X-Cart forums

[ynotcreative]

Who's brilliant idea was it to make editing a logo in 4.6 include editing a sprite?

Not only is it not a transparent sprite, it is ill-formated to fit most logos.

X-cart, get out of your lab coats and start looking at it from a customer's perspective.

I have never, ever used a platform that made editing the logo so difficult. Most give you a clear way to change the logo quickly and easily. With X-Cart, it has always meant screwing with the templates, or renaming a file and stashing it in a deep directory. Now, you have to edit a deep-seated graphic, figure out the coordinates and then adjust the css accordingly.

X-Cart stores are not Google with master sprite that works for all. They are customizable storefronts that need to be versatile and easy to work with. Was combining two images into on really that beneficial? Come on, THINK. I swear sometimes the goal of X-Cart is to make things as complicated and convoluted as programmatically possible.

[cflsystems]

Actually I believe the skin you are talking about was originally done by someone else and not QT. Also not sure why this is such a problem - just modify CSS and template to not reference the sprite image but your own. There is no need to modify the sprite image at all. Not that difficult to do.
About making logo replace as easy as upload an image in admin - that won't work. It will be extremely difficult if possible at all to account for all possible designs, layouts, logo sizes, etc.

[ynotcreative]

The point is simple: It should never have been this difficult. If WordPress with it's millions of templates that can easily handle logos, so should an $1800 piece of software.

If a layout is built properly in css, a moderately dynamic logo size is absolutely achievable.

As programmers and engineers, editing a layout may be simple, but it should NOT take a programmer to change a logo. Maybe in the 1990s, but this is 2013. We have amazing tools at our fingertips like html5 and css3.

[cflsystems]

You said it - html5 and css3.... Unfortunatelly XC is still not aware these exist and will not be for at least another year....
It may just be me but honestly I would not expect XC out of the box to support this for the logo. What you are saying about WP still is with the theme. There are 3rd party skins for XC which do have "logo upload" but again this does not work with every logo.

[totaltec]

Originally Posted by ynotcreative

Who's brilliant idea was it to make editing a logo in 4.6 include editing a sprite?

Mine.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, and was intended to encourage store designers to use the sprite sheet as they moved forward with their custom design. Rather than adding more http connections and download size with multiple images, they could instead learn to do it right. In retrospect it would have been better to have the logo below the gift certificate image to make editing easier. Ultimately only those two images made it on the sheet, I had intended to include other images, but only those two were necessary to resize in order to make the site responsive. It isn't transparent because transparency costs bytes. If you need a transparent sheet, it's child's play to pull open the image and edit it in Photoshop. Agree that the multiple edits to CSS after adjusting it are a major pain.

The core idea was originally to serve mobile first, then only serve the other style sheets if the browser was larger. The goal was to minimize download for small devices, smaller images could be put on the smaller sheet. Larger more powerful devices would pull down the larger images. It made more sense when the style sheets for the different widths were separate. Now that they are combined and use media queries, all the CSS and images are downloaded no matter the size screen.

I have to admit regretting this choice a couple of times already, I'm not defending it, just explaining how it came to be. Probably should be addressed in a future version of X-cart. We need an easy button that uploads the logo, and a way to edit the header size. Also would be nice if we could upload one logo and have it go everywhere including the invoice.

That said, you really don't need to be so harsh. Especially in regards to comments about the X-cart team. They are doing a fabulous job, and usually get criticized more than complimented. There is not a better team on the planet in my opinion. Comparing XC to Wordpress is like comparing heavy cream to creme brulee. Wordpress is dead simple and does just what it is supposed to. X-cart is very complex, and can be magical in the right hands, or burnt and nasty depending on the cook.

@Steve: thanks for not throwing me under the bus.

[ADDISON]

I guess I replied to a few posts asking the same thing: where is the logo file in XC Responsive template. If you have lots of icons inside a website sprites are the best option to keep all icons in one file. But for store logo it is not a good idea to keep it in a sprite. This should be fixed in the next XC version since your responsive template becomes a default one. This will avoid also any rumors. I totally agree you in making people using sprites.

[cflsystems]

Originally Posted by totaltec

@Steve: thanks for not throwing me under the bus.

You're welcome

Yes sprites are good for images that do not change and stay the same no matter what. Anything else should not be in sprite.

[ADDISON]

It seems one of the greatest programs for creating sprites will die soon: Adobe Fireworks.

[totaltec]

Originally Posted by ADDISON

It seems one of the greatest programs for creating sprites will die soon: Adobe Fireworks.

I still remember Macromedia fondly.

[PhilJ]

There's still great support for Fireworks and will surely be a big userbase for some time to come. I hope Adobe decide to change their mind, I don't use anything else.

http://fireworks.smashingmagazine.com