Recently I needed to set up a website really quick. One that needed to look nice from the get go with minimal effort (I only had 3 hours to get it up and running).
I installed Umbraco 4.6.1 on the server. I installed:
Package name
Business site
Package version
1.0
Author
Umbraco HQ
I also installed:
Package name
u.media
Package version
0.5
Author
Mediaworkers
I remember that I installed the first to have the basic parts of a website working and the other because it had some nice skins coming with it that I could modify.
All well and nice but I am now faced with many questions: Umbraco still allows me to choose another skin using the "install skin" function. Three skins are listed: Friendly Ghost, Designit Green and another one which I cannot remember. If I make the mistake of accidentally installing one of those, My whole site gets messed up. I initially selected one of these skins and started modifying CSS and templates for it... So once I would make the mistake of selecting another skin, there is now way back, other than a DB restore...
I looked around in my install but there seems to be no way to find out where the skins are "stored" or what is handling their installation or how to remove those skins at options or even just to check out the different components that make up my skin.
Could somebody clarify this a bit? I'd hate to go through all the trouble of looking in the Source Code of Umbraco itself to find out how all these bits and bobs work...
Can I surgically remove those skins from my install (to prevent other admns to accidentally apply them)? There seems to be no binaries related to those skins, nor does looking at the physical packages folder provide any insight...
Those are a lot of good questions you're asking in your post.
I think that the skins part of the installer and in the umbraco backoffice has some teething trouble, which needs to be adressed. The best way to do this is making a work item for each problem/bug/feature suggestion on codeplex. (If it's not been created already of course) That way the core team can decide how to deal with the issues.
I think the best way to ensure that the editors of your site does not change the skin by accident is to make sure they don't have access to the developer section. Usually I only let content editors have access to Content and Media sections since they usually don't need to have access to the other sections.
You can setup the access in the user section.
Of course if there are multiple dev's working on the solution the above suggestion does not quite cut it...
Have you had a look at the skinning documentation, which can be downloaded here? (PDF) http://umbraco.codeplex.com/releases/view/59025 - maybe there is some information in here that can answer some of your questions.
Thanks for the update. I have been looking around some more and it seems the skinning system is indeed quite messy and can have potentially disasterous consequences for the well being of your website.
The current implementation is not at all isolated from the rest of the website (much like a CSS file is in many ways independent of the HTML it styles). The skinning system should never touch the templates in my opinion... at best it should be a way to dynamically alter the CSS.
Maybe the skin sets of the starter kits are just poorly implemented... it seems that designit_green is putting images in the CSS folder while UMedia puts images in a folder called "images" etc etc... it's impossible...
Also, the panel in the developer section that allows starterkit and/or skin selection seems hard coded. It should be made disableable...
Umbraco 4.6.1 starter kit skin loacation/modification
Hi guys,
Recently I needed to set up a website really quick. One that needed to look nice from the get go with minimal effort (I only had 3 hours to get it up and running).
I installed Umbraco 4.6.1 on the server. I installed:
Sorry about the double post... however the forum seems to be broken... Topic deletion/editing don't work!
Hi Kris
Those are a lot of good questions you're asking in your post.
I think that the skins part of the installer and in the umbraco backoffice has some teething trouble, which needs to be adressed. The best way to do this is making a work item for each problem/bug/feature suggestion on codeplex. (If it's not been created already of course) That way the core team can decide how to deal with the issues.
I think the best way to ensure that the editors of your site does not change the skin by accident is to make sure they don't have access to the developer section. Usually I only let content editors have access to Content and Media sections since they usually don't need to have access to the other sections.
You can setup the access in the user section.
Of course if there are multiple dev's working on the solution the above suggestion does not quite cut it...
Have you had a look at the skinning documentation, which can be downloaded here? (PDF) http://umbraco.codeplex.com/releases/view/59025 - maybe there is some information in here that can answer some of your questions.
There are also 16 videos covering all aspects of skinning here: http://umbraco.org/help-and-support/video-tutorials/creating-a-skin-for-umbraco/introduction
Hope this helps.
/Jan
Hi Jan,
Thanks for the update. I have been looking around some more and it seems the skinning system is indeed quite messy and can have potentially disasterous consequences for the well being of your website.
The current implementation is not at all isolated from the rest of the website (much like a CSS file is in many ways independent of the HTML it styles). The skinning system should never touch the templates in my opinion... at best it should be a way to dynamically alter the CSS.
Maybe the skin sets of the starter kits are just poorly implemented... it seems that designit_green is putting images in the CSS folder while UMedia puts images in a folder called "images" etc etc... it's impossible...
Also, the panel in the developer section that allows starterkit and/or skin selection seems hard coded. It should be made disableable...
I'll post some of this on CodePlex.
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