The Natural Skin
Description
NatSkin is a skin driven by cascading stylesheets which is shipped with 12
predefined styles and 10 style variations that can be applied to each. Most of
these are inspired by the
MovableType and
WordPress among others a port of the Kubrick style by
Michael Heilemann and thus can provide a blog-like layout.
This includes a
PatternSkin style that emulates the look&feel of the
PatternSkin
as it is known from the TWiki/Cairo release.
Features
- Skin state: an internal representation of different ways to render the NatSkin concerning
- the skin style,
- style variants,
- the sidebar location,
- the page border decoration,
- the web buttons in the topbar and
- the positioning of the search box
- Conditional content:
- USERACTIONS, NATLOGON: display topic actions depending on the user being logged in or not
- IFSKINSTATE: render skin differently depending on the current skin state
- IFACCESS: render different content or include topics depending on access rights
- skin style control: infrastructure to get, set and display the skin style that is currently active using the NatSkinStyleBrowser
- WebSideBar: a configurable navigation bar
- MySideBar: every user can extend the sidebar with a personalized navigation
- NatSearch: a search+go box that combines advanced search with the GO feature of twiki
- Login page: independent implementation of a login page for maximal compatibility with old TWiki releases; this is similar to the TemplateLogin authentication mechanism in Dakar but only provides htpasswd based authentication
- email address obfuscation: all email addresses in topic texts are obfuscated by the use of dynamic html; so mailto links are still clickable while the pure html text does not allow to extract the addresses by respective web crawlers.
- marking external links: add a nice icon to offsite links
NatSearch
NatSearch unifies the Seach and the Jump box known from the standard TWiki. You can
use one input field to either jump to a topic or start a content query.
Usage
This basically works in three modes:
- GO: go to the named topic
- topic search: search a topic whose name matches the search string
- content search: search a topic whose content matches the search string
NatSearch proceeds along the following lines:
- the search string starts with an uppercase letter:
- try a GO
- fallback to a topic search when 1.1 fails
- fallback to content search when 1.2 fails
- the string starts with a /:
normal content search
- the string does not start with an upper case letter or /
- try a topic search
- fallback to content search
If only one topic was found then NatSearch jumps to that topic directly.
Options
The search string may be prepended with a set of options that are separated from the
rest of the search string with a colon(:). Known options are:
| Option | Description |
|---|
| g | global search (default is local) |
| l | local search |
| u | case-sensitive search (default is to ignore case) |
A search string may consist of a list of terms that are retrieved. If a term shall contain
spaces it can be surrounded by double quotes. Each term may be preceded with a minus (-) to
exclude this term from the hit set.
Examples
| Search | Description |
|---|
| TWikiUsers | if the current web is the Users go to the TWikiUsers |
| | if the current web is the TWiki go to the TWikiUsersGuide |
| g:twikiusers | list all topics in all webs whose name match "twikiusers" |
| /TWikiUsers | list all topics that contain the word "TWikiUsers" |
| gu:copyright | list all topics that contain the word "copyright" in lowercase |
| g:copyright -webpref | list all topics that contain the word "copyright" but not "webpref" |
| g:"Good morning" -natskin | list all topics that contain the term "Good morning" but not "natskin" |
Customization
NatSearch can be restricted to certain webs and topics by setting
WebPreferences.
Besides the NOSEARCHALL feature of every web that excludes a web from search the following variables
restrict the hit set:
| Name | Description |
|---|
NATSEARCHINCLUDEWEB | a regular expression that must match webs to be considered |
NATSEARCHEXCLUDEWEB | a regular expression that must not match a web |
NATSEARCHINCLUDETOPIC | a regular expression that must match a topic in the hit set |
NATSEARCHEXCLUDETOPIC | a regular expression that excludes a topic from the hit set |
Furthermore, the
WebPreferences variable
NATSEARCHTEMPLATE can be set to a template topic that
is used instead of the skin's
search template. This can be used in TWikiApplications to
define a customized look of search results.
Disclamer
NatSearch is heavily inspired by the PhotonSearch of the
TWiki:Plugins/PhotonSkin.
About the WebSideBar
The WebSideBar is used to generate a navigation appearing next to
the main topic area. Each web in your QBFreak.net might optionaly have a
separate WebSideBar. The default
TWiki.WebSideBar? can be used to add a default
section common to all WebSideBars.
