I have been working on skinning MindTouch Deki Wiki on and off for the last two weeks, maybe more, and I’ve gotten to a point where I have one of my skins packaged and ready for download.

I based the 4 skins I am working on, (to include Pixel-Spring) on the already popular Fiesta skin that comes with MindTouch Deki Wiki.  Some day in the near, maybe distant future I will create some skins that are a family of their own, but at the moment I just wanted to play around with the skinning process of Deki Wiki.  I’ve been quite happy with how easy it is to change the look and feel of Deki Wiki.

I also made it a point not to change any of the php files and only change the style.css sheet.  If I needed to over-ride anything in the _content.css sheet I included it at the bottom of the style.css sheet with an !important attribute attached.  The style.css sheet is commented so the user can see what any extra CSS is for.  In doing this, I hope it will allow the Pixel Skins to be used for a long time to come.  Basically as long as the fiesta skin is used.

Another thing I allowed for was multiple background choices.  I added seven background images and CSS for the user to place in the control panel’s custom CSS page.  The background images come with the skin package the user will find instructions on implementing them in the !NOTES.txt file.  I am planning on making several more alternate backgrounds in the near future, but first I need to get all four skins out and packaged.  (Before the end of the week)

Last but not least, I included two extra templates in the !NOTES.txt file for the user to add to their Deki Wiki website for a little more pizzazz.  The image to the right is and example of the template box included in the Pixel-Spring skin.  It is simple but adds an extra area for the user to have extra “Stuff”.

There is a five step process to adding the templates, and the steps are easy to follow.  You can find the instructions in the !NOTES.txt file. 

I also have some instructional videos to help the users.  The quality of the videos could be better, but I think they will help.

I guess that’s all to blog for now.  I hope to have all four of the Pixel skins packaged as soon as possible, but for now feel free to download and use the Pixel-Spring Skin.  If you have any questions about the skin, or how to do something, feel free to email me.  admin@cornerpixel.net  I can’t promise I will respond same day, but I will try.

~MikePixel

As you all know I have been working with Deki Wiki and having a blast.  I am learning how Deki Wiki works and how to skin it.  I have been working on a few skins just for fun and they are getting closer to being done.  When I get them completed I will be offering them as a download for free to the MindTouch community.

If you want to see the three skins I am working on and the one I do in the future, feel free to surf over to deki.cornerpixel.net.  You will see in the navigation, links to all the skins I am working on.

Below are the screenshots of the skins I am almost finished with.  I have one for Spring, Fall and Winter.  I will eventually get one done for summer, and then work on more corporate looking skins.  For now here ya go.

If anyone likes them, just submit a comment.  That way I can show the comments to my wife and she might forgive me for spending all my time skinning Deki Wiki.  I guess I should spend a little time with my family.  They are pretty cool.

Oh well, I hope you enjoy the skins,

~MikePixel (Michael Silva)

As I am sure many of you know, twitter can be a very addicting thing and can make you do dumb things. A couple weeks ago I was gently pushed into becoming a twitteree by my supervisor and by the end of the same day I was up and running on TweetDeck.

Long story short, I saw a tweet by Aaron Roe Fulkerson, CEO of MindTouch Inc. In his tweet Aaron had a link to his blog in which he displayed a fine picture of himself in a suit that is remarkable similar to the one Oliver Young was wearing in an avatar picture.

For those who don’t know Oliver Young is the Forester researcher for Web 2.0. 

Okay, not to be outdone, or just because I love Photoshop suits and ties, I decided to post my picture in the same suit.  What do ya know, I don’t look too bad in that suit either.  I took my photo by the flag for that Presidential look.

Below are the three of us for your viewing pleasure in the following order; Oliver Young, Aaron Roe Fulkerson, and Michael Silva.

~MikePixel (Michael Silva)

About two weeks ago I was asked to dig into Deki Wiki so that I could help my customer build an intranet site from Deki Wiki.  There had been a lot of research done on what CMS/Wiki to use for this companies intranet site, and it finally came down to Deki Wiki. 

At first I was a little worried about Deki Wiki.  I hadn’t heard much on skinning the application.  I am a type of person who likes to skin CMS’s and hate to be boxed into a solution that I can’t make prettier.  After I got a chance to look around I was impressed with the way Deki Wiki was built.  It was created in a way that allows a lot of customization and skinning options.

After messing for a little while I found out that you can do all sorts of modification and it’s even pretty easy to create your own skin from scratch to include the markup and php code for the layout.  I decided however that for this intranet site that I would stick to just tweaking and changing a skin that comes with Deki Wiki.  I decided this for the simple fact that I wanted the site to be safe even through future Deki Wiki updates.  I figure it will be less work this way and less pain for the customer.

I ended up choosing the fiesta skin to play with, and I had a lot of fun changing things around.  There were a couple things that were frustrating through the process, but that could be because I started by changing the PRO skin instead of the wireframe.  Below are two screenshots of the skins I have done so far.  I plan on doing many more.

The next step will be trying to figure out a way to install or have multiple Deki Wiki sites on one server so I can display different skins rather than just the fiesta skins I create.

You can see these two skins and some skinning guides soon to come at deki.cornerpixel.net.

~MikePixel (Michael Silva)