[CWB] CQPweb CSS Styles

[Hardie, Andrew]

Hi Thilo & everyone,

I’m following up on a very old thread that I didn’t have time to reply to at the time. My plans for CSS styling are now a bit clearer than they were, so a quick update note seemed in order …


  *   The CSS and HTML-class framework is one of the oldest, and worst-written, parts of the system. (I was very much teaching myself web programming as I went, back in 2007/2008.) There’s a TON of repetition, and a lot of it is not correct HTML5 (as the PHP editor in Eclipse screams at me every time I open a file).


  *   The customisations possible in the present state are minimal. This is because I created about five cell-classes and then proceeded to reuse them for EVERYTHING, adjusting them on the fly where necessary.


  *   Thilo’s adjustments are very snazzy, though! I will probably pinch them …


  *   I want to make it easier for people to do this & more radical CSS styling, with classes on everything,  well-structured & predictable CSS code, & less explicit formatting in the HTML.


  *   This is especially because jQuery code can now be used. I want classes identifying every blob of info on a screen so it can be accessed programmatically…


  *   I need to do some work on clear form-structuring…. moreover, I’d rather like to rely more than i do at present on div and span and a whole lot less on table, tr and td….


  *   The controls need a complete overhaul – e.g. the dropdowns are all a pain in the neck and need a rebuild.


  *   All the above will affect every code file at once.


  *   thus, it can’t really be done incrementally : it’s gotta be a big bang!


  *   So, I am adding this (along with moving the database to utf8mb4 – mentioned in another thread of late) to the list of things needed for v 3.3.

Finally I’d note that I am rubbish at aesthetics. I copied the original UI layout from BNCweb. My only innovation was multi-coloured skins. So, if anyone on the list has a better head for colour schemes than me (and I do believe nearly everyone does) then suggestions are very welcome.

best

Andrew.

From: cwb-bounces at sslmit.unibo.it <cwb-bounces at sslmit.unibo.it> On Behalf Of Thilo Wiertz
Sent: 12 March 2018 12:52
To: Open source development of the Corpus WorkBench <cwb at sslmit.unibo.it>
Subject: [CWB] CQPweb CSS Styles

Dear all,

I procrastinated a little bit over the CQPweb look. The result is a set of css files to freshen up the main page and corpus views. There are currently four color templates for corpora (blue, green, yellow, red), but since colors are defined as variables at the top of the .css-files it should be very straightforward to create further custom themes.

I haven’t done much testing and got rid of quite a bit of original definitions – so please feel free to report display errors and things that strike you as inconvenient or objectively very ugly :-). Note that given the current condition of the main code (which I didn’t touch) only so much is possible using css. Thus, for instance, it would be great format table columns depending on input (align numbers to the right), but currently almost all tables and fields are of the same class, some with additional html-tag formatting.

I don’t know if other plans to refurbish the UI of CQPweb are already under way, if not I’d be happy to take this Friday afternoon project a little further – provided that there is general interest and Andrew would be happy to do/accept necessary changes to the main code. I am aware of course that this is a little more on the complementary/fun side of things and that functionality takes precedence…

All files, a short description, and some screenshots can be found at https://github.com/retide/cqpweb_css.

Best
Thilo

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