Need Custom Skin (Branding)?

[madcampus1]

Just a thought, but I'd love to see a SKIN MARKETPLACE soon. I'm not happy w/ the native skins within MadCap Flare, and slightly more pleased with the skins on the gallery. I'd love to see some graphic designers throw their hats into the ring on this tool and really come up with some WHIZ-BANG designs (and some branded look an feels) that people like me can buy. We are a small team under considerable pressure just to write, thus we don't have time to 'design' a skin, really only "apply" one and go. I could see us paying $50 to $100 to buy one and maybe a bit more for custom branded look and feel.

Hope someone at Mad sees this post. I'd like to be able to come to this site and click Marketplace, then skins, then maybe pick a skin by industry, similar to a big favorite of mine, Templatemonster.com. I love being able to download templates from there, then have minor customizing to do. Maybe be able to search by 'industry', like we could choose from software, education, etc.

I don't have time to build, most small shops do (we are a multi-million dollar firm) yet, we don't have enough writers and what we do have are all dedicated to just 'writing' and keeping up w/ our proprietary products. Forget building 'cool stuff'...

So, go ahead and steal my idea! Please...I'd love to be able to purchase something or even pay for someone to do one based on our Corporate Branding strategy (our colors, our product logos). AND...can someone fix the glossary!

I hate the way the glossary is click, then show. I prefer RoboHelp's glossary output - one frame on top w/ word list, then click the word and it displays in the bottom of the pane or something like that. I'd love to buy a skin that has some different layouts for the glossary...

HELP ..THANKS FOR LISTENING

[LTinker68]

I hate the way the glossary is click, then show. I prefer RoboHelp's glossary output - one frame on top w/ word list, then click the word and it displays in the bottom of the pane or something like that. I'd love to buy a skin that has some different layouts for the glossary...

I think your overall idea is a good idea, but this last part probably wouldn't work. Styling the skin's appearance is one thing, but changing its layout is something else entirely. That would require modifying the JavaScript files and possibly the frameset design. It's not that someone couldn't do it, per se, but it wouldn't be easy for an end user to incorporate into a project because you'd have to overwrite numerous files in the output (i.e., after you run a build), and you'd have to do it every time you built the output (or at least the last time before sending it to the customer or uploading it to a site). Unless you wanted that look in all of your projects, in which case it would require that all of your authors modify the Flare program files, and you'd have to do that every time you upgraded Flare, and that's assuming they didn't modify the program to the point where it breaks your workarounds. So perhaps possible, but lots of potential for problems. Ooh, look at the alliteration.

For your bit about the glossary, submit a feature request at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx. If they were to incorporate your idea about the glossary, then it would be much easier to style the appearance of it.

[NorthEast]

I totally agree that we need some much better skins for WebHelp.

The out-of-the-box skins are very poor; they look a bit 'cheap' and 'shareware' when you compare them to the sorts of templates you would find in a Adobe/Microsoft product.

People are accustomed to using very slick websites and user interfaces these days, but your standard WebHelp looks very basic and dated.

[docuwriter1430]

I completely agree with Dave Lee. I had hoped to see some new skins with the Flare 7 release, but no such luck. I have tried to customize some of the out-of-the-box skins, but I am chiefly a documentation writer and don't have the technical expertise or enough knowledge of CSS to make anything but minor adjustments.

[CHCR]

Add me to the list of those who would really like to see more and better skins in Flare. Coming from the world of WordPress, where you can choose from thousands of free and paid themes for a blog, I was shocked to discover how limited and primitive-looking the skin options are for Flare.

Am I to gather from some of the comments in this thread that it IS possible to customize your own skin if you have the technical expertise? Is this something a web designer could help me with?

[LTinker68]

Am I to gather from some of the comments in this thread that it IS possible to customize your own skin if you have the technical expertise? Is this something a web designer could help me with?

A web designer who's familiar with JavaScript, and most of the modifications will have to be done post-build. That is, you modify the files and save them outside the project, then when you build, you overwrite the generated files with the ones you built. (Or you create a script to do it for you if you automate the build process.)

Make sure you submit a feature request at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx asking for more flexibility and easier modification of the skin file.

[NorthEast]

Am I to gather from some of the comments in this thread that it IS possible to customize your own skin if you have the technical expertise? Is this something a web designer could help me with?

A web designer who's familiar with JavaScript, and most of the modifications will have to be done post-build. That is, you modify the files and save them outside the project, then when you build, you overwrite the generated files with the ones you built. (Or you create a script to do it for you if you automate the build process.)

That's perhaps jumping a bit ahead though, if you can't do what you want via the Flare skin editor.

The skin editor will allow you to change things like icons, fonts, and colour schemes; but you can't do much with the basic layout since you're still fixed to using a 3-pane template. With some imagination and skill though you can design some different looking skins; and when combined with your topic stylesheet, there's plenty of scope to improve the look of the 'out-of-the-box' WebHelp.

The skin gallery has some examples (http://www.madcapsoftware.com/downloads ... llery.aspx), although there's still a lack of slick and professional looking skins.

[heal]

I agree to, it would be great if it was easy to change web help skin. At my firm we are about to change the layout of the web help, and we do not have the time for designing it. Please MadCap, add some more templates to the gallery

[jgoldstein]

You can add my voice to the request for enhanced abilities for customizing skins. The MadCap gallery shows, essentially, the same design but with different graphics - nothing special. I'd love some guidelines about what files you need to work with to get true customization. Is there some type of developer's guide for that?
For example, I really, really need a layout that gives me horizontal tabs across the top of the layout. The horizontal setting in the skin editor results in something that I can only classify as horrible.

[Robotman]

Awesome suggestion. We're in the same boat - busy writing and don't have time for skin redesigns.

[heal]

My contribution to change skin design, part 1: Change background and hover color in the web help navigation pane: http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/default_CSH.htm#OUTW1018F

(See the whole topic here: http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... =9&t=12930)

But there is one thing that does not work so well: It seems like you cannot define the font color for the selected topic, only the hover color
Would anybody guide me how to change the MadCapToc.js file so that the left navigation looks like this?

2011-11-28 14-55-15.png

Thank you in advance.

I've also reported a feature request on this. If you also would like to do so, follow this link: https://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx.