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Balanced

Started by LFrancke, April 29, 2012, 07:02:59 PM

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LFrancke

Link to the theme


Balanced is a color balanced and warm theme that is easy on the eyes. Balanced is good for sites that have members that require a color balanced and appropriate contrast theme for ease of reading.  The warning and success responses from member actions are appropriately colored for the theme in the general area and the admin area. The theme uses enhancements and variations of some icons as well as colors as visual cues that will gently draw the eye to areas of importance while at the same time the theme is quite easy on the eyes during extended reading.

The theme does not provide a logo other than the theme logo. You will need to create a logo with the dimensions of 1206px wide by 151px deep. The Forum Title field in Configuration/Server Settings can still be set to have the forum name appear in the linktree area however, the forum name will not appear in the header area of the theme. As mentioned previously, you will need to create a logo for your site.

LFrancke

 :)   

My thanks to the SMF Theme Site Team for their patience and endurance in walking me thru the approval process.

You folks are the best! 

:) :) :)

Deaks

well considering all but 1 message was sent by myself then you are more than welcome, its amazing how quickly themes get approved when people are pleasant to us and wait patiently ... makes the process alot easier doesn;t it :)
~~~~
Former SMF Project Manager
Former SMF Customizer

"For as lang as hunner o us is in life, in nae wey
will we thole the Soothron tae owergang us. In truth it isna for glory, or wealth, or
honours that we fecht, but for freedom alane, that nae honest cheil gies up but wi life
itsel."

justjim

Very Nice theme. How would you add a logo to this theme?

LFrancke

Greetings Jim,

Several paths actually. You can ask for help in the Help Wanted ( not for support ) board on this site. You can likely find someone there that can make one for you for nothing or for a few dollars.

I can make you one ( for free ) as long as it is simple. I am not an expert at graphic art but I can whip up a simple header with Gimp if you know the color you want for the header and if you want a name placed in the header. If you have an existing, simple logo design I may be able to move it onto the header for you.  If you want to do this, pm me your email.

You can give it a go yourself. You can download for free Gimp ( www dot gimp dot org slash downloads ) and give it a try. If you go this path and need the 1206 x 151 header with a color in it, I will email one to you. I think though, that you will find Gimp fairly intuitive and easy to use so you likely will not need a header from me.

Hope this helps and glad you find the theme pleasing.

Lou


justjim

Quote from: LFrancke on April 30, 2012, 06:04:00 PM
Greetings Jim,

Several paths actually. You can ask for help in the Help Wanted ( not for support ) board on this site. You can likely find someone there that can make one for you for nothing or for a few dollars.

I can make you one ( for free ) as long as it is simple. I am not an expert at graphic art but I can whip up a simple header with Gimp if you know the color you want for the header and if you want a name placed in the header. If you have an existing, simple logo design I may be able to move it onto the header for you.  If you want to do this, pm me your email.

You can give it a go yourself. You can download for free Gimp ( www dot gimp dot org slash downloads ) and give it a try. If you go this path and need the 1206 x 151 header with a color in it, I will email one to you. I think though, that you will find Gimp fairly intuitive and easy to use so you likely will not need a header from me.

Hope this helps and glad you find the theme pleasing.

Lou
Thank you for your response.
I have a logo, I was just unsure how to make it show in the header of your theme. Some themes have the option of loading a logo, using a URL in the admin section. I can't find that option in Balanced. If I understand your post correctly; the logo I choose to use with Balanced would be part of a custom built header with the demensions you indicated?
Is that correct or am I missing something?

Thanks again

LFrancke

Hello Jim,

After you make 1206px by 151px file for your custom logo and give the image file a name, you would then enter that name into the index.css file and also upload the image to your host server.

First upload your custom logo file to the host server and place it in the themes/balanced/images/theme folder.

Then edit the index.css file ( should be in the themes/balanced/css folder ) and look at line 30. It should like below and will be a part of the #header section:



background: url(../images/theme/balanced_logo.png) no-repeat;



Change the balanced_logo.png name to be the name of the file for your custom logo and save the file.

