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public appeal to a community quest? theme'ing 2.1

Started by drewactual, July 25, 2019, 01:16:04 AM

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drewactual

i just plopped a copy of 2.1 on an empty domain that is out for redesign... and started carving.  carving the curve, maybe i ought to have named this thread that instead...

i won't be leaving it there, but i may move it to domain purposed purposed for this if this idea takes off.

my main site is https://www.cfb51.com
the 2.1 site is part of the family, a statistics machine (or soon will be) at https://www.cfb51-trivia.com

if you look at both you'll see my direction, and i have a long way to go... but... it's just my direction. 

i was thinking, with all this chatter about curve2 and UI's, and folks talking about carving it up- and while we await more theme's to come along, that perhaps we can get a community involvement in altering to see what the greater community thinks UI should be about? 

I'll offer up access to this site to those i know around here, and allow users to choose whatever theme they want (right now it's just default and cfb51, which is a virgin copy of default not the other way around).  you can hang attachments off a thread and i can collect them and install them... if you change files you can hang them too, and i'll update.

the point is to stay out of source files completely- JUST theme files...

for those who don't code up the themes, perhaps a request by description to see how something looks or functions?

it would be kinda nice to see live themes you can interact with.... and that is the point...

any interest?


Sir Osis of Liver

When I get around to it I'll attach some files I've modded so you can take a look at what I've been tinkering with.  I'll pm account info so you can login and look around.  At some point I'll post some info about what I'm doing, maybe we can trade ideas.  Going offline shortly, it's 0130 here, can barely see, and I still have some crap to do.
Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend,
 we were all equal in the end.

                                     - R. Waters

Skhilled

Hi, I really like your concept on the theme you have! It's different and I like things that are different. LOL The icons on the right side of the boards, an image over the login/sign-up links, the menu icons...great job!

I'm the current coding admin for the Crip Zone. Since the former coders/devs have passed on and Crip/Jeff was a good friend, I've decided to host his site on my server and keep his themes updated to keep his dream alive. I've really just started getting deeply into this since 2.1 was announced. Trust me, I'm not a great coder by any means! LOL The former dev for the site has passed on, Maxx. Yes, he was a pita for a lot of people but he would be the first to try and help someone and Ive learn quite a bit from him and a few other people to which I'm grateful.

I plan to add a lot of new things to the themes to make them more user-friendly and interactive so I'm very curious to see how this pans out. Keep up the good work! :)

drewactual

#3
i'm trying to use a similar theme for the entire family of sites... check out https//www.cfb51-line.com/forum, which is more developed than cfb51-trivia, but same basic concept.. it demonstrates some WP integration (outside loop includes) which is crucial to that sites success... both trivia and LINE are 2.1, while cfb51.com is 2.0.15.. like i said, trying to keep them similar enough the user experience is familiar across the family of sites.

thank you for the compliments!!!

the random images at the top, and the lack of random image on boards is the only real change- along with the same concepts being used for the right column and top image (above the random one) changing dependent on board... using css and sprites is something i didn't know 2.1 did, but that i implemented on 2.0.x... the page is decently fast and lightweight which is huge.  its' not that i'm in love with the design, it's that my users are familiar with it.... i was very happy to see the effort on 2.1's curve2 mobile, and see it's similarity with the mobile responsive effort i've put into 2.0.15's. 

you can log in under cfb-smf username, and cfb51-guest password to see the page as a user see's it (but can't post, which give me opportunity to experiment with 2.1's permissions)...

Antes

UI/UX these are not actually "community" thing... Its more towards specific communities and their needs. While Curve2 created UX in mind, its mostly to serve generic needs of the community. You cannot create a theme that satisfies the community, it always needs to satisfy your community.

This is why .../Core/Curve/Curve2/... was/is/will be lacking "things" that your community needs.

While it is very out-of-date now, you can still take a look at Lunarfall for parts that you like and import it to your theme.

Sir Osis of Liver

Using fixed background, you can reduce forum width to 85-90%, and make the #eee background semi-transparent, like this.  Nice effect, bg image is visible around and thru, dresses up the rather plain Curve2 board index.  Just have to look out for text links that may not contrast enough over semi-trans #eee, and extend the bg image vertically so it's not cut off in portrait view.
Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend,
 we were all equal in the end.

