after looking at some of the other parts of the code recently, and knowing that I have to go through ALL the layout code to add language support, it has come to my attention that the themes are actually quite "rigid" in there current for..

I would like to (as I go through them) add id and class tags to as many items and structural parts that dont already have them

for example (as mentioned in the related bug thread) the Admin Boards page, should have id  and class for each button option, including the spacers, so a css could do a positional "stuff" with them, and override the image set by the layout code, add img/href borders on mouse over, etc..

CSS should be able to be changed (from the profile settings) without having to change the theme

I would extend the class and id stuff to the parent (and their parent) objects too, to allow the same sort of flexibility as described above

OK, that said, this would (in theory) greatly increase the amount of data that page of html code contains, but at the same time, it would make adding drag and drop JS code (for example) and widget placement a lot easier. It would make the default theme much more flexible to skinning, and introduce the idea (if not reality) of skins versus themes

Then skinning a theme could be as simple as creating a CSS, and the variation on that theme would have greater potential..

I don't think it would hurt, and it would certainly give Jake, Keith and I some more freedom when creating them.

confuser knows the code better than anyone, and he has mention "glut" before, so he would have a good understanding of hove much this might affect the performance of the pages

Also, I just noiced that the panel includes are "echo" not "body .=" or "return panelBody", is there any particular reason for this. As I go through the pages, things like this are worth fixing, as in the end it will improve overall perfomance delivery..

PS my comps a bit broke until I reboot (no Pidgin/MSN) sorry

The class i totally agree on, especially for the tables. IDs? Well actually thinking about it, it would make JavaScript coders life a lot easier and it would add in an element which I have never seen before in a CMS

I will do a page that contains a fair abount of output, and see how it goes..

unique items (elements) can have ID, tho I think that only old browsers have a problem with ID's that become arrays, but repeating elements can just contain classes, and they can multi class too

I will whack up a naming convention as I go.. and I will look into the language thing as I go too

I most definitely agree on the ids and classes.  It would make theme designers job so much easier.  That and I think it would just make the whole project seem more professional.  It backs up the whole unlimited options for the themes available by not having hard-coded style objects.

OK to start things off with this, I made over (well added only, to the svn) id and class element to just about every useful element and or element group

The id's are all unique, and cols as well as rows have classes. Hehe, if I could be bothered, I would write a JS that open/close a Category section, AND open/close COLUMS

OK, now thats flexible, check it out, see the naming convention I used (with out looking at the css 1st ), and the id is iterateble via JS code

it would be VERY easy to add scroll up/down code to the page now, and it would work a treat with the panels too (when they are done)