My goal was always to find a webpage which can be rendered by all currently available webbrowsers with nearly no rendering problems.
But as everybody knows - this is a heavy task, as most browsers render different. One day I discovered the Open Source Web Developers network. They offer templates under GPL for webpages with no graphical components on them, without Javascript and without Flash, etc. So pure HTML and CSS are provided. Hmm - but also those basic formats lead to different results in browsers.
Well, one design was so clean and pure - I put attention on it (btw: it got the most downloads). You can find a preview of the original design made by haran under the name of Sinorca.
All was done in XHTML with CSS. So I decided to alter the design and created a wiki skin from it.
It was time to work on BlueSkin, because some people demanded changes as the missing preview button and so forth. So fortunately Haran came up with a new version of Sinorca, TWiki had a new release with major changes to the template system and I began to work on a new BlueSkin, versioned it 2.0.
Note that BlueSkin 0.4 and prior versions are not supported any longer. The new BlueSkin is only tested with TWiki Release 01 Sep 2004 and later !
Features
- Simple and clean design
- No images, except those found within the wiki system
- All done in XHTML
- Use of Javascript
Overview / Screenshot
BlueSkin should be rendered correctly (and tested by me) with Konqueror (>KDE 3.2), Firefox 1.0, Internet Explorer 6.0+. All Browsers should accept Javascript. Opera 7.x doesn't seem to work 
!"§$%& 
!!!
Todo
Things I want to implement and don't know how to do - or they are simply not done yet, as well as known bugs.
- Implement web header images to distinguish the different webs.
- Search and Go Boxes do not work correctly. (will be fixed soon)
- Cosmetic changes. (will be fixed during work)
- Footer does not render correctly on short pages (will be fixed soon)
- Use of web color marker somewhere.
Setup Blueskin
Do the following changes to your TWikiPreferences section:
Alter the WEBTOPICLIST to display correctly within BlueSkin environment
Set the WEBTOPICLIST variable to something like this ( or similar ). This will be rendered in the Navigation area of the page:
* Set WEBTOPICLIST = [[WebChanges][&rsaquo; Changes]]\n[[WebIndex][&rsaquo; Index]]\n[<nop>[<nop>WebSearch][&rsaquo; Search]]=
Create a new Section BlueSkin under TWikiPreferences Skins
---+++ BlueSkin
* BlueSkin customization
* Set TOOLBOX = <form action="%SCRIPTURLPATH%/search%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/%WEB%/SearchResult"><input type="text" name="search" size="16" /> <input type="submit" value="Find"/></form><br/><br/>
* Set SIDEBARHEADER1 = Use this web to...
* Set SIDEBARTEXT1 = %SITEMAPUSETO%
* Set SIDEBARHEADER2 = Current Webs
* Set SIDEBARTEXT2 = %WEBLIST{"[[$name.%HOMETOPIC%][$name]]"}%
* Set SIDEBARNAVIGATIONTITLE = Navigation
* Set SIDEBARTOOLBOXTITLE = Toolbox
SIDEBARNAVIGATIONTITLE
Title for Website navigation such as Index, Webchanges, etc. Content of the navigation box will be filled by the %WEBTOPICLIST% variable. This can be globally defined in TWikiPreferences and should be overwritten in the WebPreferences Topic.
SIDEBARHEADER1, SIDEBARHEADER2
Titles used for general purpose boxes. Those boxes can be used for further web details like webspecific functions.
SIDEBARTEXT1, SIDEBARTEXT2
Content of the general boxes. I put %SITEMAPUSETO% in one box to show how to implement the sitemap description for the web.
SIDEBARTOOLBOXTITLE
Title for the Toolbox containing various stuff to be displayed. For instance use this to display a GO or SEARCH field with button
Alter some settings in TWikiPreferences and TablePlugin to make BlueSkin look better
* Background color of non existing topic: ( default =cornsilk= or =#FFFFCE= )
* Set NEWTOPICBGCOLOR = inherited
Set this to "inherited" to have a transparent background of the new topic.
* Font color of non existing topic: ( default =#0000FF= )
* Set NEWTOPICFONTCOLOR = #FF0000
I choose red as a color for new topics.
* New Link Symbol
* Set NEWTOPICLINKSYMBOL = <img src="/twiki/pub/TWiki/BlueSkin/tip.gif" border="0" width="16" height="16"/>
There is a small encircled star as a creation symbol for the new topic link. It is located in the pub directory.
* Set TABLEATTRIBUTES = tableborder="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2" headerbg="#8CAAE6" headercolor="003399" databg="#8CAAE6, #EEEEEE"
Set the default attributes for tables in the TablePlugin
Finally switch on the BlueSkin in TWikiPreferences and enjoy.
* Set SKIN = blueskin
Installation
Note: You do not need to install anything on the browser to use this skin. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the skin on the server where TWiki is running.
All you have to do is to unzip the archive in the installation folder of your Wiki installation. There is no worry about overwriting other template files, as all template files end in .blueskin.tmpl.
BlueSkin is now packaged correctly but I suggest you first test the archive to check the content structure before unpacking in a productive system.
Skin Info
Related topic: TWikiSkins
-- TWiki:Main/ThorstenSommermann - 17 Oct 2003
Skin Info
Related topic: TWikiSkins
-- TWiki:Main/ThorstenSommermann - 17 Oct 2003
) (v0.3)