Make Trac theme on t.e.o more distinct from the shipped theme

[Emmanuel Blot]

In order to avoid the ever-growing number of invalid ticket entries, Trac default theme could be different than the trac.edgewall.org theme.

I think it would prevent (at least reduce the count of) Trac users from submitting tickets to t.e.o. while they think they post to their local Trac installation, since it is likely that most Trac admins do not change the default theme when they install Trac.

An interesting side effect would be to help validating that Trac CSS can be easily customized (see #6105 for example).

[Noah Kantrowitz]

I would like to find time to split some stuff out to make theming easier (spliting layout.html into layout and theme elements for example). I have a preliminary port of the ThemeEngine plugin for 0.11, but haven't much time to work on it lately.

[Christian Boos]

And what about TracDev/Proposals/ThemePlugins? We should evaluate that approach and test the patch proposed there…

Tentatively scheduling for 0.11, as the benefits for having this in a new release would be great, as eblot explained.

[Emmanuel Blot]

I really don't think we should add more code for 0.11.
I'm really -1 on this for now. As far as I understand the Theme thing, it would require to change the code - am I wrong?

However, we can "simply" change the default CSS files (changing the color definitions would be enough), and create a teo.css file to keep the actual look and feel on t.e.o. - so that the changes from the user perspective would remain hidden.

The idea here is simply to provide another color theme (blue- or green- based for example) so that a fresh Trac installation never looks like the official Trac web site. Nothing more.

Let's keep refactoring (Theme plugin, …) for the next milestone (0.11.1 or so)

[Noah Kantrowitz]

Chances are we should change t.e.o, not the default theme. Things like that can confuse users who don't expect it. I think the basic changes for making theming easier might be doable for 0.11.1 or .2, but integrating the theme plugin system itself is probably more of a 0.12-ish thing, leaving it as a standalone plugin while the interface gets hammered out.

[Emmanuel Blot]

Replying to nkantrowitz:

Chances are we should change t.e.o, not the default theme. Things like that can confuse users who don't expect it. I think the basic changes for making theming easier might be doable for 0.11.1 or .2, but integrating the theme plugin system itself is probably more of a 0.12-ish thing, leaving it as a standalone plugin while the interface gets hammered out.

That would require to change the overall edgewall.org web site (with all the other projects). I'm not sure it is acceptable, nor it can be done before 0.11 is released.

[Jeffrey Hulten <jeffh@…>]

-1 for 0.11 release

This should not block the initial release of 0.11

[r.blum@…]

-1 for 0.11 release as well.

It's a purely t.e.o related issue and shouldn't affect the track package itself

[Emmanuel Blot]

Replying to r.blum@gmx.net:

It's a purely t.e.o related issue and shouldn't affect the track package itself

Yes and no: the numerous invalid tickets which are submitted to t.e.o. take time to manage, time which is not dedicated to the development of Trac itself. It would have been great that a major release does not ship with the same color theme as the one used on the Trac official web site.

[Christian Boos]

Alternative Trac banner that could be shipped in the default install.

[Christian Boos]

See attachment:trac_banner.png​, would that be enough?

[anonymous]

Replying to cboos:

See attachment:trac_banner.png​, would that be enough?

I think this would be a good compromise for 0.11 release.

[Emmanuel Blot]

Replying to cboos:

See attachment:trac_banner.png​, would that be enough?

Yeah, I think it is ugly enough ;-) People will have to change it, definitely.

[philbar]

I personally think creating page banners is an unnecessary chore. The trac project website is very distinctive with the dark background on the edge and the related project toolbar at the top. I don't see why a new logo would help people figure the difference between their site and this site. It should be blatantly obvious already.

I do think the banner should be changed to editable text rather than only an image and then the Trac site name part of the configuration. It should have the logo (trac logo by default) and then the default text should say something like, "Configure Site Name".

[Emmanuel Blot]

Attaching a couple of files that could be used as a base for the public version:

• a patch file that replaces some of the original Trac CSS definitions for a blue-ish theme
• a trac.edgewall.org CSS file that overrides the public CSS definitions, so that t.e.o. color theme is kept unmodified (red-ish)
• the Genshi site.html file to add the t.e.o. CSS file
• the revisited icon with a blue-ish print.

