This is John’s car. Seemed relevant.
I’ll let the video do most of the talking (yeah, I did a video walkthrough of the basic functionality), but the basic premise is this: on a whim (and a challenge from John), I set about creating an Alchemy plugin from scratch. Prior to this my experience with UI extensions was minimal, but Alex and John have been hooting for weeks that developing an Alchemy plugin is about a thousand times easier than creating one from scratch. So I accepted, and wrote a theme manager that allows for previewing, installing, and all sorts of other shenanigans… and a (mostly) complete theme… in less than a week.
The video is really here just to show the functionality and potential. I’m going to keep hammering away at features and enhancements, but just keep in mind that this is very beta. Bug reports and feedback are very much appreciated! So without further ado:
Theme Manager will be available shortly in the Alchemy Web Store! Stay tuned!
I’m surprised that you need everyone to clear their cache. Doesn’t it “just work” if you increment the modification number of the GUI?
That’s a good point, Dominic. In theory that’s exactly how it should work, since Tridion constructs its aggregated CSS and JavaScript on every page load, which includes interrogating the modification number. In practice this wasn’t a guarantee for me, so I added the disclosure that clearing the cache was recommended. I’ll tinker with it a bit more to see if it’s just Tridion hanging on despite the increment, or it’s more on the browser’s side.
Oh dude, I just saw this rigged up Merc parked outside the House of Blues in Houston. It is the ultimate hippie mobile! Also, nice post – thanks for sharing.
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