From b170bc2cb24e50c48c568713e13faaa22e5bd32c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Matthew Hodgson Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2015 11:15:25 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] clarify skinning semantics --- README.md | 20 +++++++++----------- 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 01ecb9503f..a470358da7 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -43,10 +43,15 @@ react from your app) you must be sure to: How to customise the SDK ======================== -The matrix-react-sdk has been built to be heavily customisable - letting -developers both create new skins by extending/overriding the CSS and View -classes provided in the base skin, as well as entirely replacing components as -required. +The matrix-react-sdk provides well-defined reusable UI components which may be +customised/replaced by the developer to build into an app. A set of consistent +UI components (View + CSS classes) is called a 'skin' - currently the SDK +provides a very vanilla whitelabelled 'base skin'. In future the SDK could +provide alternative skins (probably by extending the base skin) that provide more +specific look and feels (e.g. "IRC-style", "Skype-style") etc. However, unlike +Wordpress themes and similar, we don't normally expect app developers to define +reusable skins and instead just go and incorporate their view customisations into +their actual app. The SDK uses the 'atomic' design pattern as seen at http://patternlab.io to encourage a very modular and reusable architecture, making it easy to @@ -70,13 +75,6 @@ In practice this means: style organisms into a well-defined global look and feel * pages: specific instances of templates. - * "Skins" refer to a suite of components (views and css) which define the look - and feel of the Matrix UI used in the target app. We provide a 'base' skin - in skins/base which provides generic plain UI for typical chat functions. - To change the look and feel to embed the SDK into your own app, users can - define a new skin which inherits from the base one, or override components - in the app itself. TODO: spell out how. - Good separation between the components is maintained by adopting various best practices that anyone working with the SDK needs to be be aware of and uphold: