Simpler Customization

CraigSteinhoff
CraigSteinhoff

I would like to see the customization of of site look and feel and menu customizations made simpler. There is a lot of great info on the forums but doing this is sort of hit or miss and was not easy. Yop had to weigh the time of the post verse where we are now...some of the help was out of date. I actually did it and then removed it since I felt it may break in the future. You can keep the CSS option for people that want to spend time doing that to get really cool looking sites but it would be great if there were a simple way for those of us that do not.

So the ability to rename menu options via a UI

The ability to select menu option image via a ui

The ability to set up page templates so you do not have to format everything on every page.

Comments

  • Kallak
    Kallak
    Posts: 1,090

    I'm behind page templates 10000%!

    All the best,
    - Kallak
  • thaen
    thaen
    Posts: 1,064 edited June 2020

    Haha!  @Kallak has been championing "page templates" internally.  Actually, he's been championing the ability to rename and/or add new sidebar "tabs" internally too, which sounds like what's being asked for here with "ability to rename menu options".  @CraigSteinhoff, please correct me if I'm misunderstanding.

    Can you give an example of what you mean by "page templates"?  I want to make sure we're all on the same page.

    Community members, chime in if either or both of these features are interesting to you.

    Post edited by thaen on

    Obsidian Portal Developer

  • CraigSteinhoff
    CraigSteinhoff
    Posts: 23

    First off I am pretty new to the platform, about a year and I only have done two campaigns. So I can tell you my thoughts and there may be better ways to do this but I was unable to figure it out. But here is what I have

     

    Well I think of templates as few different things.


    1. Predefined full site templates

      1. I think you could set up a whole defined site template (some ideas)

        1. Normal site template (as it is today)

        2. Profolio view (https://www.w3schools.com/w3css/tryw3css_templates_portfolio3.htm)

        3. item list view (https://www.w3schools.com/w3css/tryw3css_templates_food_blog.htm)



    2. Predefined pages that meet certain needs or layouts.

      1.  Currently every page is basically just a blog, a single column of data. What if I wanted a grid to show a bunch of pictures or I wanted multiple columns of text. You can do this by messing around with divs but it is not easy (well for me it was not). Since it is internal to the whole framework of Obsidian portal,

        1. Here are my guess at what would help 

          1. Grid Layout (https://www.w3schools.com/css/tryit.asp?filename=trycss_grid)

          2. 2 column layout (https://www.w3schools.com/howto/howto_css_two_columns.asp)

          3. 3 column layout (https://www.w3schools.com/howto/howto_css_three_columns.asp)

          4. Header and Sub heading layout (something like this without the nav https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_layout.asp)

          5. Image image and text layout (https://www.w3schools.com/howto/howto_css_image_text.asp)




    3. Set styles for things like headers, paragraphs, list simply.

      1. I know you can do this in CSS but it is not as easy for everyone to do. Keep the Custom CSS box for those that can do it but  simplify setting look at feel for those that do not know CSS. I got it partly done but I struggled and spent a lot of time learning :)  When I say styles I mean a few different things, font, size, position, and even an image or bullet,


    Here is example of setting heading in one of my games...I wanted the h4 heading to be a specific font and always have a specific image (a sheriffs start) to do this I need to first figure out I needed to update the CSS for heading 4 in the custom CSS box, and then every time I create a heading 4 I had to insert this text

    <h4>[[File:992734  | class=media-item-align-none | Sherrifs_Star.png]] The World as we know it</h4>

     

    I hope this helps....

     

     

     

  • thaen
    thaen
    Posts: 1,064

    That all makes sense.  Thanks for the examples.  That's really helpful to pin down exactly what you are asking for!

    We currently have two different editors...the Textile editor (which is the default) and another that's more "what you see is what you get" called CkEditor.  You can change this in the Campaign settings.  CkEditor is not the greatest, which is why it's not the default, but it can make it easier to change fonts and such.  Similar to this forum editor I'm typing in now.  So you might try the CkEditor to see if it makes it easier to format things.  Though I would try it in a test campaign because it can cause issues to switch back and forth between CkEditor and Textile.

    If other Ascendants are wanting templates, I could see us adding them.  I'm a little cautious about it though for two reasons.

    First, I don't want to overly complicate the UI because it can discourage new Ascendants.  So this might be something an Ascendant GM would have to turn on in the Advanced settings before it was available in the Campaign.

    And second, I have a suspicion that the normal casual Player doesn't care too much about the extra design elements, and, after some of the general stuff like choosing a background and colors, they would rather the GM spend more time on the story than on the design of the Campaign.  I could be wrong on that, and feel free to push back, but anecdotally it's come up a few times.

    Feel free to comment on any of that.

    Obsidian Portal Developer

  • CraigSteinhoff
    CraigSteinhoff
    Posts: 23

    Sure I can understand that, but I think the wiki organization makes it really hard when you have lots of content, I am hoping the templates will make it easier to keep things organized. I spend a lot of time trying to get things orgaqnized and spend alot of time keeping updated. At least that was my hope...

  • thaen
    thaen
    Posts: 1,064

    Thank you for following up!  I really appreciate you mentioning that "the wiki organization makes it really hard when you have lots of content."

    It helps to hear/see specific examples of things that are causing problems, so we can make sure we're fixing the core problem.  Can you share an example of a page you would want to use a template on and how you would expect the template to improve the organization of the page?  And how that would take less time to keep it updated?

    Obsidian Portal Developer

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