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Any 2.1 themes that have a built in side portal?

Started by Biology Forums, August 20, 2015, 01:05:57 PM

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Deaks

added you to allow list :) I keep forgetting I blocking all messages.

Anyway, people will never think of expanding to a different style when their are no new unique styles available.  So they are limited to what is about.
~~~~
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."

Bloc

True. Maybe one should approach it from another angle: whats really forums about? Conversations, people, meanings, right? How would you present a conversation graphically if you could do anything?

Deaks

well I always like the look of the old comic book theme that did it in a fun way and broke from the standardization that is common.
~~~~
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."

Biology Forums

I remember installing simplicity as my very first theme change when using SMF 5 years ago. #timeflies

Bloc

But what was it with it, that attracted you guys so much?

It was essentially a portal'fied theme,pushing elements from each page into sidepanels and had very few graphics. It was..simple lol. Is that something you liked? the simplification?

Deaks

I liked it because it pushed the aesthetic value of SMF and that is what no theme is doing now, so no-one is getting inspired to do more than a variation.
~~~~
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."

Biology Forums

Quote from: Bloc on August 22, 2015, 05:02:40 AM
But what was it with it, that attracted you guys so much?

It was essentially a portal'fied theme,pushing elements from each page into sidepanels and had very few graphics. It was..simple lol. Is that something you liked? the simplification?

Regarding your latest theme?

* Usage of webfonts
* Usage of fontawesome style icons
* Responsive out of the box
* SimplePortal Friendly
* Options
* Different

Bloc

Well, great you described those items :) and pleased they are indeed useful to you!

..but I was curious about the old Simplicity theme. Attached a screenshot in case we are not talking about the same theme.

Deaks

Most def, your older themes pushed the boundaries, now your newer ones seem more about you learning and dont really seem to  have the heart anymore and its a shame, you are thee master of themes always have be always will be, you know I will always be your biggest fan (you were my mentor after all) and its your pushing the boundaries in all aspects that got myself into coding.   Helios if we have to use another was the first real gaming based theme for SMF that also pushed the boundaries in MC.
~~~~
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."

Bloc

Its taken me some time create a base theme..but ShelfLife code feels like it. So yeah, learning one could say, but I feel the latests themes have been more complete in terms of design, more than earlier things.

Pushed the boundaries..I don't know about that though. I favored learning the PHP bit just as much as the HTML/CSS, that made it easy for me to change the templates, especially for SMF 1.1. It looked ok with all those tables no matter what I threw at it.

But looking through my old themes now, most of them seems a bit clunky and odd, tbh.

I guess its a matter of perspective.

Deaks

compared to now where your themes pretty much look similar to every other theme, just different coding style and colors, and not really push the boat out as you once did, its nice to see you include new scripting styles into themes, but not new, thats been done since 1.0.
~~~~
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."

Bloc

I hate to disagree with you, since its compliment for me that you like those and consider those styles as great. :) But nevertheless, its 2015, most of them was made before 2008...

Anyways, I tried a lot of graphic things back then, most of them have NOT been repeated by others in SMF 2.0.What IS popular today and has been for a few years, are copies of popular WP themes, themes from other forum scripts or clones of social media sites. THATS whats popular. Check the curiosity on every Facebook clone we had past years, every time there have been a noticeable interest even if its laughable in itself to have a forum site look exactly like FB..I mean, its not like it IS Facebook just by mimicking its look :P .. (this is my personal opinion, mind you)

So, making new designs will be a compromise from my point of view.And...my own taste has changed too, it was different 10 years ago.

Deaks

But why be part of the trend when you are the one that started the trends before you stopped.

People take theflat themes as that is what they feel is best and is in fashion, how many of these sites that use SMF are noticeable in grand scheme.  Their will always be people who want more classical looks, and the more variety their is the better for everyone, if every theme that gets made is flat style then the variety dies and people go elsewhere.
~~~~
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."

Biology Forums

QuoteWhat IS popular today and has been for a few years, are copies of popular WP themes, themes from other forum scripts or clones of social media sites. THATS whats popular. Check the curiosity on every Facebook clone we had past years, every time there have been a noticeable interest even if its laughable in itself to have a forum site look exactly like FB

You wrote what I was thinking. Let's me honest, Poύνικ, Bloc is right on so many levels. People want to use what they're already used to using. It's the same reason why the whole 'like' idea is so popular in so many different platforms. People don't want to a steep learning curve or any learning curve at all. Bloc is creating themes that will enable dialogue quickly, themes that are easy to use and most importantly familiar.

