Use asciidoctor-theme as default about asciidoctor-pdf HOT 6 CLOSED

I'm not opposed to this idea, but the Asciidoctor theme is currently lacking and is not ready yet for "prime time".

Both themes are certainly important for perception reasons. The current "default" theme is meant to establish the perception that Asciidoctor PDF can produce a classic-looking PDF to compete with the DocBook toolchain. And that's a critical perception to establish. The "asciidoctor" theme would give us visual consistency with the other outputs, so it's at least worth maturing. If we decide that the "asciidoctor" theme has surpassed the default theme in quality, we can certainly consider making it the default.

from asciidoctor-pdf.

OK understandable.

Where is the asciidoctor theme lacking at the moment? Maybe we could create
separate issues for those and cross ref them here as blockers for this
issue?

On Sat, Nov 8, 2014, 03:32 Dan Allen [email protected] wrote:

I'm not opposed to this idea, but the Asciidoctor theme is currently
lacking and is not ready yet for "prime time".

Both themes are certainly important for perception reasons. The current
"default" theme is meant to establish the perception that Asciidoctor PDF
can produce a classic-looking PDF to compete with the DocBook toolchain.
And that's a critical perception to establish. The "asciidoctor" theme
would give us visual consistency with the other outputs, so it's at least
worth maturing. If we decide that the "asciidoctor" theme has surpassed the
default theme in quality, we can certainly consider making it the default.

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from asciidoctor-pdf.

Where is the asciidoctor theme lacking at the moment?

It's in need of a full audit. Honestly, this is where I really wish we had a designer on the team. Although I can fake it pretty good, I'm really out of my element getting this right.

Here's my vision. I want the design of Asciidoctor PDF (and elsewhere in Asciidoctor) to absolutely blow anything else out of the water. There's no reason we shouldn't be crushing the competition in this area...because the competition is really rough. I get pretty picky about this stuff because I don't want to settle for "just okay". I want it to look absolutely stunning.

Having said that, the best thing we can do right now is to render the HTML and the PDF side-by-side and see where the asciidoctor theme is not holding up to the HTML output. Currently, the HTML output is our "gold standard" so to speak.

from asciidoctor-pdf.

render the HTML and the PDF side-by-side and see where the asciidoctor theme is not holding up to the HTML output.

OK I'll do just that. I may not get to it right away, so if someone beats me to it then great!

from asciidoctor-pdf.

Since this came up again on the mailinglist, I wanted to restate my position. The problem is that, right now, there's really no such thing as an Asciidoctor theme. While default stylesheet for the HTML output presents a familiar Asciidoctor look and feel, it's never really been vetted as a reusable theme. Again, we need a branding effort that will define the parameters of an Asciidoctor look and feel. Once we have that, then I'm absolutely in support of defining a theme that implement it.

On a side note, we might want to think about adding a theme repository that offers a number of different themes for Asciidoctor PDF. I think that's something we should do once we are in beta or perhaps even after the 1.5.0 release (when the theming engine is more stable).

from asciidoctor-pdf.

Cleaning up old issues...

The default theme for Asciidoctor PDF was designed to provide a typical, no-frills, professional-looking PDF document by default. That's what most users are after based on the input I have received. However, I recognize this look won't suit everyone. That's why we've made the theming system extensible.

If someone wants to contribute an "asciidoctor" theme to the repository, I'd be happy to accept it. However, to avoid having to bundle more fonts in the gem, that theme would need to use the NotoSerif and M+ fonts that are already bundled. So it would still slightly differ from the default stylesheet shipped with the HTML converter.

from asciidoctor-pdf.