What are the best ways to roll out styled icon/profile pages?

[foxfirefey]

So, one of the projects Styles has been working on is custom icon and profile pages. The stunning exor674 has implemented a backend for custom icon pages; after we implement them for all styles, we will be working on custom profile pages.

One of the concerns is that a good amount of people are going to not see icon pages--and especially profile pages, which are difficult enough to do effectively without shoehorning them into a style--in styles. But we don't want to multiply too many options. Possible strategies are:

• Add a separate display option for icon and profile pages, or just profile pages since icon pages are far less likely to be troublesome in styles.


• Don't add any options. All styles will have the ability to display icon and profile pages in the site style, just like entry pages. Somebody who doesn't want to view them can use the style=mine sticky display and set them thus. This will not satisfy the people who don't want to set display options for style=mine, but it's probably the fewest options.


• Hooking them up to the entry display option--probably not a good idea.
• Hooking them up to the journal display option--also not a good idea, since few people will be using the site view for their journal.

Other ideas welcome!

Comments

[musyc]

While I think that the custom profile and icon pages would be absolutely delightful for those who want to use it, I know that I'm going to constantly be clicking "style=mine" every single time I see a custom page. I'm used to scanning for specific information in specific locations, and I can already tell my frustration levels would go high if I had to squint at every page because someone thinks it's awesome to put their text in yellow on blue.

I'd love to have a ticky I can set in my user preferences that says "never show me custom pages for X". I never want to see custom pages when reading comments, and I never want to see custom pages when looking at icons.

[foxfirefey]

Actually, you can already never see custom pages when reading comments:

http://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/settings/?cat=display

Set "Entry View Style" to "My own style" (or one of the other options).

It sounds like you'd be covered with scenario two, which is the bare minimum, so there's nothing for you to worry about, I think.

[musyc]

I have that set. It's the first thing I did as soon as it was available. XD I want this to also be an option for once the custom icon/profile pages go into effect. Not just entry view, but all site pages. I see the FAQs in Tropo Purple, comments in Tropo Purple, latest things, interest search, inbox, etc. all in Tropo Purple. I never want to see profiles/icon pages in anything but Tropo Purple, and want that as a ticky option.

[foxfirefey]

Do you have the journal view style to your style, too?

[musyc]

I have entry view set to site skin, and journal view set to original style. I don't mind seeing the wrapper someone's put on the package, but once I open the box, I want everything homogenized. Basically, musyc.dreamwidth.org = "Oh, look, purple, nice", but musyc.dreamwidth.org/XXXX.html, musyc.dreamwidth.org/icons, musyc.dreamwidth.org/profile, etc. = Tropo Purple and that's how I want it no matter what journal or page I'm viewing. If it's a page that comes after .org/, I only want to see the site scheme, whether that be Tropo Purple, Celerity, or Lynx.

[ninetydegrees]

*nods. The only pages I like seeing in one's style are the recent page and the reading page. Sometimes I'd even like it better if archive and tag pages were site-styled.

[musyc]

:DD Same. Partially because it would be SO much easier to design for if things like that damn single tags-container h2 didn't have to be taken into account. >.>

[ninetydegrees]

OMG I hate that thing with a passion! The tags page is horrible to customize. Well, not as horrible as the entry page but pretty horrible.

[musyc]

LOL, yeah. The number of times I've stared at the tags page swearing to myself because ALL the text is visible EXCEPT THAT WHAT DO I HAVE TO CHANGE LKSJD:FKLJS WTF NOW **ALL** MY H2S IN MY TEST POST ARE DISPLAYING WEIRD.

*cough*

[marahmarie]

There's nothing worse than .page-month to customize with CSS. I promise! Try it sometime if you haven't already. At least, it's the hardest thing to code in Transmogrified that I know of (besides reply forms, which can also get a bit nightmarish) - it's just rip-your-hair-out-worthy. The Tags page is a breeze compared to that one.

[melannen]

...I would love it so much if I could see archive and tag pages in site style. Even if it was only the ones on my journal.

[cheyinka]

I like user-styled archive pages, but site-styled tag pages (even if it were only my journal's tag page) would be great, I agree!

[foxfirefey]

You can, actually, if you add ?style=site to them. But I'm still working on styling them still, so they look rather rough yet!

[melannen]

Ooh, yay! Thank you. It's greyed out in the navbar so I just assumed it wasn't possible, but it looks great already!