The Turtle skin has been around for 2 years, became the default skin for jAlbum and the most used one as well. Even though once it represented the edge in web photo albums …
… a lot has changed in the past 2 years
The development of web technologies has shifted gears in the past years. Came did the tablets and brought shiny new standards with them: HTML5 and CSS3. Even Microsoft has released 2 new versions of its ill-famed Internet Explorer, and finally caught up with the rest of the browser world. Finally, we can ignore the dreaded Internet Explorer 6 – all the web designers around the globe now rejoice.
It was high time to give some facelift to the Turtle skin too. I started off creating a so called "skin development framework" from scratch, which is a skin-independent collection of routines and techniques, and will be the common foundation of all my skins in the future. The goal was creating a skin which runs on all devices, ranging from mobile phones to desktop PC's, and utilizes all the techniques modern browsers offer. The skins will have a compatible User Interface and – aside the design – will have the same look and feature set, so you can easily swap skins around and your settings will be retained. jAlbum skins are famous for their cockpit-like user interfaces, with tons of things to adjust. It's a great thing, every one likes this freedom, but it can still be frightening for a beginner. I must admit even I had a hard time finding a particular setting sometimes. Hopefully a well-organized and well-documented, cross-skin User Interface can help in this. Turtle 2 is the first of this breed, but Compact and Chameleon will follow soon, and then all the rest. Some new skins are also on the list.
You can help us
Given the huge number of browser, platform and source material variations it's almost impossible to test every aspect of a skin. This is why I'd like to ask you all to test if the new skin fits your particular needs and works flawlessly on your devices. All input is welcome. Just write your thoughts in the Testing Turtle 2 beta thread, or send them directly to me laza@jalbum.net. Please note, that Internet Explorer 6 is not supported. Internet Explorer 7 and 8 has limited support, due to the lack of their support for some features (like rounded corners and drop shadows), but functionality wise they are supposed to work. Please try to give me as many relevant details with bug reports as you can. A link to an album that illustrates the problem could be handy too.
Install Turtle 2 beta from here.
Thank you all,
Laza
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.