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What are the best naming conventions for FileMaker themes?

Question asked by mattman on Dec 4, 2017
Latest reply on Dec 5, 2017 by CamelCase_data

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Ok, so this is a genuine question because I sometimes feel like I develop within a bubble. I've used my own conventions for quite a while and they are conveyed within the theme files I'm releasing at filemakerthemes.com (download the free Angry Fruit Salad if you want to see what they are) I'm interested to know what other developers and designers use for theme/style naming conventions. Coming from the world of HTML/CSS as well as the various code naming conventions of other languages, I'm wanting to find something that is both natural and simple, while being as descriptive as possible about what a style reflects.

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beverly Dec 4, 2017 3:58 PM
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Hey, Matt! I got your angry fruit salad just to check the naming. These seem logical and I liked when there was a color, that the HEX value was a part of the name. I don't think the # would need to be a part of the name.

I've worked with CSS in WordPress and CS_Cart and other commonly used web frameworks. There can be some funky naming, but they can also be logical.

It's when we get some mashed sites using bits from different people that we get odd names.

I think you are on the right track!
Beverly
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mattman @ beverly on Dec 4, 2017 4:31 PM
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Thanks beverly. My biggest take away from the HTML/CSS world was a site, which I forget the name now, where they had mentioned that you don't want to use attributes which can potentially change.

For example:

Large arial blue 16pt

is much less flexible than

Font large bold

Where, with the first example, the text, as some future point, may no longer be blue nor arial or 16pt. So I'm trying to name things within my themes in such a way that they can be expanded easily. So, I can simple apply bolding to my basic "Font normal" and it becomes "Font normal bold" or "Font normal strong".

The difficulty comes when you have so many new attributes which become possible. I don't think I really want "Font normal bold centered highlighted". But then, the other problem creeps in. I don't really want "Font NBCH" because I hate the lack of understanding that comes with the cryptic shortening of names.

I'm hoping that other suggestions pop up in this thread because I'd love to have some type of common standards for the naming of styles based on certain uses. For example, a text object used as a label can clearly be named "Label left" or "Label right". But, with a simple text block, is "Text larger" better than "Font bigger"?
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TonyWhite Dec 5, 2017 10:28 AM
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Real World Theme & Style Planning
Bob Shockey
DevCon 2014

[begin excerpt]
FileMaker 13 gives us two very powerful new features: styles and themes. Explore how to make the best use of these important design tools, taking into consideration the typographic aspects of the information being presented, along with other elements like backgrounds and popovers. See how to plan out the various aspects of a theme, using the data’s hierarchy and structure. Learn to use styles to lend consistency and structure to the visual design of your FileMaker solution.
[end excerpt]

...was very well done and seems on target. Not sure if that content has been released outside the DevCon 2014 pay wall.

That is all I have for now.

Tony White
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beverly @ mattman on Dec 4, 2017 5:49 PM
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You are correct. The colors with the HEX colors in the names were, of course the "color" swatches.

We don't have the selectors (objects/tags) and then the separate CSS formatting those selectors. The names you had were for the names of the objects styles (button ___, for example), which is like the selector, but with the styles (as seen in Inspector) attached to those objects.

I forgot to check the parts, but header, title header, etc. would also be logical names for the styles.

You definitely are on the right track!
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BeatriceBeaubien @ TonyWhite on Dec 5, 2017 8:19 AM
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Here is a link to Bob's video.
https://community.filemaker.com/videos/1800
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DanielShanahan Dec 5, 2017 8:52 AM
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I continue to modify my theme naming convention. Text and Edit Boxes are the toughest. For better or worse, here is what I'm using:

Text

Edit Box

The file extensions (.txt and .eb) prevent or allow duplication (depending on your point of view). I've seen this used as a prefix but I prefer it at the end because I'm almost always looking at a style for a particular type of object (e.g. Edit Box) rather than all the styles together.

There are some inconsistencies. For example, the Edit Boxes I have the Headers starter with "Header" but the fields start with alignment (L or R).

Some Edit Box fields translated:
L Bold No Pad…RO.eb = Left aligned, Bold style, no padding, read only.

This particular convention allows me to see the read only edit boxes (…RO) right above the editable edit box.

For Headers on both the Text and Edit Box, I follow an HTML convention of Header 1, Header 2, Header 3, etc. where 1 is the largest and 6 is the smallest. All Headers have a bold style. I chose to have the word "Header" convey a bold style rather than use something like
Header 1 C Bold.txt

The Edit Box has a Header; I chose to call it Header 3 to convey that it is the same font and size of the Text Header 3, even though the Edit Box does not have a Header 1 or Header 2.

The Pill Text is a pill box that can be used as a circular text:

That's what I have as of today. But it may change tomorrow!!!
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CamelCase_data Dec 5, 2017 8:52 AM
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While I'm not exactly 100% happy with the naming conventions I use, my general preference is to have style names be more about the role or function of the style than about how it currently looks. So "ReadOnly" and not "GreyBackground", to use a simple example. I don't want to have to rename my styles just because I end up changing a font, color, etc, for whatever reason
I also often have a "major" name part, in many cases using H1/H2/H3/P-style naming, with the "ReadOnly"-part being used ass a pseudo-class infix in the style names. And of course, a final suffix to each style name indicating the object type, to ensure the style names are unique.
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What are the best naming conventions for FileMaker themes?

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