create a skin repository

[buenchaval]

what about setting a page in the wiki with a skin repository where people can contribute their shining new skins?

something like:

​http://www.vi-improved.org/color_sampler_pack/

with a screenshot and a link to the ini file, and the possibility to upload new ones.

would be nice to have this some day :)

[gotar]

I've already said why I don't like this idea: ​http://www.midnight-commander.org/ticket/1659#comment:10

[slavazanko]

We have the beginning of skin-browser development: ​http://www.midnight-commander.org/nopaste/skin_parser/outdir/
Sources placed in ​http://www.midnight-commander.org/nopaste/skin_parser/

This parser isn't ready for 256-colors skins, also, isn't have infrastructure for uploading new skins and missing vandal-protection for already uploaded skins.
These tasks awaiting for contributors...

[zaytsev]

Just a note: this is something that can be in theory nicely integrated into mc/maint/utils/travis-deploy.sh, e.g. to generate a static skins.midnight-commander.org website every time master branch is updated, just as source.midnight-commander.org is being generated now.

[andrew_b]

Replying to zaytsev:

generate a static skins.midnight-commander.org website every time master branch is updated

Skins are changed not so often.

[zaytsev]

Well, it doesn't really matter, does it? The generation would supposedly take only a few seconds anyways, and the amount of data is on the order of magnitude of a few kilobytes.

If you really want it, one could add an extra check to only rebuild skin samples if the commit in question is tagged or something like that.

Anyways, we'd need a working preview generator first :-) That can supposedly be done with mc^{2 .}

[mooffie]

Replying to zaytsev:

Anyways, we'd need a working preview generator first :-) That can supposedly be done with mc².

Indeed, this can be done easily. I'll look at it later today.

[mooffie]

Replying to mooffie:

Replying to zaytsev:

Anyways, we'd need a working preview generator first :-) That can supposedly be done with mc².

Indeed, this can be done easily. I'll look at it later today.

Done:

​https://github.com/mooffie/mc/tree/skin_sampler/src/lua/misc/skin-sampler

Of course, it only generates the screenshots. It doesn't generate a full-blown site with fancy JavaScript.

I uploaded the output (the HTML screenshots) here:

​http://www.typo.co.il/~mooffie/tmp/mc/skins/

There are currently 5 screenshots generated for each skin (I based them on Slava's screenshots).

I moved the "defbg" skins to a subfolder:

​http://www.typo.co.il/~mooffie/tmp/mc/skins/skins_using_defbg/

For them you need to tell the browser to show some color except white as the background (otherwise they aren't very readable).

I don't think there are bugs. Note that the following two are *not* bugs:

​http://www.typo.co.il/~mooffie/tmp/mc/skins/sand256-panel-full.html
(the silly "italic" lines in the menu; some terminals draw lines

themselves so you don't get a chance to see the "bug".)

​http://www.typo.co.il/~mooffie/tmp/mc/skins/gray-orange-blue256-editor.html
(there's just not enough contrast in the skin so it's not readable.)

[zaytsev]

Wow, that's pretty awesome! Now we only have a minor problem left, as in getting mc² merged ;-) I saw your status update on the list (quite awhile ago, actually) and I'll try to reply to this message as time permits (sigh).

Concerning the screenshots, one small nit: many are actually broken in Firefox a sense that some blocks are misplaced, like e.g. this one - ​http://www.typo.co.il/~mooffie/tmp/mc/skins/dark-panel-brief.html . Interestingly enough, it looks fine in Chromium. Not sure what's going on, maybe my font settings are to blame... Didn't have time to look into it yet.

Otherwise, I guess we could solicit some help on the users list? It shouldn't be too hard to hack up a nice sampler with Bootstrap and jQuery for someone in the web biz, and adjust the generator to generate whatever it is needed for it. I'm thinking of something like the attached mockup...

[mooffie]

Replying to zaytsev:

Concerning the screenshots, one small nit: many are actually broken in Firefox a sense that some blocks are misplaced, like e.g. this one - ​http://www.typo.co.il/~mooffie/tmp/mc/skins/dark-panel-brief.html . Interestingly enough, it looks fine in Chromium.

Maybe because colors 8..15 are shown in bold. I created a version without bold font:

​http://www.typo.co.il/~mooffie/tmp/mc/skins-nobold/

Let me know if this solves the problem. My Firefox has no problem with bold font in monospace, but maybe yours has. We'll add a "[x] Allow bold text" chekcbox to the skin browser if that's indeed the problem (maybe we should add it anyway: terminal emulators do have such checkbox).

(For the above 'skins-nobold' folder I also switched the color palette ​from 'rxvt' to 'linux' because without bold font it'd hard to distinguish between grey (color 7) and white (color 15).

Now we only have a minor problem left, as in getting mc² merged ;-)

It will take ages, so I suggest you do what you did with 'global': download & install it separately, as if it's some 3'rd party software that has nothing to do with mc.

I'm thinking of something like the attached mockup...

I think skins should be displayed all on one page so users can easily get an idea of how they differ. If we show just a single skin, with "prev"/"next" buttons, the user misses the overview.

[zaytsev]

Let me know if this solves the problem.

Yes, it does solve the problem! Maybe the monospace font that Firefox decided to use is different from the one in Chromium, or maybe it's rendering it differently... I think a checkbox would be a good idea; and also maybe the palette should be linux by default?

It will take ages, so I suggest you do what you did with 'global': download & install it separately, as if it's some 3'rd party software that has nothing to do with mc.

Maybe you are right, and as soon as we agree that the sampler is good to go, I should do exactly that.

I think skins should be displayed all on one page so users can easily get an idea of how they differ. If we show just a single skin, with "prev"/"next" buttons, the user misses the overview.

While you do have a valid point, I think the pickers that do not show the overview, but rather allow to select the color of a fixed object on the screen have their merits. Also, there is no reason why we can't have both (except that someone will have to do the work).

I have to agree that my design is bad though. I was thinking in terms of e.g. flipping between two schemes to see the differences between them, but if you only have prev and next buttons, you can only do this for adjacent skins, not any pair of skins :-(