You can edit the index.css file whilst it is on the server or you can edit a copy on your home pc and then upload the file with your ftp program.  Refresh your browser to see your new logo on your site. You may need to clear the site cache as well.

Hope this helps.  :)



justjim

Lou

Thank you, That's the info I needed to confirm.
It's a very nice theme.

Good work.  :)

LFrancke

You are very welcome.  :) 

Glad you enjoy theme and good luck with your logo.

Plantsman

A very nice and welcome theme  -  most refreshing after all the blues and the darks.  Thank you LFrancke

http://ccgi.raffia.plus.com/~raffia/forum/

LFrancke

Thank you Plantsman, I appreciate your kind words.   :)


LFrancke

@ChadF,

Attached is a screen shot with the olive color you want. Of course the header would be changed to olive drab also if that is what you needed for your logo.

Lou




chadf

So, how do I make it like that?  I really really like it with the olive.  Thanks

LFrancke

@Chadf,

PM sent. 


Lou


LFrancke

@Chadf,

A zip file with the installable theme has been sent to you. Let me know if you have any questions.

Lou   :)


chadf

I would like to thank LFrancke for making this theme.  I am currently using it on my forum, and it looks great.  LFrancke was very helpful with any questions that I had , and he even customized the theme for me several times.  He changed some colors for me, and fine tuned it to my liking.

Here is a link to show the changes.     http://survivalistcafe.com/index.php

Thank you again LFrancke for all of your help, and patience.  I really appreciate it.

LFrancke

Thank you ChadF, the site looks great!

Lou


waris

#17
QuoteGreetings Waris,

I created the theme that you are using on your site. I saw your post at PortaMX about an issue with PortaBlog. While this issue does not sound like a problem with the theme, I would like to encourage you to download the latest Balanced theme. I did find an issue in the original index.css that did affect PortaMX 1.45 form displaying some blocks correctly. That issue has been fixed.

http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2585

I apologise to you for this error on my part and look forward to viewing your site.

Best regards,

LFrancke


Thank you Lfrancke for going out of your way to send me the above message.

I have already downloaded the new updated Balanced and installed it in my forum.
It intergrate and works well with curve, Porta Mx and Porta Blog. There is also no problem
with the installation of MODs. It has a very neat look and I love the colors. You have achieved
what you set out to design a forum where members can log in and stay a long time without  placing
any stress on the eyes especially for people with a poor vision. The colors are soothing to the eyes of
the user.

Finally I thank you for changing the salutation from "Hey" to " Greetings".
Hey is not a greeting as in "hello" and "Greetings".
It may be alright to call people "Hey" in the more advanced western countries, but for Asians it is not
alright. It is rude to call somebody "Hey". We all have names given by our parents and if you dont know our names we would rather you say "Hello" or "Greetings" or "Salute"or the equivalent in any other languages.

Thank you.

LFrancke

Greetings Waris,

I am glad to hear you find the theme pleasing to the eye and the change for the original member greeting to be acceptable. If there is something in the theme that you should need help with, please let me know and I will do my best for you.

Best wishes,

LFrancke

waris

Quote from: LFrancke on January 17, 2013, 07:23:38 PM
Greetings Waris,

I am glad to hear you find the theme pleasing to the eye and the change for the original member greeting to be acceptable. If there is something in the theme that you should need help with, please let me know and I will do my best for you.

Best wishes,

LFrancke

Hi LFrancke,

I have installed your Balanced theme over the SMF default theme. Everything was fine.
Then I installed PortaMX & PortaMX Blog...............................................................

Now my forum news has disappeared. I cant find it anywhere?

How can I make it visible again?

LFrancke

Hello Waris,

Because of the reduced size of the header, the news item was left out. You can use PortaMX to create a news block on the front page of your site or on the forum page of your site. I can look at increasing the size of the header but the news you enter would likely over run your site logo.

LFrancke

waris

Quote from: LFrancke on January 17, 2013, 07:23:38 PM
Greetings Waris,

I am glad to hear you find the theme pleasing to the eye and the change for the original member greeting to be acceptable. If there is something in the theme that you should need help with, please let me know and I will do my best for you.

Best wishes,

LFrancke

Hi LFrancke,

I need help to change the webpage background to an image.

How do I do it?

Thank you.

LFrancke

Hello Waris,

Probably can be done in the index.css file. What would you like changed?

