Style Settings for users installing styles

[winghongchan]

Describe the change you'd like: I’d like to see a way to add style settings for users installing our styles. These would allow some customization to the styles through simple dropdowns, color pickers, text fields and image selectors that modify the CSS.

Additional context: I come from using stylish which has these style settings. Their implementation is described at https://userstyles.org/help/coding. Style settings could be used for website wallpapers, accent colors, or the like.

[RiedleroD]

stylus is the recommended extension to install these userstyles - and it already has very extensive settings support. (even backwards compatibility with uso's/stylish's userstyle settings)

[Gusted]

Additional context: I come from using stylish which has these style settings. Their implementation is described at https://userstyles.org/help/coding. Style settings could be used for website wallpapers, accent colors, or the like.

Their way of using options is quite outdated and IMO not efficient, their are great alternatives within stylus to have these options. @vednoc

[vednoc]

UserCSS format embeds settings in the source code, which allows you to customize settings locally — without having to visit the website that it was installed from. You can read more about UserCSS and how to use it on Stylus' Wiki. Also, you can import your userstyles from USo-archive, which is our recommendation. After that process is complete, (re)install your userstyle from USw and you're good to go.

As for having a similar functionality that USo has for settings, we've been having on-and-off discussions about it from the start. Disadvantages drastically outweigh the advantages, the biggest ones being complexity, inconsistency (Stylish/USo supports only 1 preprocessor, meanwhile Stylus supports 3 different ones), and vendor lock-in.

[decembre]

That's always the same problem: We want the both world in one! :-) But, if for you it's an horrible process, outdated etc.. For us, without an exact idea of your process, we desire a maximum of compatibility between the both.

I re-said the same thing than before, yes i know... I think some user don't use USw because they have this outdated addon Stylish. It is like Stylus and Stylish have different style of users.

[vednoc]

If someone is interested, they could (try to) make a UserCSS generator that we could use for that. That generator should improve upon the UI and UX of USo's basic implementation of custom settings, as well as support all 3 preprocessors. I have a ton of technical debt to deal with because of my absence, but I might put something together if I feel like hacking on something new. Some small demo should be more than enough to get us started.

For us, without an exact idea of your process, we desire a maximum of compatibility between the both.

Maximum compatibility is hard to reach. Instead, I wonder what would make it more accessible. I could write more examples, record a workflow/tutorial video since Stylus has one that's somewhat outdated by now, and/or something completely different. You tell me the struggles you're facing, so that we can have a better idea on how to approach this problem.

[decembre]

I don't use "Style Settings" myself, so i can't say what you can do better. ;-)

Maximum compatibility is hard to reach

One thing i asked before was about the install: For now, it seems not possible to choice to install with Stylus OR Stylish?

It should be fine if possible (but if i remember well, i hard to implement)

[vednoc]

For now, it seems not possible to choice to install with Stylus OR Stylish?

Stylish isn't in active development, and has been abandoned for a long time, so it's really unlikely to ever support USw.

Unless one is using a very old version on a Firefox-based browser that allows changing the UI — like you still do, if I'm not mistaken — I really don't know why they would prefer it over Stylus. Not only is Stylish outdated, it also has performance issues, it has editor issues, it lacks features, it lacks workarounds and bug fixes for many things, and most importantly, it's spyware. Don't use it!

It should be fine if possible (but if i remember well, i hard to implement)

IIRC, I was talking about re-implementing features from USo's website. Namely, the functionality for custom settings.

As for Stylish itself, I think you don't understand how Stylus and Stylish work. Stylus supports UserCSS format, which can be hosted and installed from any website. Stylish needs to talk to the USo's API in order to fetch userstyles, which means it can only install userstyles from there. Stylus used to use USo's API up until it barely worked, then USo-archive came along, after which all userstyles are fetched and installed directly from the USo-archive.

[decembre]

[Stylish Addon] Don't use it: it's spyware. Don't use it!

I really know that.

For the little story: I use an old Stylish version, the one before the Spyware was added and use an userscript which add very useful functions / customization to the editor. The both work fine for me (but became sometime buggy - not enough for me to leave them).

Don't have the same result / "confort" with Stylus. Yes, UserCSS is fine but this format can't be installed with this damn outdated and spywared Stylish. And for now, because Stylish is not dead and have always a huge number of users, they are more users which install my stylish versions than the others. Users with Stylish can't use easily USw (they can just copy past the css - if there have no options) It was of the other reason i asked this retro compatibility.

Waterfox Classic / Greasemonkey 3.16 / Old version of Stylish / Firebug AND Firepath. Read by example my request to Stylus team: Make line counter continuous which finally was closed by an:

No more comparisons to the old, deprecated XUL version of Stylish, or any other unsupported extensions.

Maybe i don't appreciate change?

I don't think: I was very happy when you create USw!

I know, in a short time, i should leave them, so i test Stylus and Quantum too to find how to deal with them.

But, forgot my newbie request: I can live without that, i suppose.

Yes, i am definitively not a developer and that's difficult to me to understand. Just an user. Thanks for your patience: :-)

[vednoc]

I'm quite familiar with how things go once they're deprecated, obsolete, or just... old.

I had to write a userscript for YouTube in order for my uncle's Windows XP computer that uses Firefox v52.9 to work as it worked previously. The new update broke some things, which in turn made it unusable. Since the new application is awful when compared to the old one, I ended up using the mobile version. Both versions have bugs on that browser. At least the mobile version runs a lot smoother, so it was easier to get in a usable state.

And for now, because Stylish is not dead and have always a huge number of users, they are more users which install my stylish versions than the others.

Generally speaking, there will always be more installs because it's much more known than Stylus. We might be able to reverse that trend at some point in the future, but I imagine it will take a lot of doing.

I know, in a short time, i should leave them, so i test Stylus and Quantum too to find how to deal with them.

If hardware isn't a limitation for you, I imagine you'll have to move sooner or later. JavaScript-heavy web applications will be the first ones to break. Even though I wasn't a fan of Quantum at first, eventually the pros outweighed the cons. That doesn't mean I'm happy by the status quo in the browser space, it's quite the opposite, but I wouldn't go back.

[decembre]

I'm quite familiar with how things go once they're deprecated, obsolete, or just... old.

Same as me ;-)

[Stylish vs Stylus] ..We might be able to reverse that trend at some point in the future

I hope it too. You offer a big open source alternative when nobody said it was possible.

[YouTube Mobile] ... At least the mobile version runs a lot smoother, so it was easier to get in a usable state.

Thanks for the Tip, i need to test that.

[winghongchan]

OK nevermind I made this bug when I was pretty new to usw. Now that I know of userCSS and storing all the options in the .user.css file, this enhancement seems unnecessary. I think it makes far more sense for the options to be available in Stylus, &c instead of on usw. I'm in favour of closing this issue.