The Natural Skin

Description

Features

• Skin state: an internal representation of different ways to render the NatSkin concerning
  • the skin style,
  • style variants,
  • the sidebar location,
  • the page border decoration,
  • the web buttons in the topbar and
  • the positioning of the search box
• Conditional content:
  • USERACTIONS, NATLOGON: display topic actions depending on the user being logged in or not
  • IFSKINSTATE: render skin differently depending on the current skin state
  • IFACCESS: render different content or include topics depending on access rights
• skin style control: infrastructure to get, set and display the skin style that is currently active using the NatSkinStyleBrowser
• WebSideBar: a configurable navigation bar
• MySideBar: every user can extend the sidebar with a personalized navigation
• NatSearch: a search+go box that combines advanced search with the GO feature of twiki
• Login page: independent implementation of a login page for maximal compatibility with old TWiki releases; this is similar to the TemplateLogin authentication mechanism in Dakar but only provides htpasswd based authentication
• email address obfuscation: all email addresses in topic texts are obfuscated by the use of dynamic html; so mailto links are still clickable while the pure html text does not allow to extract the addresses by respective web crawlers.
• marking external links: add a nice icon to offsite links

NatSearch

Usage

1. GO: go to the named topic
2. topic search: search a topic whose name matches the search string
3. content search: search a topic whose content matches the search string

1. the search string starts with an uppercase letter:
   1. try a GO
   2. fallback to a topic search when 1.1 fails
   3. fallback to content search when 1.2 fails
2. the string starts with a /:
   normal content search
3. the string does not start with an upper case letter or /
   1. try a topic search
   2. fallback to content search

If only one topic was found then NatSearch jumps to that topic directly.

Options

A search string may consist of a list of terms that are retrieved. If a term shall contain spaces it can be surrounded by double quotes. Each term may be preceded with a minus (-) to exclude this term from the hit set.

Examples

Customization

Furthermore, the WebPreferences variable NATSEARCHTEMPLATE can be set to a template topic that is used instead of the skin's search template. This can be used in TWikiApplications to define a customized look of search results.

Disclamer

About the WebSideBar

About the WebButtons^?

About Logon & Logout

The layout of the NatSkin can be configured online using the NatSkinStyleBrowser

• by selecting one of the predefined styles;
• by selectiong one of the predefined variations;
• the sidebar can be displayed on the left or right;
• the page border can be toggled on and off;
• there are so-called WebButtons^? that can be switched on and off displaying webs as tabs;
• the position of the search box can be set to one of four predefined positions.

The result can be configured per session, user, web or for the complete site. The screenshots below only display a limitted set of all possible combinations.

This skin includes an enhanced navigation mechanism named WebSideBar. This combines the best of the old WebMenu idea from the GnuSkin and the WebLeftBar known from the TWiki:Plugins/PatternSkin by providing all the flexibility of the WebLeftBar including the MySideBar feature and an enhanced navigation scheme.

This is a rework of the TWiki:Plugins/CopyCatSkin by TWiki:Main/MattWilkie. It is used at the Natural Language Systems Division (NATS) of the University of Hamburg, Germany.

Selecting Styles

1. per request: by appending style=<skin-name> to the end of the url; alternatively, use the NatSkinStyleBrowser
2. per user by setting a variable SKINSYLE on your TWikiGuest homepage
3. per web by setting the variable SKINSTYLE in the WebPreferences
4. site-wide by setting the skinstyle in the TWikiPreferences

See the NatSkinPlugin for more information on how to predefine the variants of NatSkin. The default style is hardcoded into the NatSkinPlugin.

Documentation

• NatSkinTemplates
• NatSkinCss

Installation

• Get the TWiki:Plugins/NatSkinPlugin supplementary package and install it.
• If you are installing on TWiki/Cairo then consider applying this patch: Cairo_UI_pm.diff
• Download the ZIP file from the Skin Home page (see below)
• Unzip NatSkin.zip in your twiki installation directory
• Test if installed: click here