If the WebSideBar isn't defined the default
TWiki.WebSideBar?
is used. Each user might define a personalized WebSideBar called
%WIKINAME%SideBar that is
appended to the WebSideBar. The
TWiki:Plugins/RedDotPlugin is used to make customizing the WebSideBar
easier appended to the different parts that make up the complete sidebar. These are hidden if
you don't have write access to the respective topic fragments.
About the WebButtons?
The
WebButtons? are used to render the button toolbar at the top of the page when the
STYLEBUTTONS
setting is set to
"on".
The
WebButtons? are an unordered list of
those links that should be visible there. There exists one
WebButtons? topic by default in the
TWiki web. You can define a
WebButtons? topic per web overwriting the settings in the
TWiki.WebButtons topic. If you do not define a
WebButtons? topic in a web then the
default one will be used displaying a set of links to all public webs in your QBFreak.net
installation.
About Logon & Logout
LOGONTOPIC
The layout of the
NatSkin can be configured online using the
NatSkinStyleBrowser
- by selecting one of the predefined styles;
- by selectiong one of the predefined variations;
- the sidebar can be displayed on the left or right;
- the page border can be toggled on and off;
- there are so-called WebButtons? that can be switched on and off displaying webs as tabs;
- the position of the search box can be set to one of four predefined positions.
The result can be configured per session, user, web or for the complete site.
The screenshots below only display a limitted set of all possible combinations.
This skin includes an enhanced navigation mechanism named WebSideBar. This
combines the best of the old WebMenu idea from the GnuSkin and the
WebLeftBar known from the
TWiki:Plugins/PatternSkin by providing all the
flexibility of the WebLeftBar including the
MySideBar feature and an
enhanced navigation scheme.
This is a rework of the
TWiki:Plugins/CopyCatSkin by
TWiki:Main/MattWilkie. It is used at the
Natural Language Systems Division
(NATS) of the University of Hamburg, Germany.
Selecting Styles
You can try alternative styles
- per request: by appending
style=<skin-name> to the end of the url; alternatively, use the NatSkinStyleBrowser
- per user by setting a variable
SKINSYLE on your TWikiGuest homepage
- per web by setting the variable
SKINSTYLE in the WebPreferences
- site-wide by setting the skinstyle in the TWikiPreferences
See the
NatSkinPlugin for more information on how to predefine the variants of
NatSkin.
The default style is hardcoded into the
NatSkinPlugin.
Documentation
(TODO: "refine" me)
Installation
- Get the TWiki:Plugins/NatSkinPlugin supplementary package and install it.
- If you are installing on TWiki/Cairo then consider applying this patch: Cairo_UI_pm.diff
- Download the ZIP file from the Skin Home page (see below)
- Unzip
NatSkin.zip in your twiki installation directory
- Test if installed: click here
Skin Info
| Skin Author: | TWiki:Main/MichaelDaum |
| Copyright ©: | 2003-2006, Michael Daum |
| License: | GPL (GNU General Public License) |
| Skin Version: | v2.996 |
| Dependencies: | TWiki:Plugins/NatSkinPlugin |
| Description: | Driven by cascading stylesheets, Comes with 12 alternative styles, MoveableType and Wordpress Look-n-Feel |
| Base Name: | nat |
| Screenshot: | |
| More Screenshots: | |
| Change History: | |
| 2006-03-20: | several blog css fixes; added bottom topic actions to edit and preview; only display web.topic in the web locator no recursive parents anymore; natsearch docu |
| 2006-03-13: | fixed WebLinks components; fixed atom feed link at the page bottom |
| 2006-03-11: | reworked sidebar using the new WEBCOMPONET logic; docu restructuring - more needed; using messages.tmpl as far as possible |
| 2006-03-01: | fixed TWikiForm not showing certain row values (uuh); added more css for the most recent stuff added to the BlogPlugin; removed html from mailnotification; replaced SCRIPTURL{} with SCRIPTURL+SCRIPTSUFFIX again for legacy platforms; minor css fixes |
| 2006-02-20: | removed empty lines in templates; css fixes for lists in the sidebar; unified font size in attachment tables; using percentage instead of em size for the thin page layout |
