Hi!

Version info:
Artisteer 3 Standard, Release Candidate (3,0,0,38499)
mojoportal 2.3.6.5 MSSQL, .NET 4

I try to make skins with Artisteer and struggling with it, but with no success.
First I want to tell you that I am definitely not an expert on CSS. But know just a little so that I have previously managed to craft some skins based on the old standard and also with Artisteer.

But now it is just a mess. If it is because Artisteer has changed and are not in sync with the supplied templates or what, but it is definitely not working well.

Here is an example.

I copy the skin “artisteer-30verticalmenu1” from mojoportal 2.3.6.5 to a local folder under a new name “myskin”
I start Artisteer with the “artisteer30-verticalmenu1.artx” from the downloadable “Artisteer-3x-files”
Change minor things as the font-style and colors and export to HTML to a separate folder.
Copy the contents of the export from Artisteer to the MySkin-folder

So, according to the documentation I should now be “almost done”.
If using the supplied Artisteer-file and doing minimal changes, it should really not be anything to change, should it?

Well, the resulting skin is just a mess.
Vertical menu “overlaps” and menuitems are on top of each other, the header-image does not fill the header, there are spaces between element and so on. Colors are not the ones which I choose in Artisteer.

If I do more changes, like header height or page-width, strange things occur with the header-image totally offset and is outside of page.

Also, the skin renders quite differently on mojoPortal 2.3.6.4 and 2.3.6.5.
I have a site running in 2.3.6.4 that I planned to update, but I tested the skin from that site on another 2.3.6.5 installation and it looks totally different, with background images which are not present on 2.3.6.4 and a few other things. Now I have to tweak the skin a lot before I update the site.

It seems there are mismatched versions and differences in different builds of both mojoPortal and Artisteer and frankly, creating skins has become a PITA. Even minor version changes in Artisteer creates different markup and CSS that does not correspond to the skins in mojoPortal. Which version of Artisteer have you used to create the default skins?

So, I reverted to make a simpler skin on the old style design, without artisteer. In the past I have used “Styleshout-Coolwater” as a startng point, since the CSS is fairly easy to understand and it has a search-feture in the header.

However, from the last build it has been removed, so I used an older version as starting point, but strange things happen in mojo 2.3.6.5. When adding content to a page, the frames for left/middle/right pane are tucked together at the left side. Tha admin toolbar at the bottom reappears each time you navigate the site even if it was minimized and so on.

I know a lot of you people are CSS-gurus and don’t see this as a problem for you, but the rest of us (I guess that I am not the only one) the skinning process has become worse I think. It really needs to be more straightforward and robust.

Better quality starting skins and clearer documentation on how to build skins with Artisteer and version compatibility would be nice.

Joe, if you built an application “mojoportal Skin Designer PRO” that created working skins from an Artisteer design, I would be the first to buy it.

The supplied skins out of the box are not very good I think. This is mojoPortal weakest point.

I really need some advice on how to approach the skin design process. All suggestions appreciated.

Better templates and documentation about exactly which version of Artisteer is needed I think.

/Mats
 

Hi again.

Joe, i grasp the concept and followed your advice, but the issue is not minor things or "user-error", but that the functionality is "broken" in the current version with Artisteer 3 RC. The reason I tried to start with your .artx-files was just to see if it should become any better than starting from scratch.

It is just not working as it has been before. Here is the procedure that should be reproducible:

1. I created a new fresh installation of mojoPortal 2.3.6.5.
2. Copied the skin \Data\skins\Artisteer30-VerticalMenu1 to a local folder
3. Renamed the folder to LightBlueSkin and deleted the subfolder images.
4. Created a new design with Artisteer and did html-export to a folder called lightblueExport.
5. Copied the contents of LightBlueExport to the LightBlueSkin folder
6. Copied the folder lightBlueskin to \Data\Sites\1\Skins\
7. Changed to the LightBlue skin in the site

Problem is that it is not minor things to change at all, it is totally different and does not correspond at all. Seems like there are totally different code generated with Artisteer than the template skin and it is no longer working as the guide says.

Here is my Artisteer design: www.lillnor.net/art-design.jpg

And the resulting skin: www.lillnor.net/resulting-skin.jpg

I have no problem tweaking the design, editing CSS-files and the layout.master, but something is definitely wrong. If it works with the bete-version of Artisteer 3, i would not mind to go back to that version, but it is no longer available. Best would be if the template skins where updated and hopefully that Artisteer releases the final version of Artisteer soon and then I will not upgrade.

Rick, I send the .artx-file to you and if you could look into it without to much effort it would be great.

/Mats