Printing Slash-themed pages [#131134]

Hi,

even if the "Slash" theme might look a little bit "retro" I like it very much; it's the only theme for Drupal 4.6, 4.7, and 5.x that I could find, that is easily readable on higher screen resolutions (1600x1200 pixel) _and_ works well with the core and most 3rd party modules (except issue tracker), _and_ is cross browser safe. In short, it might not be very beautiful, but it is _highly_ functional.

The only drawback is IMO the lack of printing support. For earlier versions of Drupal, there was a module "Printer friendly pages" which isn't ported yet to Drupal 5.x; this module subsitituted an internal printing support of the "Slash" theme. However, most more recent themes _do_ have this support for printing built in, thus the need for a module like "Printer friendly pages" is limited will decrease, and the future of this "Printing"-module becomes increasingly uncertain.

That leads me to the question, if it would be possible to include CSS-based printing support (e.g. http://www.alistapart.com/articles/goingtoprint/) in the "Slash" theme. I'm not a CSS magician and had just a quick look at Slash's style sheets and layout, but it looked as if it wasn't possible, or at least not easily.

Maybe someone, who knows the internals of the "Slash" theme better, could comment on this - would it be possible, or is it even planned, to add CSS support for printing pages in "Slash"?

Thanks & greetings,
-asb

Comments

Comment #1

frjo CreditAttribution: frjo commented 26 March 2007 at 14:37

Assigned:

Unassigned

» frjo

Thanks for the kind words about the Slash theme.

I will take a look at adding some css print styles to the theme. It will be something simple like removing the blocks and the background colours and images etc.

Comment #2

frjo CreditAttribution: frjo commented 22 May 2007 at 08:16

Check out the HEAD version at http://drupal.org/node/95466 for some simple CSS-based printing support.

Please report any issues back here.

Comment #3

asbdpl CreditAttribution: asbdpl commented 25 May 2007 at 14:14

Hi frjo,

thank you for this nice upgrade! I did a quick check with Opera 9.21 and the green "Slash" theme:

* good: it doesn't harm the Web CSS in any way (= i seems safe to replace the official release);
* good: all blocks/sidebars on the left and on the right are stripped away completely;
* good: it already works quite well for printing, and I could replace the "printable" module which doesn't offer significantly better printing support;
* unsure: hyperlinks are stripped completely.

This is pretty nice work already!

Other notes, referring to a printout of some nodes on a b&w laser printer:

Header area:

* It puts the header block on top of the printed page in a white box with thin lines around it; the site name doesn't appear in print (empty space, probably white letters on white ground); I don't use a logo, so there's just a fair amount of white space on top of the page.
* The site description prints in light gray on white, which is almost not readable; I don't think it is necessary at all in a printout.
* Below, the secondary links are printed in white letters on dark grey ground; for a printout, I think, they are not needed, also.

Node area:

* The node itself also appears in a box with thin lines around it; again, probably this box and the lines are not necessary?;
* the headline (= the node's title) appears in black letters on dark grey ground which wastes some toner, isn't readable very well and looks pretty ugly

This might be glitches, or it is done intentionally?

Some thoughts about the @media print {} block in slash/style.css (of course, your mileage might vary ;):

* Content on a printout doesn't need to be embedded in boxes (I think, this is in .node .content {}?);
* Secondary, or primary links are not needed in a printout (I think, that's "ID top-nav" and "ID top-nav2" with "Element ul#primary", "Contextual #primary li", "Contextual #primary a", "Element ul#secondary", "Contextual #secondary li", and "Contextual #secondary a", which could be "display: none;");
* the site name, if it is to be printed at all, should be readable ("Contextual #site-name a")
* the site description is not necessary at all, or should be better readable ("ID site-slogan");
* in printout, the node's title should be black on white, as the node's text ("Contextual .node .title1", "Contextual .node .title2")
);
* shouldn't .block .title1 {} and .block .title2 {} and it's images stripped out, also?

Handling of links:

On ALA (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/goingtoprint/), they use printed links:

a:link, a:visited {
	color: #520;
	background: transparent;
	font-weight: bold;
	text-decoration: underline;
	}

and for CSS2:

#content a:link:after, #content a:visited:after {
   content: " (" attr(href) ") ";
   font-size: 90%;
   }

This might make sense, but can also clutter the printout. I'm not sure what would be the best way to go. E.g. MediaWiki embeds URLs in printed articles in parentheses, which makes the printed articles pretty hard to read. On the other hand, stripping away the links completely is a bit irritating, also.

What are your plans?

And thanks again for the very nice upgrade ;-)

-asb