[Tech-Coord] docs.indy needs a new skin

[intrigeri]

Hi folks,

<fake_disclaimer> I do cross-post, sometimes. </fake_disclaimer>

GnuSkin, our current TWiki skin, was designed to work on TWiki
v.01-Dec-2001; it has been unmaintained for 3 years. Wow. Moreover,
the author told me he does not really plan to work on it again.

This fact implies:
  - it does not support some TWiki's features, such as forms, that
    have won the "most reclaimed feature for docs.indy" 2004 Award;
  - it does not, and will never, follow the (slow) TWiki's walk to
    UTF-8 support;
  - it gives me headaches each time I upgrade our TWiki software,
    forcing me to write patches in order to have it kind of working
    with the last TWiki upstream releases.

My conclusion is: we have to choose another skin.

My personal preference, supported by Alster & PseudoPunk, goes to
PatternSkin (http://docs.indymedia.org/view/TWiki/PatternSkin);
pros and cons:
   - included in TWiki upstream releases
   - supported & maintained by TWiki's developers
   - default skin on twiki.org
   - CSS based, almost fully W3C compatible
   - does not support IE<5.5 & Netscape 4.x
   - in the last TWiki release, each user can use the skin s/he wants
     and bypass the global setting

I'm currently preparing a smooth transition to PatternSkin for the
whole docs.indymedia.org site, so that our users don't get lost. As a
beginning, I installed it on the Sandbox section in order to give it a
try: http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Sandbox/

What's your feeling about all this?

Ciao,
-- 
  intrigeri <intrigeri at squat.net>
  gnupg key 0xCA80A0D2 @ keys.indymedia.org
  [ Who wants a world in which the guarantee that we shall not ]
  [  die of starvation entails the risk of dying of boredom ?  ]
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