About standardized guidelines for theme components

Development
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1

I never thought I’d do this, but here I am, editing CSS and JavaScript, and creating my first simple theme and plugin components.

As I’ve read before (though I wasn’t quite ready — one need a certain foundation to get started), the process of adding features and/or modifying existing ones in Discourse is actually very simple, and I’m very grateful for that.

Something I’ve noticed from my humble and brief experience with this is the lack of standardized guidelines, especially regarding theme components. I understand that plugins follow a stricter, more defined path.

When designing or coding for Horizon, oe must take into account the Discourse core that applies equally to all themes, changes made by Horizon, Foundation (modernized), implementations from Topic Cards, and any other components that may have arbitrarily modified variables.

Is there currently a guide I can follow from the start to simplify this process and stop running into px, em, rem, or variables that overlap and stop working with subsequent updates?

Am I missing something, or is this an simplification that could be very beneficial for all of us?

2

Here is a link to the theme skeleton

I start my own from that and load it in a development instance using

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and then paste in my git repository

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3

Thanks Andrew, but I’m afraid it still relies on the different themes/components I described before.

4

Take a look at this:

5

Thanks, I will read it! But I’m still afraid that will not prevent struggling with px, em, and px alternatives mixed everywhere, and overrides between theme components, topic cards, modernizations, defaults on Foundation, and Horizon.

The same applies to different display modes. Grid, flexbox, and tables are used everywhere, yet Discourse is not extensive enough to warrant such a mixture: we have topics, posts, user profiles, chats and a few other individual pages.

I am seeing a lack of integration regarding the basis to follow or implement, or a need for improvement in their communication. There are variables, and there are guidelines about how and what to do for specific things. Well, we all need to know them and align with those, so all our work will be simpler for everyone.

Perhaps some of you, more experienced folks, can understand what I am trying to communicate and explain it in a proper way. I am not technical like you, and all of this is still new to me.

Thanks for reading and sharing links. I am also open to discussion and opinions about it!