Support a way to set the primary color of a site

[damithc]

Inspired by https://yakworks.github.io/mkdocs-material-components/getting-started/#primary-colors

[tlylt]

Inspired by yakworks.github.io/mkdocs-material-components/getting-started/#primary-colors

the above link is dead... it's now available at this link instead. Screenshot:

[ang-zeyu]

This won't be accomplished anytime soon, but to list the key issues in the various linked discussions above:

• bootstrap themes seem to conflict with this both from an implementation and usage standpoint.
• I'm personally for removing official support for the 15+ bootstrap themes, and developing our components with bootstrap, which have proven very difficult to maintain properly (there are many, many issues if you dig around).
• (personally) everything looks very bootstrap-ey
• that said, implementing a completely custom theming scheme isn't easy, I haven't exactly thought of a concrete proposal either (which might flesh out more issues =X) We should probably limit the official support to color-only (bootstrap themes do much more than that) theming for a start to make it feasible
  • A pretty solid example direction I think, is mdBook's https://github.com/rust-lang/mdBook/blob/master/src/theme/css/variables.css

wdyt @jonahtanjz @ryoarmanda @damithc?

ps: starting the discussion now as it affects #1702

[jonahtanjz]

• I'm personally for removing official support for the 15+ bootstrap themes, and developing our components with bootstrap, which have proven very difficult to maintain properly (there are many, many issues if you dig around).
• (personally) everything looks very bootstrap-ey

Just to clarify, do you mean removing bootstrap support in general (and have our own styling for our components) or only removing the support for themes but still maintain the use of bootstrap for our components?

[ang-zeyu]

In general, to remove the "bootstrap look", which includes removing bootstrap themes completely. We can certainly still use bootstrap for our components (e.g. d-none), barring things like bg-dark / alert-warning (which would then be customisable instead under a coloring system). Bootstrap will also still be available to the author.

The biggest downside is not being able to leverage the professionally designed bootswatch themes, which however currently have many edge cases that aren't functioning correctly and is rather cumbersome to maintain (20+ bootswatch themes).

The general idea hence would be to create a more limited, controlled theming system (like mdBook's / mkdocs').

[damithc]

The general idea hence would be to create a more limited, controlled theming system (like mdBook's / mkdocs').

I'm not a big fan of full-blown themes myself. They often messes up the content in unintended ways. I use them rarely, if at all. Yes, a more controlled theming feature such as MkDoc's primary color selection feature could be more useful in practice.

[jonahtanjz]

In general, to remove the "bootstrap look", which includes removing bootstrap themes completely. We can certainly still use bootstrap for our components (e.g. d-none), barring things like bg-dark / alert-warning (which would then be customisable instead under a coloring system). Bootstrap will also still be available to the author.

In that case I think this is fine since users can still use Bootstrap features if they want and we can still rely on the Bootstrap components. Removing the use of those classes will definitely take some time and effort to convert 👀

The general idea hence would be to create a more limited, controlled theming system (like mdBook's / mkdocs').

Agree, I think this is a good idea as well and a good place to start :)