Skin Info

Skin Author:	TWiki:Main/MichaelDaum
Copyright ©:	2003-2006, Michael Daum
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
Skin Version:	v2.996
Dependencies:	TWiki:Plugins/NatSkinPlugin
Description:	Driven by cascading stylesheets, Comes with 12 alternative styles, MoveableType and Wordpress Look-n-Feel
Base Name:	nat
Screenshot:
More Screenshots:
Change History:
2006-03-20:	several blog css fixes; added bottom topic actions to edit and preview; only display web.topic in the web locator no recursive parents anymore; natsearch docu
2006-03-13:	fixed WebLinks components; fixed atom feed link at the page bottom
2006-03-11:	reworked sidebar using the new WEBCOMPONET logic; docu restructuring - more needed; using messages.tmpl as far as possible
2006-03-01:	fixed TWikiForm not showing certain row values (uuh); added more css for the most recent stuff added to the BlogPlugin; removed html from mailnotification; replaced SCRIPTURL{} with SCRIPTURL+SCRIPTSUFFIX again for legacy platforms; minor css fixes
2006-02-20:	removed empty lines in templates; css fixes for lists in the sidebar; unified font size in attachment tables; using percentage instead of em size for the thin page layout
2006-02-14:	added variable %WEBSYNDICATION%; removed TablePlugin patch; made BaseStyle usable; added syndiation feeds; don't use dotted lines on IE; don't use transparent borders on IE; added gif version for cite background for IE; fixed content area of PatterStyle on IE; don't use Lucida Grande in KubrickStyle; added rss feed icons; added plain view template
2006-02-03:	compute even/odd search hits for WebSearch using CALC so that css-2.1 expressions aren't needed anymore; lots of css font and size fixes, i.e. blog related
2006-01-27:	fixed blog css for all styles
2006-01-26:	lots of css fixes
2006-01-23:	added forgotten IE decorations; fixed layout problems in the WebButtons?; replaced ICONPATH with ICONURL; added email_changed oopsattention message
2006-01-09:	more IE fixes; fixed search template: every hit must be a table of its own :(; fontsize fixes
2005-12-20:	fixed collapsing tables in firefox < 1.5
2005-12-05:	componentized template system adding javascript and styles components; removed inline-styles and -javascript and moved it to the respective components being inserted into the html header properly now; surpressing final skin state switches in the NatSkinStyleBrowser; removed absolute urls; removed EDITURL; fixed sidebar help for cairo and beijing; fixed squeezed main page; added the concept of WebComponents, that is the WebSideBar and the WebButtons?; the WebButtons are customizable the way the WebSideBar already is
2005-12-01:	added transparent borders and corners to the Kubrick style; improved PlasticLoveVariation; added a custom "cite" style inside blog texts; some minor IE fixes; w3c validation fixes to the style browser; more form fixes in the preview and editform pages; replaced every launchWindow() javascript with a proper a href using a _blank target; added tooltips to topicactions
2005-11-23:	added nops in expensive IFSKINSTATETHEN, i.e. to prevent the sidebar to be computed multiple times
2005-11-22:	moved basic blogging css to the BlogPlugin
2005-11-16:	added PatternStyle emulating cairo's PatternSkin
2005-11-10:	improved NatSkinStyleBrowser
2005-11-08:	firefox layout fixes
2005-11-07:	more safari fixes
2005-11-02:	fixed javascript problems combined with the TWiki:Plugins.TwistyPlugin; trigger printing when clicking on "Print"
2005-10-31:	safari fixes where content leaps out of the main area
2005-10-24:	added UserView templates; standardised favicon handling
2005-10-18:	workaround crash due to recursive accessdenied-exceptions
2005-10-13:	preliminary css support for header art; added some default headers
2005-10-10:	added skin style cycling to the NatSkinStyleBrowser; fixed way how the oops dialogues switch off the sidebar
2005-10-09:	new release NatSkin-2.51: reinvention of the NatSkinStyleBrowser; reworked the standard WebSideBar; extensive usage of the new conditional content tags interfacing the skin state machine, i.e. switch the sidebar from the left to the right etc.; removed hard-coded links to a Support web; lots of fixes to catch up with the evolving dakar engine; support for the TWiki:Plugins.TwistyPlugin; support for the TWiki:Plugins.AliasPlugin; skin state support for the TWiki:Plugins.TablePlugin; new webbuttons in the topbar; componentized style sheets for different skin states; improved css of forms and tables; better support for the upcomming BlogPlugin in every skin style; plus the usual small css fixes
2005-08-30:	lots of css fixes for IE and Opera; fixed topicactions for IE; different cancel actions per engine
2005-08-26:	final NatSkin-2.0
2005-07-12:	first round of pre-releases numbered 1.91 upwards
2005-06-24:	rewritten the templates, renamed the CSS classes
2003-07-25:	Initial version
Skin Home:	TWiki:Plugins/NatSkin
Feedback:	TWiki:Plugins/NatSkinDev
Appraisal:	TWiki:Plugins/NatSkinAppraisal

Note: The Description, Screenshot and Base Name rows are needed by the TWiki:TWiki/TWikiSkinBrowser

Related topic: TWiki:TWiki/TWikiSkins, TWiki:TWiki/TWikiSkinBrowser, TWiki:Plugins/NatSkinDev, NatSkinPlugin

-- TWiki:Main/MichaelDaum - 20 Mar 2006