Unclear on customize-ability of PP skins

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Dave Gehman
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Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 9:05 pm

Unclear on customize-ability of PP skins

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

First, is there a way to see thumbnails of all the skins available in Premium Pack?

Second, I'm unclear how much we can customize a given prepackaged skin.

For example, this one:
Image

1. (Red rectangle) I can change the logo, right? (Duh... but I'm double checking to be absolutely sure)
2. (Cyan rectangle) I can change the background photo, right? (Ditto)
3. (Orange rectangle) Can I place a background photo in this header section?
4. (Red arrow) Can I create something similar to this gray box overlay?

Anything else that is customizable?
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Martin Wynne
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Location: West of the Severn, UK

Re: Unclear on customize-ability of PP skins

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Hi Dave,

In H&M every single thing is customizable. It's just that some things are a lot easier than others. Some require skills in HTML or Javascript. In my case it's the graphics skills lacking. What is actually wrong with a pink square having a dark green circle in one corner labelled in orange? :)

Martin.
Dave Gehman
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Re: Unclear on customize-ability of PP skins

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

Thanks, Martin, much appreciated.

I do still need to know if the pre-designed skins in PP are similarly open to customization. Sometimes templates are quite sophisticated under the skin, so to speak, and changing things can be problematic.

By the way,
Image

Dave
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Tim Green
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Re: Unclear on customize-ability of PP skins

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Dave,

The V3 skins you are using have a certain degree of customizability with the numerous configuration variables. The documentation is your friend here and should be studied carefully:

http://www.it-authoring.com/info/pp3hel ... onfig.html

These skins are intentionally designed with a minimalist appearance to reduce the amount of optical customization you should need, ideally to zero. Basically you can choose the minimalist plain white version, embed it in your own web page and go, because it just displays your help as text in a box. Or choose one of the boxed versions, pack your header items in the header box, and leave it at that. That is what they are designed for.

If you want to do more extensive optical modifications my general recommendation is: It's possible, but do you really want to do that? You need to understand that these skins have three sets of CSS files, one for each device category (desktop, tablet and phone), which are loaded automatically in response to the device type, eliminating CSS redundancy. If you want to make major optical changes you need to edit three CSS files for each of the four page types (main topic page, TOC, keyword index, search) and then test them extensively on numerous desktop, iOS and Android devices (phones, tablets) to make sure you haven't broken something (and generally, you will have). Or you can stay within the bounds of the available customization via the configuration variables and reduce your work overheads by 99.9% 8)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Dave Gehman
Posts: 575
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 9:05 pm

Re: Unclear on customize-ability of PP skins

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

Thanks, Tim.
Tim Green wrote:The V3 skins you are using have a certain degree of customizability with the numerous configuration variables. The documentation is your friend here and should be studied carefully:
Looks like everything we'd need is customizable.
If you want to do more extensive optical modifications my general recommendation is: It's possible, but do you really want to do that?
It's not really a case of what I want to do in this case - it's what our JS coders, our independent graphic designer, and our president/founder want... I have found that what our president/founder wants, I want...
You need to understand that these skins have three sets of CSS files, one for each device category (desktop, tablet and phone), which are loaded automatically in response to the device type, eliminating CSS redundancy. If you want to make major optical changes you need to edit three CSS files for each of the four page types (main topic page, TOC, keyword index, search) and then test them extensively
May I assume that this triplet-CSS editing is automated when I use the configuration variables in the PP Toolbox input grids?

Dave
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Tim Green
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Re: Unclear on customize-ability of PP skins

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Dave,
It's not really a case of what I want to do in this case - it's what our JS coders, our independent graphic designer, and our president/founder want...
Note that there are also session variables and facilities for adding your own JS code if necessary:

http://www.it-authoring.com/info/pp3hel ... pting.html
May I assume that this triplet-CSS editing is automated when I use the configuration variables in the PP Toolbox input grids?
Of course... :)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
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