LFrancke

waris

Hi LFrancke,

I would like to change the white background as shown in the snapshot above
to the following image:


LFrancke

Hello Waris,

I received your PM and I believe you want to change from a solid color to an image in the body area.

Look for the below code in your index.css file. Your background color is different I believe so look for 'body'.


body
{
background: #333334;
font: 78%/130% verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
margin: 0 auto;
padding: 0 0;
}



then add the background: information. Comment out the original 'background' to preserve it.




body
{
/* background: #333334; */
        font: 78%/130% verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
margin: 0 auto;
padding: 0 0;
        background: url(../images/theme/YOUR_IMAGE.png);
}




I also noticed that with your header, the Admin information overlaps the family image. You can shift the information a bit to the right by doing the below ...


#user-greeting
{
height: 110px;
float: right;
padding: 5px 5px 0 0;
line-height: 135%;
text-align: right;
color: #003366;
font: 17px arial, sans-serif;
width: 38em;
}


Change the padding to the above setting.  You also can adjust the font size.

The user-greeting manages the display of the data on the right side of the header.


Hope this helps.    :)


LFrancke

LFrancke

Quote from: waris on February 10, 2013, 10:05:19 AM
Hi LFrancke,

I would like to change the white background as shown in the snapshot above
to the following image:




Very nice image, I do like that.  I just tried your image on my test site, it looks really nice. In the background: section, change YOUR_IMAGE.png to
match the file name of your desired image.

:)

waris

Thank you once again LFrancke.

LFrancke



  :)   You are very welcomed. 


waris

Hi LFrancke,

I tried the changes but it did not work..

What I want to do is to change the Black background to my "Banana.png" image to replace it.

I inserted the following as you advised:

/*   BALANCED - The body and bodyarea
--------------------------------------*/
body
{
   /*  background:#333334;  */

   font: 78%/130% verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
   margin: 0 auto;
   padding: 0 0;
  background: url: (http://www.bumiweb.com/forum/Themes/balanced-203-0004a/images/theme/banana.png)

}

#bodyarea
{
   margin: 0;
   background: #A2A9A6;
   padding-top: 5px;
   padding-left: 15px;
   padding-bottom: 95px;
   padding-right: 15px;
}



The body area I did not did not disturb.

Did I do something incorrect?

Gizbeat

#29
Any link to an actual demo of the skin? All of the pics you've posted are backend or portal... Would love to take a look at the actual forum and threads....

nevermind, hxxp:ccgi.raffia.plus.com/~raffia/forum/ [nonactive] . looks good. Thanks for your work

LFrancke

#30
Quote from: waris on February 11, 2013, 12:13:52 AM
Hi LFrancke,

I tried the changes but it did not work..

What I want to do is to change the Black background to my "Banana.png" image to replace it.

I inserted the following as you advised:

/*   BALANCED - The body and bodyarea
--------------------------------------*/
body
{
   /*  background:#333334;  */

   font: 78%/130% verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
   margin: 0 auto;
   padding: 0 0;
  background: url: (http://www.bumiweb.com/forum/Themes/balanced-203-0004a/images/theme/banana.png)

}


The body area I did not did not disturb.

Did I do something incorrect?



Hi Waris,

If you copied the above as it appears in the index.css file I see possibly four problems.

One is that the semicolon ' ; ' is missing at the end of the line.

The second is that there should be no space between the url and the first (.

The third is that there should not be a  ' : ' after the word url.

The fourth may be the path you are using.


Try the following:

background: url(../images/theme/banana.png);


Be certain that you have the banana file saved as .png and not .jpg or another extension. Also check for spelling and upper case and lower case letters.



Hope this helps.  :)


edit: Just tied the link to your banana.png and it works. It appears your path and image location are correct so, the likely problems are the missing semicolon at the end of the line, the space between the word url and the first ( and the ':' between the word url and the (.

:)




waris

Thank you very much.

waris

Sorry to trouble you again LFrancke.

With all the semi-colons in place, the background still does not show up.

LFrancke

Not a problem at all.   :)

Would you mind making a post and attaching the index.css file to the post. Or if you prefer you can email the index.css to me.
I will PM you my email address.

thanks,   :)


waris

Hi LFrancke,

The problem is now resolved.

Thank you very much.

jonesH

I am not sure this is the right place and way to post some questions regarding uninstallation of the Balanced-204-0001 theme. Please advise.

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