Improving theming in Open edX

[Shauna Gordon-McKeon]

Hello everyone,

In the couple of months since I’ve joined edX, I’ve heard a lot of discussion in the community about theming.  Given the level of interest in and trouble with theming, we’ve decided to go beyond dealing with each problem on a case by case basis, and see if we can address some of the underlying issues - together.

We have a pretty solid understanding of the main issues with theming (summarized here) and a decent sense of what’s important to you, but we’d like to get a more systematic sense of your priorities.  To that end, we’ve created a survey: http://bit.ly/2dZwVmP.  If you care at all about theming, please fill it out!

If the survey indicates enough interest, we’re going to launch a working group to tackle these problems within the next couple of weeks.  Of course, “launching a working group” is something we’re also trying to clarify and redefine, so I understand if some of you feel a little in the dark about what the next steps actually will be.  The very short version is “we’ll work with the community to improve our design and implementation plans for to reflect your needs and priorities, and then some combination of edX teams and Open edX community members will implement those changes”.  If you’re interested in helping define how working groups work, please check out the discussion here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B3zTtL4g1F9a98DGCAIoRHZc50K26sroLgjPf7lRICo

As always, please feel free to ask questions, give feedback, etc.

Best

Shauna

[Stuart O'Day]

Hi Shauna,

   Can you provide the link to "(summarized here)"?

Thanks,

Stuart

[Shauna Gordon-McKeon]

Yes, I can!  Thanks for catching that.

The link is this one: https://openedx.atlassian.net/wiki/display/FEDX/Challenges+with+comprehensive+theming+in+Eucalyptus

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "General Open edX discussion" group.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/edx-code/158035fd-a5e0-4e9a-9321-6d1f37a12357%40googlegroups.com.

[Giulio Gratta]

I think the most important thing you guys at edX can and should do is move to your own externally managed (private repo) theme.

This will both reduce the likely-hood of other sites/instances using your color scheme/trademarks, and also make sure you understand the pain themers have to go through.

[Mike Bifulco]

Giulio is absolutely spot on.  I continue to be shocked by the apparent absence of anyone at edX who has ever used theming... and I'm thankful for a community that's willing to help one-another through figuring out how it works.

[dh...@edx.org]

Hi Giulio,

We do in fact make use of a private theme repo here at edX for certain projects. Can you expand upon the "pain themers have to go through"?

Thanks,

- Doug

On Monday, October 17, 2016 at 5:40:08 PM UTC-4, Giulio Gratta wrote:

[Shauna Gordon-McKeon]

To follow up on Doug's question --

I know that many of you have shared your issues re: theming several times, and I'm sorry that you're being asked to repeat yourselves.  If you'd like to update this wiki page (https://openedx.atlassian.net/wiki/display/FEDX/Challenges+with+comprehensive+theming+in+Eucalyptus) to include more information about some of the problems you've faced, that's a good way to make an easily accessible record that the community and the working group can reference moving forward.

I will also be sharing the results of our survey next week, which will have more details about pain points for themers.  If folks don't want to wait, email me off-list and I can send you the current results, minus anything that has been marked confidential.

best

Shauna

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "General Open edX discussion" group.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/edx-code/c801b96a-90bb-4752-8a82-c8d8363cac5b%40googlegroups.com.

[Giulio Gratta]

Sure Doug, you may use theming for certain projects, but not for edX.org and edge.edx.org.

Here are a few big issues with Comprehensive theming I came up with off the top of my head (other Open edX people, Stanford affiliated or not, can comment and add anything I may have missed):

- The Open edX community was not really consulted in a timely fashion on comprehensive theming (basically we were shown the code shortly before it merged and comments were ignored for expediency's sake).

- Comprehensive theming currently doesn't allow for graceful inheritance from platform templates Stanford is still running our "Stanford Theming". 
- Because we need to do things with the edX platform for which comprehensive theming (from text changes, to injecting HTML, to complete restructuring of templates) doesn't allow without replacing full files, we've had to fork multiple parts of edx-platform. This means *every* time we merge from edX, we have dozens (sometimes hundreds) of conflicts which makes it *much* harder to track the release branch as closely as we would like.

- Color/variable definitions in SASS (as they are used in the rest of the SASS) ebb and flow without end, which makes most themers have to continuously edit color/variable definitions in their files.

- There doesn't seem to be any reasonable effort to make the LMS responsive without having to resort to the mobile app, which is unsustainable for teams with only a handful of engineers.

If edX were running its own private repo theme on edX.org and "dog-fooding" the theming solution, it not only would bring these open source issues to fore, but would also allow you guys at edX to protect your trademarks, language, and colors.

Giulio Gratta
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
B.S. Engineering (Product Design)
Stanford University, Class of 2010

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "General Open edX discussion" group.