we might want that file to do. I'll play around with some ideas on my personal site over the next week or so and see what might be worth proposing...

[splorp]

Nice. I do like the new sans default stack.

I’d like to consider providing a both serif and mixed style stacks as well. Perhaps creating a style switcher that appears as a theme option. We could also consider building out “stack packs” using some of the tastier Google web fonts. I particularly like Open Sans, Eben Sorkin’s Merriweather, and Astigmatic’s Ultra.

[cdharrison]

I like that idea. How would you envision the style switcher working? A theme option?

[splorp]

A theme option was what I was thinking initially. I’m open to other ideas. Of course, anyone running the theme can hack it themselves, but to build in a simple preview mechanism and switcher would be nice to have.

[cdharrison]

I've incorporated a style switcher in my latest commits. There's now a default layout, Advanced (3-col, responsive-ish) and Super Ginormous (Based on Advanced + color). The styles need to be developed further, but it's at least a start.

[splorp]

This is awesome, Chris.

I’ve installed 0.1.3 on splorp.me and only found a couple small niggles. I’ll check those in this afternoon.

I like the direction that the advanced styles are going, as long as we don’t get too nutty about it. I’d still like to have a serif font stack to go along with the “Default Sans” style.

[splorp]

Hey Chris, one thing I’ve noticed with the current “Advanced” flavour … the left hand sidebar column flickers (or disappears/appears) when resizing the browser window. This behaviour doesn’t occur on the Super Gimornous flavour.

Tested browsers:

• Safari 5.0.6 (5533.22.3)
• Webkit 5.0.6 (r87475 & r93670)
• Chrome 13 (13.0.782.215)
• Firefox 4.0.1
• Firefox 5.0.1

Note that in both versions of Firefox, the left hand sidebar floats below the right hand sidebar constantly in the “Advanced” flavour.

I haven’t had a chance to poke around the CSS regarding this yet.

[cdharrison]

I'll get that fixed tonight.

[splorp]

You’re a gem.

[splorp]

Bu the way, I was mucking about with the “Advanced” flavour for use on my site and managed to fix the flickering issue. I’ve been simplifying the number of selectors and changing some of the % values to use em units instead. It seems to help reduce some of the layout “jumpiness”.

[splorp]

Hey Chris, I’ve added variations of the small screen media query styles from layout-advanced.css to the Super Ginormous style. When you get a shake, take a peek and tell me what you think. I’ve simplified the sidebar headers for the narrower screen sizes, but we can always fancy them back up at a later date.

[splorp]

This issue has been closed.

Please refer to:

Issue #29 Child Themes vs. “Flavors”