Skins – are you serious?

[carr]

Hi,

I'm trying to create a custom skin...
Documentation is again superb...

Anyway there are some things that I don't understand:
- What are skin zones good for when Zimbra ignores them? My understanding would be that everything belonging to that skin zone is inserted in the html element I specified. But the content gets pasted somewhere outside. I looked at some examples and the mini calendar is ALWAYS 'position: absolute' and somewhere outside of the skin skeleton.
My skeleton is ignored completely, but I think this is because I didn't use tables...

- Tables? Are you serious? I'm trying to create a custom skin to get rid of those tables and now I'm forced to use them, because the skin won't work otherwise? Am I right?

[carr]

can at least someone cofirm that I need tables for the skins and explain me how zimbra determines wether to use position:absolute or inserting the content inside the html element.

[KevinH]

We depend pretty heavliy on the structure and type of elements used. Tables, id's, divs, etc. If you change something core the JS code that builds the layout may break. It's hard to make a general statement or rule. The best way to do skin development is to alter a working skin/example. Trying to build one from scratch without internal knowledge with the layout code will be very hard. Just make small changes and test often and you'll have the best results. If you have a specfic problem/question please ask.

[carr]

One specific question is about the position:absolute.
I altered a working example, but the app_chooser was inserted "outside" the skin. It worked because the position of the element assigned to the app_chooser was used to determine the coordinates (I think). But everytime changing something on the app_chooser it behaved very strangely. I could not figure out why it is "outside" the skin. In other examples it worked so I assume there is something telling the layout to put it outside.

[carr]

Another question:
What do I need to make my own skin.js work?


[solved]
As there are some Elements that I can not change via the skin.html. One table (in the app_chooser) has a valign=top. This is very clever...because now I can't change the position with css. So my idea was to change the attribute of the table with JavaScript. But maybe someone has a better ide
[/solved]

[carr]

[solved]
I love the support here...

Here is a new question for /dev/null:

My skin looks good in Firefox and Safari but in IE6 the tree_view is missing and preferences occupy the hole page as the height is set to 100%. In "working" skins the height is set dynamically via JavaScript.
I assume this is because of some CSS changes I made. I barely touched the skin.html, but as there is no serious documentation...how to know what may caused the problem.

Ideas? Suggestions? (please!! Just once.)
[/solved]