You're saying why follow the trend? The old saying comes to mind, in Rome, do as the Romans do. Similarly, on the net, if people find liking pictures or content familiar and convenient, why not do the same with forums? You're a) lessening the complication, b) giving people what they want, and c) encouraging a easy, friendly environment for the community to thrive and grow. People always tell me that my main forum is complicated, so I try to envision what would make things easier for people, and many of the accepted trends we see online today do that. They've been thought of and should be used, i.e. using font-awesome, using WYSIWYG editors, using like buttons, modals instead of popups.

Diego Andrés

Also the theme site is not following any particular trend, theme authors submit their own styled themes.
Usually themes are inspired or based on some other themes, but also it is not weird to see new stuff coming out.

But yeah, themers activity has decreased a lot on this year. I want to believe that it's because the responsive thing scared some authors and that in 2.1 we will have a huge activity on this area.

SMF Tricks - Free & Premium Responsive Themes for SMF.

Bloc

Quote from: Shuban on August 24, 2015, 01:17:13 AM
QuoteWhat IS popular today and has been for a few years, are copies of popular WP themes, themes from other forum scripts or clones of social media sites. THATS whats popular. Check the curiosity on every Facebook clone we had past years, every time there have been a noticeable interest even if its laughable in itself to have a forum site look exactly like FB

You wrote what I was thinking. Let's me honest, Poύνικ, Bloc is right on so many levels. People want to use what they're already used to using. It's the same reason why the whole 'like' idea is so popular in so many different platforms. People don't want to a steep learning curve or any learning curve at all. Bloc is creating themes that will enable dialogue quickly, themes that are easy to use and most importantly familiar.

You're saying why follow the trend? The old saying comes to mind, in Rome, do as the Romans do. Similarly, on the net, if people find liking pictures or content familiar and convenient, why not do the same with forums? You're a) lessening the complication, b) giving people what they want, and c) encouraging a easy, friendly environment for the community to thrive and grow. People always tell me that my main forum is complicated, so I try to envision what would make things easier for people, and many of the accepted trends we see online today do that. They've been thought of and should be used, i.e. using font-awesome, using WYSIWYG editors, using like buttons, modals instead of popups.

And here I have been trying to get everyone to step out of the comfort-zone and make innovative themes the last few years.. :P :)

TBH I don't feel my themes lately are following current trends in SMF themes - but they do look a bit similar to each other though. I think thats more to do with my current taste/interest more than anything else lol.

Quote from: Diego Andrés on August 24, 2015, 11:02:14 AM
Also the theme site is not following any particular trend, theme authors submit their own styled themes.
Usually themes are inspired or based on some other themes, but also it is not weird to see new stuff coming out.

But yeah, themers activity has decreased a lot on this year. I want to believe that it's because the responsive thing scared some authors and that in 2.1 we will have a huge activity on this area.

Well, thats the opposite of my impression of the theme site. No-one dares to try alternative layouts anymore.

And I fail really to see why responsive css would suddenly attract theme authors? If anything, its even more to keep tabs upon. Not only creating something new out of a massive index.css file - but you have to make it work responsively too. The 2.1 doesn't do that for you if you plan to step out of the default theme's css. And IMO, theres every need to do that if you want freedom to do what you want.

So my guess is continued color variations on 2.1 too.

Antes

well because Curve2 doesn't have a CSS Framework. We are not adding extra code to support things.

Diego Andrés

That's up to theme authors creativity...
If they want to get involved into designing or programming some stuff, they also have to learn how to solve problems. Most of theme designers started with a curve variation and with some practice the themes became attractive and different from curve.

I thing that everyone can do great themes, but they have to learn first. So I hope I won't be the only one submitting different type of themes when 2.1 come out so people can forget that five years ago, all themes were practically the same curve variation.

And Curve 2 is already responsive, so I meant that themers can also figure out how to use all curve2 is offering, if they don't like it, they can use any other framework or write their own responsive utilities.

SMF Tricks - Free & Premium Responsive Themes for SMF.

Bloc

Quote from: Antes on August 24, 2015, 05:44:50 PM
well because Curve2 doesn't have a CSS Framework. We are not adding extra code to support things.
I am not against that, I favor a CSS framework of own making.

But I have to ask: why are you adding a potentially big chunck of code to use JQuery - but not even consider a CSS framework?

Antechinus

Practicality. A lot of mods were using jQuery anyway, and it was causing problems due to mods not checking if themes or other mods were calling jQ first, and also due to mods frequently calling out of date versions of jQ as well as not checking for other mods calling any version at all. The whole thing was getting to be a pig's breakfast. ::)

So, since a javascript library that allowed easy development and use of plugins was what people seemed to want, and since a very good menu system was available for jQ (tested on just about everything imaginable and offering far better accessibility than pure CSS menus) it was decided that what the heck, let's make jQ default. Saves a lot of bother. It's even cached by most browsers already, since so many sites call it from Google CDN.

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