Availability of skins to additional sites

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4/5/2011 8:06:15 AM

gstadter

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Availability of skins to additional sites

I have implemented MojoPortal using the multiple sites( 1 db) based on host names.
I uploaded numerous new skins (via zip file) within my main(site id=1) site.
The new skins now appear within the drop-down box as selectable when changing skin for the main site and are shown within the ‘preview/browse’ utility (shows “../60”).
None of the additional skins show up within the drop-down box or in the ‘preview/browse’ when attempting to change skins within any of the additional sites within the instance.
I noted that the zip file ‘import’ placed the skins within site 1’s \skins folder.
I additionally copied the skins to the root \Data\skins folder and restarted the app as well.
Does this mean that If I want the flexibility of choosing from 60 skins among all sites within the instance that a copy of all 60 skins must be kept up to date within the \Data\Sites\%number\skins folder of every site?
Does it sound as though something is not working as intended? Or that I have something misconfigured?
I understand that each site uses the code from within it’s own %site-number%\skins dir, not the root Data\skins folder, but out of the box, all twenty-something default skins show up for new sites in the drop-down and ‘preview/browse’ even though the skins have not yet been copied to the sites own skins folder. I have noticed that once I have viewed a ‘child’ site in a new skin via the ‘preview/browse’ utility that a copy of the skin then does appear within that sites skins folder.
What I am trying to reproduce is the out-of-the-box apparent behavior of child sites’ skins drop-down and ‘preview/browse’ utility “seeing” skins in the master Data\skins folder that are not yet installed in their own skins folder for newly added skins.
-Gary

4/5/2011 8:21:18 AM

gstadter

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Re: Availability of skins to additional sites

Note: All themes are, in fact, getting copied to new sites' \skins folder upon site creation.

This concern is specifically regarding making new skins available to existing child sites.

-Gary Stadter

4/5/2011 9:41:35 AM

Jamie E

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Re: Availability of skins to additional sites

Does this mean that If I want the flexibility of choosing from 60 skins among all sites within the instance that a copy of all 60 skins must be kept up to date within the \Data\Sites\%number\skins folder of every site?

Yes, this is how mojoPortal works. But I'd recommend that you identify a small subset of skins that you will be using for each site, and just keep those under each site's skin directory. The reason is that when you upgrade mojoPortal, you will also need to update the delivered skins under each \Data\Sites\#\Skins directory, to incorporate the necessary CSS changes. The easiest way to do this is to copy them down again from the \Data\Skins directory following the upgrade.

Jamie

4/5/2011 9:54:17 AM

Joe Audette

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Re: Availability of skins to additional sites

It works as it was intended to work. When new sites are created they get their initial skins from the catalog /Data/skins but after that skins are separate per site just like other content. I don't think it should be different because:

most people want a custom skin and the skins we ship are primarily for illustration purposes but people are expected to modify them
people pay a lot of money for good design work so keeping skins isolated to a specific site is generally what is wanted and is the norm
changing skins is a relatively infrequent activity, once a design is established it is not a frequent thing typically to be changing it and if you do change it typically you will not want some set of boilerplate skins that other sites also use.
Nothing stops you from manually updating skins by ftp or even making some automated process if your needs are not typical, but it is not a goal of the project to scratch every possible itch out of the box but to meet the most common needs

Best,

Joe

4/5/2011 10:14:47 AM

gstadter

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Re: Availability of skins to additional sites

Joe,
Thank you very much for taking the time to respond so thoroughly. I’m “on the same page” now.
Appreciatively,
Gary

7/25/2011 6:43:25 AM

Dennis

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Re: Availability of skins to additional sites

For those that really want to share the skins and other, just use symbolic links...

C:\wwwroot\Data\Sites\2>mklink /J skins ..\1\skins
Junction created for skins <<===>> ..\1\skins

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