doc/refactoring-the-css-with-uiprops.rst
author Sylvain Thénault <sylvain.thenault@logilab.fr>
Mon, 10 Sep 2012 13:53:59 +0200
changeset 8538 00597256de18
parent 5492 da983679fab5
child 10121 23af005426bf
permissions -rw-r--r--
[request/session] refactor language handling: don't attempt to sync web/repo languages This decouple thing and make code easier to understand. Previous behaviour was fine w/ validation error that were translated on the server side, but isn't satisfying for notification and all. Now: * translations should be done on the ui side (see previous validation error refactoring) * consistent behaviour: each side (web/repo) is responsible to deal with its request/session of language, no weird interaction between them on this topic * drop on the way the 'session properties' api, used only for that matter. -> much simpler/cleaner/saner api The thing missing being a way for user to tell "My favorite language is xxx but I also want cw to consider my http language header)

=========================================
Refactoring the CSSs with UI properties
=========================================

Overview
=========

Managing styles progressively became difficult in CubicWeb. The
introduction of uiprops is an attempt to fix this problem.

The goal is to make it possible to use variables in our CSSs.

These variables are defined or computed in the uiprops.py python file
and inserted in the CSS using the Python string interpolation syntax.

A quick example, put in ``uiprops.py``::

  defaultBgColor = '#eee'

and in your css::

  body { background-color: %(defaultBgColor)s; }


The good practices are:

- define a variable in uiprops to avoid repetitions in the CSS
  (colors, borders, fonts, etc.)

- define a variable in uiprops when you need to compute values
  (compute a color palette, etc.)

The algorithm implemented in CubicWeb is the following:

- read uiprops file while walk up the chain of cube dependencies: if
  cube myblog depends on cube comment, the variables defined in myblog
  will have precedence over the ones in comment

- replace the %(varname)s in all the CSSs of all the cubes

Keep in mind that the browser will then interpret the CSSs and apply
the standard cascading mechanism.

FAQ
====

- How do I keep the old style?

  Put ``STYLESHEET = [data('cubicweb.old.css')]`` in your uiprops.py
  file and think about something else.

- What are the changes in cubicweb.css?

  Version 3.9.0 of cubicweb changed the following in the default html
  markup and css:

  ===============  ==================================
   old              new
  ===============  ==================================
   .navcol          #navColumnLeft, #navColumnRight
   #contentcol      #contentColumn
   .footer          #footer
   .logo	    #logo
   .simpleMessage   .loginMessage
   .appMsg	    (styles are removed from css)
   .searchMessage   (styles are removed from css)
  ===============  ==================================

  Introduction of the new cubicweb.reset.css based on Eric Meyer's
  reset css.

  Lots of margin, padding, etc.