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Joined: 9/22/2004
Posts: 70
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Hello, i am using Dotnetnuke about 4 years and i see that standard skining of DNN via skins is slow and not pratcical.
If I want any change of skin, i must download skin.html, change code, upload, parse, restart etc ...
And all default DNN skins and sites are the same (only diference is in header and colors), page header, containers in panes, but customers want somthing diferent, with new technologies, new portal schematisc ...
I wan to change this and want to DNN sites looks like templatemonster.com skins....
My idea is to create basic skin:
- div header (TopPane cms scripting)
- div content
- div footer (BottomPane cms scripting)
I wan to edit my skin via text/Html Panes trough diving and css. In this case i can use jquery, flash, and other new technologies, all without downloading skin.html, editing, uploading, parsing ...
I have create Pane Level skin, and it seams evirithing is work without no problems. I edit all design via integreded FckEditor or CkEditor ...
Please if someone is doing skining like this or you think that can be very useful method for creating advenced design portals, please send here your commnets, expiriences ...
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www.40fingers.net
Joined: 2/9/2006
Posts: 4430
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Not all DNN skins are the same and if they would be it would not be an issue with DNN skinning.
DNN does not really limit you in what you can do IMO.
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www.psdtodnn.com
Joined: 10/30/2009
Posts: 441
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Goran,
Interesting post you've left here, I used to think along the same lines as this right back when I started skinning for DNN in version 1, which was also very near the start of my web design career. I used to take a design and try to get it to "fit" within the DNN framework. But I eventually realised that the restrictions and limitations of the designs weren't down to the DNN skinning engine, but more my lack of experience and lack of ambition with my own designs, plus the restrictions of creating designs from a focused brief. Realising this though, since then I've not found a design that I could not convert to a DNN skin. With some limitations on the flash navigation used in a lot of TM designs you can convert them all into working DNN skins.
It's granted that a lot of the DNN based sites out there take on the same structure, but so do a lot of sites created with Joomla! and WordPress, with a header section, main content area, left margin, and a footer layout, but I think this is more to do with the requirements of projects, and the simple fact that other people will be administrating the site, so using a common layout makes sense. It's also good UI practice to keep things familiar so that people browsing the web feel comfortable. This said though, we are designers and developers so pushing the boundaries is something we do by nature.
Regrading the editing of skins, you can make changes to the CSS and layout of the skin without having to use the skin pack. If you have a base skin that you upload via the site, the framework then creates a .ascx file which is used as the template for the site. all of these files are accessible via FTP, so you can, as I do, make changes to the CSS or .ascx files, upload and refresh your browser. I've found that this cuts a lot of time off development of the skins.
Another thing that helps is having a local copy of the DNN framework installed so you're not fighting with bandwidth. This can be done through the Microsoft Web Platform Installer: http://www.microsoft.com/web/Download... this is another thing that's helped cut development time down.
The best thing I've found when building skins though is to work backwards. We take the final photoshop design file, and then build a fully working XHTML and CSS layout. This then represents what the final DNN site layout will look and act like. In the build we use completely semantic code, all containers are given H title elements, lists are built using UL's, we also include any layout and code for JQuery functionality so that at the end, it is a fully working layout. From this we can then break it apart and start creating the skins and container files; removing any menus and replacing them with [NAV] elements, text is replaced with [CONTENTPANE] tags, and so on. This then leaves us with an empty HTML shell full of DNN skin tokens. The rest of the process is the same as creating any other skin pack, we create the XML files, sort the DNN CSS settings and style the [NAV] CSS so it looks like our original UL menu, zip it up and install locally. We then go about making any changes to the CSS, and generally we don't need to make any changes to the HTML because all the layout elements were covered in the HTML build. The advantage of creating the skin this way is that it's much quicker and easier than trying to build the design straight into DNN.
Again, this is an interesting post and I look forward to hearing what other designers and developers say.
Regards,
Rick
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Joined: 9/22/2004
Posts: 70
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Hello mr. Rick,
i see You have understand what i want to tell, and thank You for your post.
Now, you have right about enything, and things i did not mentioned:
- nav menu with ul li is faster, more customizible, ca be rendered by yquery and other effects
- design elements with div tags, positionig
- content boxes also with div / h1 / ul / li / dl /dt / dd ... and css are very powerful
Please look this sites:
http://tts-sport.hr/tts-sport-centar/REMOVETHIS
http://sportlife-fitness.com/REMOVETHIS
http://nkim.hr/REMOVETHIS
Please open this sites, go to source view and compare with dnn ...
Source is clean, no module, ctrl messy code, it is google optimized, url pages are google optimized like www.mysite/web-design
There are jqury scripts, effects, full customizing skining, with divs, uls etc ...
Timo Breumelhof, i have looked your page (http://www.timo-design.nl/), thank you for post and please go an look sites with REMOVE THIS
I thing You will understand what i wan to tell and i think creating sites like this with coding source with cms and only basic panes is posible, fast ...
Why i have suggest skining like this ?
Now, please read this ...
I have developed about 50 sites and i have very big problems:
- google ranking is very bed, because viewvng code is messy (ctrl, container tags, component tags etc ...)
- general problem dnn can not have www.mysite/web-design links like (please do not tell me to buy modules, because after upgrading dnn, sites are broken)
- customers want very often design changes, with cms skin editing this can be very fast resolved
There are tools like firebug, web developer etc, i can set divs and content, and css-ing live via my firefox, no download skin, no editing, ftp-ing, parsing, restarting, testing hundred times ...
I have in programming world 15 years, programming expiriences with delphi, sql, interbase, css, c#, mobile development, html etc ...
And i think this can be very powerful option for skining ...
SKIN DEVELOPERS FOR DNN, PLEASE READ THIS POSTS AND TELL WHAT YOU THINK
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Joined: 6/3/2005
Posts: 2799
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To me, it seems like comparing Apples to Peacocks. The sites you posted aren't DNN, don't have DNN's capabilities and really aren't that design oriented. You are correct on one point, DNN's rendered code is often bloated, but it's not just the fault of the skin. I see very clean skins all the time, but the rendered page code is still bloated. As an alternative to your examples, take a look at the City of Detroit's site, http://www.detroitmi.gov/. It doesn't look like a typical DNN site and doesn't render like one.
Jeff
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