| 2006-02-14: | added variable %WEBSYNDICATION%; removed TablePlugin patch; made BaseStyle usable; added syndiation feeds; don't use dotted lines on IE; don't use transparent borders on IE; added gif version for cite background for IE; fixed content area of PatterStyle on IE; don't use Lucida Grande in KubrickStyle; added rss feed icons; added plain view template |
| 2006-02-03: | compute even/odd search hits for WebSearch using CALC so that css-2.1 expressions aren't needed anymore; lots of css font and size fixes, i.e. blog related |
| 2006-01-27: | fixed blog css for all styles |
| 2006-01-26: | lots of css fixes |
| 2006-01-23: | added forgotten IE decorations; fixed layout problems in the WebButtons?; replaced ICONPATH with ICONURL; added email_changed oopsattention message |
| 2006-01-09: | more IE fixes; fixed search template: every hit must be a table of its own :(; fontsize fixes |
| 2005-12-20: | fixed collapsing tables in firefox < 1.5 |
| 2005-12-05: | componentized template system adding javascript and styles components; removed inline-styles and -javascript and moved it to the respective components being inserted into the html header properly now; surpressing final skin state switches in the NatSkinStyleBrowser; removed absolute urls; removed EDITURL; fixed sidebar help for cairo and beijing; fixed squeezed main page; added the concept of WebComponents, that is the WebSideBar and the WebButtons?; the WebButtons are customizable the way the WebSideBar already is |
| 2005-12-01: | added transparent borders and corners to the Kubrick style; improved PlasticLoveVariation; added a custom "cite" style inside blog texts; some minor IE fixes; w3c validation fixes to the style browser; more form fixes in the preview and editform pages; replaced every launchWindow() javascript with a proper a href using a _blank target; added tooltips to topicactions |
| 2005-11-23: | added nops in expensive IFSKINSTATETHEN, i.e. to prevent the sidebar to be computed multiple times |
| 2005-11-22: | moved basic blogging css to the BlogPlugin |
| 2005-11-16: | added PatternStyle emulating cairo's PatternSkin |
| 2005-11-10: | improved NatSkinStyleBrowser |
| 2005-11-08: | firefox layout fixes |
| 2005-11-07: | more safari fixes |
| 2005-11-02: | fixed javascript problems combined with the TWiki:Plugins.TwistyPlugin; trigger printing when clicking on "Print" |
| 2005-10-31: | safari fixes where content leaps out of the main area |
| 2005-10-24: | added UserView templates; standardised favicon handling |
| 2005-10-18: | workaround crash due to recursive accessdenied-exceptions |
| 2005-10-13: | preliminary css support for header art; added some default headers |
| 2005-10-10: | added skin style cycling to the NatSkinStyleBrowser; fixed way how the oops dialogues switch off the sidebar |
| 2005-10-09: | new release NatSkin-2.51: reinvention of the NatSkinStyleBrowser; reworked the standard WebSideBar; extensive usage of the new conditional content tags interfacing the skin state machine, i.e. switch the sidebar from the left to the right etc.; removed hard-coded links to a Support web; lots of fixes to catch up with the evolving dakar engine; support for the TWiki:Plugins.TwistyPlugin; support for the TWiki:Plugins.AliasPlugin; skin state support for the TWiki:Plugins.TablePlugin; new webbuttons in the topbar; componentized style sheets for different skin states; improved css of forms and tables; better support for the upcomming BlogPlugin in every skin style; plus the usual small css fixes |
| 2005-08-30: | lots of css fixes for IE and Opera; fixed topicactions for IE; different cancel actions per engine |
| 2005-08-26: | final NatSkin-2.0 |
| 2005-07-12: | first round of pre-releases numbered 1.91 upwards |
| 2005-06-24: | rewritten the templates, renamed the CSS classes |
| 2003-07-25: | Initial version |
| Skin Home: | TWiki:Plugins/NatSkin |
| Feedback: | TWiki:Plugins/NatSkinDev |
| Appraisal: | TWiki:Plugins/NatSkinAppraisal |
Note: The Description, Screenshot and Base Name rows are needed by the
TWiki:TWiki/TWikiSkinBrowser
Related topic: TWiki:TWiki/TWikiSkins,
TWiki:TWiki/TWikiSkinBrowser,
TWiki:Plugins/NatSkinDev,
NatSkinPlugin
--
TWiki:Main/MichaelDaum - 20 Mar 2006
