When I look at this image:
I have to admit my first reaction was negative. I just don't want to see us go down the same road that vB did with hundreds of StyleVars. CSS is pretty straightforward, and I like to see pure CSS whenever possible.
Is there a large percentage of Forum Administrators who feel uncomfortable working with the following code?
Code:
/* Mini-Me is the small avatar of the current visitor which shows up on discussions in which the visitor has posted. */
width: 20px;
height: 20px;
margin-left: 20px;
padding: 1px;
border: 1px solid black;
Border Radius
I can understand border radius being something that could be a nice Style Property, because it uses border-radius, -webkit-radius, and -moz-
border-radius to cover IE9, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Chrome. I would support all the border radiuses in XenForo being stored in a handful of Style Properties. But each DIV or SPAN having its own section? I'm not so sure...
Color Scheme
I also like how XenForo abstracts the major colors used throughout the forum and puts them in a nice control panel. I think color schemes should absolutely be abstracted in this manner.
But when I see borders, margins, padding, and background images for a
single DIV, which are all extremely straightforward CSS concepts being split out into
37 style properties, I don't know.
What if I want to use CSS differently than XenForo does? What if I want to define new classes, retire old classes, and really play around with the
structure and
layout of the site?
I really hope I am totally misinterpreting what Kier and Mike are driving at here, but I originally thought that Style Properties were to easily configure and toggle
functionality on a style-by-style basis, as well as quickly change the color schemes of the forum. I didn't think it was to be fill-in forms to customize at the DIV and SPAN level.
I'm looking forward to the spirited and useful discussions in this thread.