Styles

1. Child Styles
2. Features

Second to the ability to create pages on the system is the ability to create styles. Styles can be used in many ways. for example

• Creating the Menubars, and basic page layout such that the page content is just the 'component' that differs on each page.
• Creating a Set of HTML components that make up a page, and then using the 'child style' feature to create different versions. - note the more elements you use the more difficult it can become to 're-assemble' the page for significant design changes.
• Using elements with code snippets to create 'rows' in tables or standard layouts for 'articles to be displayed on pages'; - this is similar to the 'NEWS' system that was developed.

From our experience, it is better to keep the number of elements that make up a page to the miniumum neccessary (As mentioned above, making changes to the page layout can become difficult) - dont get carried away!

Child Styles

Another of the powerful features of Midgard is the concept of child styles - the basic idea is that you can create a style based an existing one. It depends on the use of style elements to do this.
A new child style will have no elements, however when it is used (eg. tell a page to use it as it's style) it looks the same as a parent. The idea is based on the C++ and Java object orientated programing concept of inheritance - without reading about this, basically, a child style has all the elements of the parent, however you can redefine them or just use them to build a child style. have a look at the Concepts & Features section for a more detailed explanation

The ROOT element of a Style is very important, as it is the one neccessary to display a page. (eg. no ROOT element - will mean that nothing will be displayed (except the content of the code-init of the page).

Features

• The Style edit view is split into the top navigation bar, and the editing/ viewing window. When visiting the Style edit view the default is for the preview to be displayed. - this preview is a 'generated', not real view of the page - so it may differ from the final result (this may be changed in the next version)
• The system introduces the concept of shared styles - these are styles created by the SG0 group, and can be used by any other Company/Sitegroup, this is controled by a parameter on the Style definition - not directly accessable by the system.
• The Style edit view is actually a hybrid of the ROOT element editing and the Style editing. - done to make using the system easier. Other than this, style and style element editing share the same interface.

• From the top navigation bar you can

  • Preview the Style or Style element (again this is a generated view, not the real one, some javascript, and may display as text, other components may not work) - To view the page properly you will have to assign it to a page and visit that page.

  • Edit the Style or Style element

    • change the name of the Style or Style element
    • Edit the content of the element using the DHTML editor, (see notes about DHTML editing on the Website page.)
    • See and edit the source code from the DHTML editor
    • See the previous/current version of the source code
    • list the other elements and create new elements
    • create and list all the child styles of this element
    • Create and modify User defined parameters of the style
    • View the history and jump to the history view.
    • delete the style element (Note, users must delete all elements prior to deleting the containing style) - Adminstrators may delete the whole style in one go!

  • Review the history of changes to the style and revert to a previous version.

  • Upload images/attachments to the style (refer to Website information for more details)

  • Child Styles

  • Create a New Style
  • Delete a Style
  • Edit a Style
  • Preview a Style
  • Style Elements
  • Style Revision Control
  • Styles
  • View/Modify Style Details