[Emmanuel Blot]

trac banner, blue theme

[Emmanuel Blot]

trac logo mini, blue theme

[Emmanuel Blot]

CSS definitions for trac.edgewall.org

[Emmanuel Blot]

site.html for trac.edgewall.org

[Emmanuel Blot]

Patch for public Trac color theme

[Emmanuel Blot]

Bumping up the priority, as Trac 0.11 should not be released without some kind of visual differences between the mainstream package and the trac.edgewall.org appearance.

[Christian Boos]

As discussed on the mailing list…

[Christopher Lenz]

People who ignore the big red box we currently display are certainly not going to be thrown off by making either the default style or the style on edgwall.org much different. Besides being the official Trac site, I don't think we should change the style used here too drastically from the default one.

One thing I'd really like to do would be to get rid of using the Trac logo by default for the project logo on Trac instances. Instead I'd suggest leaving the header_logo image option empty, so that the project name gets used instead. People would then need to figure out how to add their own logo, but at least there'd no longer be new Trac sites all using the logo of the Trac project.

[osimons]

Replying to cmlenz:

People who ignore the big red box we currently display are certainly not going to be thrown off by making either the default style or the style on edgwall.org much different. Besides being the official Trac site, I don't think we should change the style used here too drastically from the default one.

A valid point, indeed. Quite agree, actually.

One thing I'd really like to do would be to get rid of using the Trac logo by default for the project logo on Trac instances. Instead I'd suggest leaving the header_logo image option empty, so that the project name gets used instead. People would then need to figure out how to add their own logo, but at least there'd no longer be new Trac sites all using the logo of the Trac project.

For our hosted service, I have made an alternative mini 'Basic Settings' admin page that includes a small logo upload form. All our new projects are created without logo, just displaying name. Project owners then upload the logo they want. I could make a patch for that logo upload form/code if that is an interesting approach?

[Emmanuel Blot]

Replying to osimons:

Replying to cmlenz: A valid point, indeed. Quite agree, actually.

I don't ;-)
People don't read text boxes; however except if they are color blind they'll notice the "something's different" thing when they reach a web site that does not use the same color theme than the one they are used to. IMHO the "red" theme needs to be different, whatever the change is actually made - either on t.e.o. or on the local installation. The logo will not make a big difference, not as much as the color theme.
I have no problem leaving the red color theme on both t.e.o. and the default distribution - but I don't think the logo change may help that much.

[Christopher Lenz]

Replying to eblot:

Replying to osimons:

Replying to cmlenz: A valid point, indeed. Quite agree, actually.

I don't ;-)
People don't read text boxes; however except if they are color blind they'll notice the "something's different" thing when they reach a web site that does not use the same color theme than the one they are used to. IMHO the "red" theme needs to be different, whatever the change is actually made - either on t.e.o. or on the local installation.

You are (IIUC) assuming that people coming to this site by accident actually know how the site they should be visiting looks. I think most people actually have no idea, someone tells them to “file a ticket in our trac”, so they'll google “trac”, land here, hit “New Ticket”, and ignore the big red warning.

The logo will not make a big difference, not as much as the color theme.

Well, I don't think any kind of logo or color change would make a difference, to be honest. I'm just saying that it sucks that every new, carelessly/lazily deployed Trac instance shows our project logo prominently at the top. As a project admin, you have to take extra steps to get your own project name in there, that should not be the case.

I have no problem leaving the red color theme on both t.e.o. and the default distribution - but I don't think the logo change may help that much.

I don't think anything will help much. Some people are just lazy or clueless, and no amount of fiddling with colors and layout will change that.

[Christian Boos]

Replying to cmlenz:

I don't think anything will help much. Some people are just lazy or clueless, and no amount of fiddling with colors and layout will change that.

I also believe that a change of color, logo, whatever, won't help much here (and certainly not for the people creating test tickets).

That's why I always repeat that for solving the issue of people mistaking this Trac for another (or at least reducing this phenomenon to an acceptable level) we should redirect the users clicking on the New Ticket tab to a wiki page explaining the guidelines, i.e. #6059. Many projects are doing that, starting with ​subversion.org (well, perhaps we don't need to be that dissuasive).

