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Manco, check out Foundation. I've used it before on responsive websites. It's rather powerful and easy to use. |
I know I already quoted this above but I'm gonna do it again to say:
If you know a little bit of HTML/CSS and want to boost your knowledge of responsive design then I absolutely recommend Foundation. When I was figuring out the basics it was a huge help to me; it uses simple CSS classes to ease you in and you can totally use it for layout out of the box.
Their documentation is especially useful for figuring out how to get the most out of it, and I'm totally gonna borrow some of their smarter tricks when working on the OWF skin.
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Speaking of the skin, it's great to see that quite a lot of people are interested, and it's even greater to see plenty of people offering to help out.
We haven't started yet. But that's fine, I think it's probably better if we took things slowly to start to make sure we know exactly where we're going and what we're doing.
We need to start planning this out properly, though. So far it's all been talk (and yeah a lot of that talk is me I know), but we still don't have a really good idea of the process we'll be taking to get this done (again, my fault).
I'm not suggesting we get started right this instance, but we need to start discussing the roadmap for this shit. So let's talk about some planning.
Obviously the process needs to go something like this:
1. Layout / structure designing
We need to look at how the new skin will be laid out on screen. This involves looking at the current layout, seeing what works and what needs improving; mocking up (or prototyping if you prefer to dive straight into code) layout designs and then discussing them to decide what works best; and settling on a final design to take forward for the next step.
2. Prototyping and testing
Taking forward the final agreed designs and coding them up, then testing them on a variety of devices and browsers.
Steps 1 and 2 will likely cross over a lot; I think if we take to designing certain elements or blocks of the skin piece by piece we can get shit done quicker.
3. Converting to vBulletin
Probably the toughest step. This is where we take the finished HTML and CSS code and convert it into a set of theme files ready to be used on the forum. To do this we're going to need to know exactly how vBulletin software interacts with themes to place content in them - which we should have an understanding of before we start getting too deep into step 2.
So with those three steps in mind, people need to start thinking about where they want to help and what they'll need to do to so.
Also, two addenda:
1. Don't think too hard about images. We want to start with the structure and layout before we get into stuff like banner graphics.
2. Mobile first. After thinking about Nate's posts earlier I think he does have a point. I'm still committed to a fully responsive theme, but I think it would be wise to place the most emphasis on the mobile design to begin with. As long as we take care with designing the structure, adding the desktop designs in a later stage should still be perfectly feasible, and we can still design both alongside each other to an extent.