Question

I'm trying to figure out how to enlarge the size of the frame that borders the top of the default skin. Right now it is cutting off half of my default image.

I also would like to know the specifics of how to change the appearance of the wikipages and make the menus appear more suited to my environment. I tried to install the koala skin, and read the instructions and decided against it. Am I understanding it correctly, that you have to do about 10 things to get a skin installed? Are all skins like this?

Lastly, should I just use another wiki software? I don't like how everything is wikized with this software ... be it all of the configurations or a skin installation, nothing is intuitive. Personally I have my hands full with setting this up and designing it, if I don't have to, I definitely do not want to learn this (or any) software's quirks and ins and outs. Even this Q&A for this is wikized, why not just have a web forum? I feel like administration of this software is turning out to be a nightmare, because it's wikized and I don't want that if it is. I do also know that I might be way off and have misread something skewing my entire learning curve, so I'm here as a last resort trying to figure out which one of those it is.

Environment

-- TWikiGuest - 25 Aug 2008

Answer

> how to enlarge the size of the frame that borders the top of the default skin [...] I also would like to know the specifics of how to change the appearance of the wikipages

See PatternSkinCustomization, the section entitled "I want to change the height of the top bar".

Also see PatternSkinCssCookbook, "When you need to make small adjustments: Adding to existing CSS", for a way to make your changes persistent across upgrades.

Obviously those topics cover many other ways to modify the appearance.

> Am I understanding it correctly, that you have to do about 10 things to get a skin installed? Are all skins like this?

For various reasons, there are only a couple of skins that work with TWiki 4.2: PatternSkin obviously, and MoveableTypeSkin. An API is in the works to make it more skinnable, but you would probably be best to stick to those two for now. See the TWikiUsabiltyTalk (KennethLavrsen - 16 Aug 2008) for more information on this ... which also shows you where the web forums are.

> and make the menus appear more suited to my environment.

There are lots of options there, but without a more detailed description I can't tell what you are looking for.

> Lastly, should I just use another wiki software?

Well, if you find a better tool, I for one would like to know what it is. You might want to remind yourself as to why you picked TWiki in the first place. Or visit http://wikimatrix.org to get some clarity on that.

Like any software, there is a learning curve associated with it. But it works pretty much out of the box: you only need to learn more when you are trying to do things like ... what you are trying to do. And the search engine helps with that.

-- SeanCMorgan - 25 Aug 2008

Thanks for the reply Sean, it's brought my spirits up a bit

I will say that I have inserted the code below and it did not make a difference in the height of the top bar. I have a feeling something I may have been done when trying to adjust it before reading your reply is causing this, but I don't know what it is.

I've checked in twiki/bin/view/TWiki/TWikiPreferences#Skin_Settings and it says "Set SKIN = pattern "

Is there another place I should be checking to make sure that when I edit the viewtopbar.pattern.tmpl file and change the pixel height to 128?

%TMPL:DEF{"topbardimensions"}%
#patternTopBar,
#patternClearHeaderCenter,
#patternClearHeaderLeft,
#patternClearHeaderRight,
#patternTopBarContentsOuter {
   height:128px; /* top bar height; make room for header columns */
   overflow:hidden;
} 

-- TWikiGuest - 26 Aug 2008

In addition, am I understanding it correctly in that this is the way that it works ...

You have a css.pattern.tmpl file, and it loads different tmpl settings into that central tmpl file and that central css.pattern.tmpl is the file that is called by the browser when it's building or loading the webpage?

-- TWikiGuest - 26 Aug 2008

Probably a sure-fire way to get this to work is create your own stylesheet that has all your customizations. Since user sheets load last, they overload any other settings. Nothing can go wrong (fingers crossed).

I have attached an example sheet that doubles its height, and the following line makes it apply to this topic only (look up!). You would put this line in your Main.TWikiPreferences to get it to work site-wide:

• Set USERLAYOUTURL = https://www.twiki.org/p/pub/Support/GeneralQuestions12345678/128px.css

> You have a css.pattern.tmpl file, and it loads different tmpl settings into that central tmpl file and that central css.pattern.tmpl is the file that is called by the browser

Not quite. The .tmpl files are interpreted on the server side, and used to generate .css files (among others): .tmpl can't be called by the browser because the template directory is not accessible by HTTP, and the browser wouldn't know what to do with them anyway.

The benefit of the template approach over the CSS-only approach (that I just used) is that it gives more functionality, like setting the top height to 0px (no bar) when using the print skin. But I can't change the templates on this site, and so used CSS as a demo.

