riot-web/docs/skinning thoughts.md

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== Skinning refactor ==
matrix-react-sdk
- base images
- base CSS
- all the components needed to build a workable app (including the top layer)
element-web: the Element skin
- Element-specific classes (e.g. login header/footer)
- Element-specific themes
- light
- dark
i.e. the only things which should go into element-web are bits which apply vector-specific skinning
specifically "Stuff that any other brand would not want to use. (e.g. Element logos, links, T&Cs)"
- Questions:
- Electron app? (should probably be a separate repo in its own right? but might as well go here for now)
- index.html & index.js? (should be in matrix-react-sdk, given the SDK is useless without them?)
ideally matrix-react-sdk itself should ship with a default skin which actually works built in.
status skin (can go in the same app for now)
- has status theme
- which inherits from Element light theme
- how do we share graphics between skins?
- shove them into react-sdk, or...
- guess we do ../../vector/img
- this means keeping the skin name in the images (unless /img is a shortcut to the right skin's images)
out of scope:
- making the components more independent, so they can be used in isolation.
- that said, the bits which should probably be used by being embeded into a different app:
- login/reg
- RoomView + RoomSettings
- MessageComposer
- RoomList
- MemberList
- MemberInfo
- Voip UI
- UserSettings
- sharing different js-sdks between the different isolated modules
other changes:
- how do we handle i18n?
- each skin should really be its own i18n project. As long as all the commonality stuff is in matrix-react-sdk this shouldn't be too bad.
- ability to associate components with a given skin
- skins/vector/src <-- components
- skins/vector/css
- skins/vector/img
- skins/vector/fonts
- gather together themes (per skin) into a single place too
- skins/vector/themes/foo/css
- skins/vector/themes/foo/img
- skins/vector/themes/foo/fonts
- ideally riot-web would contain almost nothing but skins/vector directory.
- ability to entirely replace CSS rather than override it for a given theme
- e.g. if we replace `Login.js` with `StatusLogin.js`, then we should similarly be able to replace `_Login.scss` with `_StatusLogin.scss`.
random thoughts;
- should we be able to change the entire skin at runtime (more like wordpress) - to the extent of replacing entire components?
- might pose security issues if a theme can be swapped out to replace MatrixChat or other fundamental functionality at runtime
- if so, perhaps skins & themes should converge...
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Immediate plan for Status:
* Implement it as a theme for the Element skin
* Ideally move skins to a sensible level (possibly even including src?)