The main and essential difference between that and the "big red box" approach is that the big red box can be easily visually skipped - you just have the ticket fields below. OTOH, if you first hit a text page like the subversion one, you first have to read it in order to find the link for effectively creating either a bug report for Trac 0.10, a bug report for Trac 0.11 or suggest an enhancement. We could also have a support request link that looks the same than the previous ones but simply redirects to MailingList#Trac-users.

cmlenz, you have not yet commented on #6059, but as you're the only one (with jonas) who could actually do it, I'd like to know if you're OK to actually have a try at this approach or not…

[Emmanuel Blot]

Replying to cmlenz:

You are (IIUC) assuming that people coming to this site by accident actually know how the site they should be visiting looks. I think most people actually have no idea, someone tells them to “file a ticket in our trac”, so they'll google “trac”, land here, hit “New Ticket”, and ignore the big red warning.

Yes, I think we were not writing about the same categories of 'wrong web site' paths:

• 1^st category of error: people who select Trac web site because the site they were using when they received an error reported to fill in a bug on Trac - many of them don't even know the difference between the third-party web site were the initial error appeared and Trac itself, because they just don't need to know about Trac as a product;
• 2^nd category of error: people who are used to Trac somehow, but have open another browser tab/window onto t.e.o. as they've followed one of the numerous URLs that lead to t.e.o.

Changing the color theme won't bring any improvement for the first category, but I tend to think it could have reduce the wrong hits for the second category. The thing is that I really have no figures to know the relative ratio between #1 and #2 errors, so I may have over-estimated category the ticket count for #2.

Anyway I'm ok to close this ticket as wontfix.

[osimons]

Here is yet another variation that may improve matters: Like the Apache directive for server admin that gets displayed around on their error pages, we provide a trac.ini setting for admin_email. Then, if this is set we provide a large red box on default/standard error pages to send the information to the server admin email.

With small print at the bottom; "If you are the server admin and think this problem is related to Trac, file at ticket at t.e.o…"

We could even go so far as to request the email when doing trac-admin initenv… Non-optional…

I think this is a fair option - whoever installs Trac should also be first-line support for it towards its users. We should not send all users to this project where they in their 'always-urgent' & 'trac-clueless' manner file tickets.

[Christian Boos]

Replying to osimons:

Well, Trac 0.11dev already does that since a while. It's only when you're logged in as TRAC_ADMIN that you're hinted to eventually file a ticket on t.e.o. Otherwise (any non-TRAC_ADMIN user) will be prompted to inform their local admin or to eventually file a ticket on their local Trac to inform him.

[Christian Boos]

trac/web/chrome.py

@@ -255 +255 @@
     logo_link = Option('header_logo', 'link', 'http://example.org/',
         """URL to link to from header logo.""")
 
-    logo_src = Option('header_logo', 'src', 'common/trac_banner.png',
+    logo_src = Option('header_logo', 'src', 'site/your_project_logo.png',
         """URL of the image to use as header logo.""")
 
     logo_alt = Option('header_logo', 'alt', '',

?

[John Hampton]

Replying to cboos:

I know I'm jumping a bit late here, but cboos, I think that last patch is perfect. It'll make the trac logo disappear, and it wont' leave a really ugly one in its place. It'll simply use the project name as cmlenz mentioned earlier.

The other nice thing about that patch is that it shows how to make a link to a file in the htdocs directory of the trac environment. I'm +1 for that.

[Christian Boos]

More complete removal of the logo + better hints

[Christian Boos]

attachment:t6185.diff​ is a more polished version of the above.

Clicking on the (missing) image will actually lead to TracIni#header_logo-section. Unfortunately, there's no good way to link to the local page, so instead I link to t.e.o. If the installation is not done online, the person doing the installation should be able to redirect to the right local document by himself.

[Christian Boos]

New version where the logo links to the local TracIni page

[Christian Boos]

Follow-up to comment:27

… there's no good way to link to the local page, …

Of course there is, the above was a display of the hurried-last-patch-of-the-day syndrom ;-) See rather attachment:t6185.2.diff​.

[Christian Boos]

Patch committed as r6654.