                                     - R. Waters

drewactual

Quote from: Sir Osis of Liver on August 04, 2019, 05:38:36 PM
Using fixed background, you can reduce forum width to 85-90%, and make the #eee background semi-transparent, like this.  Nice effect, bg image is visible around and thru, dresses up the rather plain Curve2 board index.  Just have to look out for text links that may not contrast enough over semi-trans #eee, and extend the bg image vertically so it's not cut off in portrait view.


very easy to implement, and looks great... absolutely sets the place as unique and just the simple and effective thing i was thinking about when i started this thread... it's NOT to 'overhaul' the curve2, it's to do really simple but effective things other users could implement with ease and not a lot of skill, and really make a place different.... and without errors caused by templates. 

for others, the changes to achieve what Sir Osis did can be done at the end of your stylesheet- overwriting what has already been called but easily reverted by simply removing it... it would be something like:

body {
         background: url(the image url);
         background-size: cover;
         background-repeat: no-repeat;
         background-attachment: fixed;
        }
#wrapper {
         width:90%;
        }



thanks for playing along, Sir Osis, 

i could look it up, but.. is the suds background on body or wrapper?  is the main content the one held to 90%ish? 

that is a trick i used to use on sites, and then set the inner part (such as main-content) with a background opacity, making it look something like a plastic wrap or something.. i did it with a site that sold gift baskets.. worked out well, except opacity back then was pretty costly to processors.... 

Sir Osis of Liver

A quick take in Curve2 here.



body {
background: url(../images/hudf1200b.jpg) fixed;
font: 83.33%/150% "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", "Nimbus Sans L", Arial, "Liberation Sans", sans-serif;
color: #4d4d4d;
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
min-height: 100vh;
}

#wrapper {
width: 90%;
clear: both;
background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5);
border: 1px solid #b8b8b8;
border-radius: 8px;
box-shadow: 0 2px 3px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.14);
}



Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend,
 we were all equal in the end.

                                     - R. Waters

drewactual

for some reason there is a contingent of folks here that don't like this mentioned, but... using php includes in the themes makes sense to me as it splits the files out to easier managed/implemented. 

if there is any interest, you can check out https://www.cfb51.com (for a 2.0.15 look-n-see) or https://www.cfb51-line.com/forum (for a 2.1RC2 look-n-see).  using includes you can entwine WP or any other outside page into layout- and so long as you 'include' instead of 'require', if it fails? it doesn't break anything. 

the ONLY thing i've done on cfb51-LINE's rc2 is put some padding between posts via css (seen on thread index's)... the include's can run conditionally, too- looking at cfb51.com (2.0.15) where visitors have access, you can see the big image disappears on some boards, and the top banner image changes along with the side block image... all using if, elseif, and then statements and all via includes stored outside SMF.

it's a clean way to dress SMF up and make it personal, all with very little manipulating of default templates.

Kindred

no,. you can't do that quite as simply as you claim....

trying to include wp files in SMF or SMF files in WP will cause issues as there happen to be some variable collisions.
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Arantor

There used to be fatal errors from doing it, too (that using include won't save you from)

Honestly I never found it that much work to just port a WP theme to SMF so they looked the same but without any of the drama of trying to mesh two systems that have never played nicely together.

Or, just use SMF with a portal (evil grin)

Skhilled

Unfortunately, there no longer any integrations for SMF+WP. I do understand the need for a blog and play with WP myself from time to time. Maybe one day there will be an integration of sorts with some blog, doesn't have to be WP. Using a portal is cool but just not the same. Don't get me wrong, I love portals and have been a beta tester for TinyPortal for many years and have played with other portals on occasion.

I have recently played with transparency for backgrounds, etc. recently and have plans to maybe add something like that (as well as other things) into the Crip Zone themes in the future. ;) Atm, I'm learning a lot and having fun doing it as I make many mistakes along the way. LOL

drewactual

i don't port anything to WP from SMF... and all i port to SMF from WP are some articles and/or some products.  It's done from outside the loop.  it has NEVER caused any errors and has functioned without flaw for more than 3 years pulling in and displaying the articles thumbnail and the title (permalink).  I could have, and did have, it display the first 80 characters of the post... not once has it failed. 

insofar as style between them- they simply 'look' alike- they aren't adjoined in any way... except they both rely on the same includes in some instances, and i did that just for simplicity. 

but even said, the attention for this thread wasn't and isn't WP and i wish i hadn't interjected it... it was to explain that a couple smart and clean php includes can dramatically change the appearance of SMF and not be based on any SMF template (well, very little changes to the index.template) to achieve some pretty slick features.  random/rotating images as an example... conditional images (there or not, or specific to a board)... ad placement conditional w/o altering boardindex or display...

i ain't trying to do anything but share what little i know to return the help others here have extended.  that's all. 

Skhilled

Well, I do like what you've done so far! Keep up the good work! After the dust settles and I get settled in I plan to show off some new things as well. Currently, I'm a bit busy helping someone upgrade their forum from 1.1.x to the current version as well as upgrade the theme they are using so it works with the upgraded forum...tough work! LOL

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