P.S. your template snip above is missing the last line: %TMPL:END%

-- SeanCMorgan - 26 Aug 2008

---

Ok, I'm still not getting any sort of changes when I refresh a page, I tried both a local unc path and the url to your hosted file. I'm going to include screen captures so that you can tell me if I at least did the part that you suggested correctly (I hope I can use html in here) if not, I'll put a link to the picture above of the image tag

[edit] Could not post screen capture and was blacklisted using imageshack site

-- TWikiGuest - 26 Aug 2008

I have this code in the twikipreferences.txt (at least the below is part of it)

PatternSkin

• Default TWiki styles
  • Set TWIKILAYOUTURL = /p/pub/TWiki06x01/PatternSkin/layout.css
  • Set TWIKISTYLEURL = /p/pub/TWiki06x01/PatternSkin/style.css
  • Set TWIKICOLORSURL = /p/pub/TWiki06x01/PatternSkin/colors.css

• Custom overriding styles (enabled pr. default but empty, to prevent browsers from fetching %USERLAYOUTURL%-style URLs)
  • Set USERLAYOUTURL = http://twiki.org/p/pub/Support/GeneralQuestions12345678/128px.css
  • Set USERSTYLEURL =
  • Set USERCOLORSURL =

• PatternSkin header settings
  • Set WEBHEADERART = /p/pub/TWiki06x01/PatternSkin/TWiki_header.gif
  • #Set WEBHEADERBGCOLOR = #faf8f0

Skin icons

And this is what my main/twikipreferences looks like

TWiki > Main Web>TWikiPreferences (26 Aug 2008, TWikiAdminGroup)EditAttach

Local customisations of site-wide preferences

Site-level preferences are located in TWikiPreferences, however this TWikiPreferences prefs topic has override priority and should be used for local customisations. This allows for easier upgrades as you don't need to worry about the shipped preferences clobbering yours. It's easier to keep a handle on if you only copy over the settings you actually change. Quick edit of existing preferences (edit the topic text to set new preferences)

FINALPREFERENCES locks site-level preferences that are not allowed to be overridden by WebPreferences or user preferences: Set FINALPREFERENCES = ATTACHFILESIZELIMIT, PREVIEWBGIMAGE, WIKITOOLNAME, WIKIHOMEURL, ALLOWROOTCHANGE, DENYROOTCHANGE, TWIKILAYOUTURL, TWIKISTYLEURL, TWIKICOLORSURL, USERSWEB, SYSTEMWEB, DOCWEB, USERLAYOUTURL

-- TWikiGuest - 26 Aug 2008

Sean,

It turns out that I have a c:\twiki viewtopbar.pattern.tmpl and one in program files as well

It looks like it was keying off of the one in program files???

-- TWikiGuest - 26 Aug 2008

> I have this code in the twikipreferences.txt (at least the below is part of it)

In which web? "Main", right? Just checking.

> TWIKILAYOUTURL = /p/pub/TWiki04x01/PatternSkin/layout.css

That's what the values look like for TWiki.org, but I doubt your server has a path like that. By default your preferences are entered as follows:

   * %SYSTEMWEB%.PatternSkin settings:
      * Set TWIKILAYOUTURL = %PUBURLPATH%/%SYSTEMWEB%/PatternSkin/layout.css
      * Set TWIKISTYLEURL = %PUBURLPATH%/%SYSTEMWEB%/PatternSkin/style.css
      * Set TWIKICOLORSURL = %PUBURLPATH%/%SYSTEMWEB%/PatternSkin/colors.css

and the defaults should work: how those variables are rendered is dependent on your config. Maybe that's from your earlier attempts: can you restore it from a raw view of an earlier revision?

Instead of a UNC name, you would normally use the URL of the CSS attachment, http://.../pub/...css, since attachments go in the /pub/ directory.

> USERLAYOUTURL = http://twiki.org/p/pub/Support/GeneralQuestions12345678/128px.css

You know I meant for you to attach that sheet at your site, but it seems to work from there anyway (TWiki.org isn't blocking hotlinking, for now). I don't understand why it isn't working for you though.

P.S. you can't attach screenshots to this support topic?

-- SeanCMorgan - 26 Aug 2008

> It turns out that I have a c:\twiki viewtopbar.pattern.tmpl and one in program files as well ... It looks like it was keying off of the one in program files???

It will use the one in the path you configured in {TemplateDir} (see 'configure', or your lib/LocalSite.cfg file).

-- SeanCMorgan - 26 Aug 2008

> I'm still not getting any sort of changes when I refresh a page

If you're still having trouble, try clearing your browser cache after each change (in Internet Explorer, <CTRL>+<F5> will bypass the cache when reloading the page).

-- SeanCMorgan - 26 Aug 2008

Thanks for the replies and help Sean I am probably going to have to reinstall, as everything is keying off of the program files, but I wanted it to key off of the c:\twiki share. I think I will try and learn the ins and outs first, like how to configure the appearance settings and stuff like that. Now if I can figure out how to move the main window over a few pixels, I'll move on to the next challenge

-- TWikiGuest - 27 Aug 2008

I gather PatternSkinCustomization (in reverse) didn't work for you.

A clean install might be best. If you decide to move things from the default installation directories, take a look at my user page for my notes on that.

If you decide to start over, please change this topic's state to 'ClosedUnanswered' to indicate that this install is gone. Any issues after a new install would be better off being addressed with a new question.

P.S. please consider registering at twiki.org. I like to know who I'm 'talking' to.

-- SeanCMorgan - 27 Aug 2008

Closing after more than 30 days. Please reopen with more details if needed...

-- PeterThoeny - 06 Nov 2008

Change status to: AskedQuestions AssignedQuestions AnsweredQuestions ClosedUnanswered