[preview] Dawn - responsive theme for SMF2.0

[Bloc]

Dawn will be a subtheme of UrbanLife, and as such share some similarity with it. Below are posted current concept pictures.

The concept is based on simpler layout, for a even more focused view of topics than UrbanLife offers. A lot will be simply not be shown, but instead promote the simpleness of just...discussing.

[margarett]

Kudos for working on it. We are sure missing some of those!

That means rewriting most of the templates(maybe all of them) and certainly all of the CSS.

That's really the hard part... Are your working with Bootstrap/other framework or writing everything by hand?

[Bloc]

Everything by hand. Frameworks are nice, but they usually comes with a lot of extraneous code that will be included - or I have to remove it anyway. I feel approaching it directly within what SMF needs, is a better way. Thats not to say learning from frameworks isn't useful - I done a lot of that.

You may wonder why SMF 2.0 and not 2.1...I feel 2.0 is the best starting point, since 2.1 AFAIK have added even more styles to - IMHO - an already crowded stylesheet.

[Bloc]

EDIT: changed the premise and the concept. See first post for new pictures.

[Antechinus]

Interesting presentation. Looks good, but feels a bit disjointed to scan. That may be just down to being used to something else. Would have to actually use it live to see how it would work in practice.

[ARG01]

Interesting presentation. Looks good, but feels a bit disjointed to scan. That may be just down to being used to something else. Would have to actually use it live to see how it would work in practice.

Agreed. My question is; With your talent, why would you be creating a "subtheme" as opposed to a new ides from scratch? There is really nothing in particular wrong with the design (other than being a bit bland) but we know that you can do better. Good design but it just seems a bit off from what we know that you can produce.

[Antechinus]

He wants to try stuff out. He can make anything he wants to, but wants to try this. It's not just about pictures, but also about different concepts, and about the coding behind them too.

[ARG01]

I understand but I would be more prone  to I guess "appreciate it more" when/if we get a chance to look under the hood. I don't doubt the talent, I just don't see it from the screens in this particular design.

[Bloc]

Interesting presentation. Looks good, but feels a bit disjointed to scan. That may be just down to being used to something else. Would have to actually use it live to see how it would work in practice.

Yes, I have been contemplating that..the messageindex might not work as good for scanning as normal themes do. I will probably add a user-option(switch) to one-line layout too. Some prefer that, other might like the new approach. Boardindex might be in similar state...but I think Display will work ok. We'll see.

[Bloc]

Interesting presentation. Looks good, but feels a bit disjointed to scan. That may be just down to being used to something else. Would have to actually use it live to see how it would work in practice.

Agreed. My question is; With your talent, why would you be creating a "subtheme" as opposed to a new ides from scratch? There is really nothing in particular wrong with the design (other than being a bit bland) but we know that you can do better. Good design but it just seems a bit off from what we know that you can produce.

It will be a subtheme of the UrbanLife theme concept, and I think thats already quite fresh in terms being different from default theme. If you been reading my posts about that, you will see its not just color variations that are possible for a subtheme("variant") - it can essentially be a whole new theme inside it. I feel thats better than creating duplicates of UrbanLife theme code(since it will share the base code and be easier to maintain for updates etc)

If you rather meant that its quite similar to UrbanLife - yes, it is. Quite suitable as a subtheme for it then, and as a testing ground. For building more subthemes that can look completely different from its parent theme.

The concept work let me try things before turning to the code, but I have to have a platform that I can work with effortlessly. Thus UrbanLife is both a theme concept brought to life AND a platform for further (sub)themes.

[Antechinus]

Yes, I have been contemplating that..the messageindex might not work as good for scanning as normal themes do. I will probably add a user-option(switch) to one-line layout too. Some prefer that, other might like the new approach. Boardindex might be in similar state...but I think Display will work ok. We'll see.

I agree Display is fine. Was thinking about the index pages. TBH what I (personally) like is an easy list of new topics that I can just scan down in a hurry. Although this tends to make for rather limited presentation options, it seems to be the quickest and easiest to use (AFAICT at the moment).

[Bloc]

Yes, agree, its not lot of options if you want quick scans..

Whats currently in UrbanLife now, for messageindex, is a index that show previews as well..sort of like a blogroll if you like - but I added an option to turn those off, leaving a more compact look - and not suprisingly it feels easier to read haha. But if I wanted previews I rather have them all displayed actually, than to hover/click on each and every topic. Thats takes more time for me. Below are screenshot of this (yes, its *actually* a theme lol)

[Antechinus]

Yeah previews always visible sounds better to me, if you are going to have them. Either that or instant open on click. That could still be pretty easy to scan, and the ones that have groovy fx on them are usually so slow that I can never be bothered waiting for them. It's often faster to just click the link and take a look at the thread.

I must say I like the look of that compact layout though.

[Bloc]

Exactly. I see their goal of course - to preview just the ones you want..but if you like to just see all, it takes much longer. Besides, I think the creators often fall in love with making the most groovy effect heh

What would be interesting would some sort of intelligence here, that those that would possibly be of interest for you, could be shown with preview, the othes not. Visually it would be more messy(at least if they are mixed, maybe some dividing could be done) but candidates could be:

- the ones you replied to
- most recent active topic(or 2-3)
- tagged (which imply a simple tagging feature)

[Antechinus]

The best intelligence to run that would be the one between your ears. Which would imply tagging perhaps. There would be no point in having a preview of the OP in a topic you had already looked at, and the most recent active topic will not necessarily be interesting.

[Bloc]

I disagreed, having a preview of latest reply in a topic you replied to earlier, is somewhat useful. Unless you use unreadreplies screen of course. But this will be VERY subjective, so I am not sure how to approach it. At least some choices per user had to be made, if they wanted previews for replied topics, the latest.. and so on.

If its better than just seeing all previews anyway..that I am in serious doubt about. But its def. interesting, especially combined with many topics per page.

[Antechinus]

I basically only use the unread pages. Message index is really only for creating new topics, IMO.

[ARG01]

It will be a subtheme of the UrbanLife theme concept, and I think thats already quite fresh in terms being different from default theme. If you been reading my posts about that, you will see its not just color variations that are possible for a subtheme("variant") - it can essentially be a whole new theme inside it. I feel thats better than creating duplicates of UrbanLife theme code(since it will share the base code and be easier to maintain for updates etc)

If you rather meant that its quite similar to UrbanLife - yes, it is. Quite suitable as a subtheme for it then, and as a testing ground. For building more subthemes that can look completely different from its parent theme.

The concept work let me try things before turning to the code, but I have to have a platform that I can work with effortlessly. Thus UrbanLife is both a theme concept brought to life AND a platform for further (sub)themes.

I was just reading through your UrbanLife posts. I am beginning to understand your concept here.