The Pixel-Season Deki Wiki skins are now available for download and to view at deki.cornerpixel.net.  These skins are available for the popular Deki Wiki web application made by MindTouch. 

MindTouch has an awesome product in their Deki Wiki.  I have enjoyed using it and am very happy to be able to provide the community with some extra skin options. 

Once at CornerPixel’s Deki Wiki site, you can view the Pixel-Season skins which come in Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.  You can view alternate backgrounds and templates there too.

Have fun with the skins, used them for free, and if you like them, or even hate them, please email me at admin@cornerpixel.net or comment to this blog post.

Thanks,
MikePixel  (Michael Silva)

I have been working here and there on some new Deki Wiki skins and they can be seen in action at deki.cornerpixel.net.  It took a little troubleshooting, but I figured out how to allow the user to view all my skins on one Deki Wiki site and allow the user to click through backgrounds. 

Viewing different skins on separate pages.

The first thing I did was to create an administrator page that included a link to the CSS sheet for the skin I wanted to display.  I created a new page under the administrators account with the following markup.

<h1>PixelFall</h1>
<link href="/skins/fiesta/Pixel-Plus/pixel-fall/style.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

When I hit save and came back my source looked like this.

<h1>PixelFall</h1>
<p>&nbsp;</p><p> <link href="/skins/fiesta/Pixel-Plus/pixel-fall/style.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /></p>

This will cause a blank paragraph in the custom area I put this in, but I will show you how to take care of that in a minute.

Then I went to the page I wanted to use the different skin on.  I edited the page and place this extension on the page.

{{ wiki.template("User:Administrator/PixelFall", nil, "customarea1") }}

What this did was placed the administrator page I created earlier into Custom Area 1.  It isn’t valid to put link tags in the body of your html, but I used this just for the purpose of displaying my skins to users without having to create 4 different Deki Wiki sites.

Lastly there is the issue of the blank paragraph tags.  In order to get rid of those I just added this CSS to the stylesheet I linked to.

.custom1 p { display: none; }

That was how I managed to put multiple skins on my MindTouch Deki wiki website.  There might be a better way, and I am always up for criticism, but this is how I did it.

~MikePixel (Michael Silva)

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)