Can't locate themes now

[anomie]

Did the forum themes get (re)moved? I can't seem to find 'em at the moment, and I know I had one set earlier.

[kienjakenobi]

It seems that all but the default system theme have been disabled for users. Unfortunately, this move was not added to the change log, so hopefully this means the change was intended to be temporary.

It would be a nuisance to have too many themes because they would need to be maintained. We do quite a bit of behind-the-scenes edits to the themes, so keeping many themes over time would create a time-consuming maintenance game. Carpetsmoker points out that the default theme at BSDForums.org never seemed to bother anyone, but then again, Dinesh's inactivity made certain that complaints would fall on deaf ears.

Ultimately, our only choice of themes are here: vBulletin.org. Yes, there are many more themes for vBulletin, many of them nice-looking, but I highly doubt any of them run with 3.7.0, which is the five-day-old version of vBulletin with GUI abilities incompatible with themes made for any previous versions.

Finally, vermaden has been away for nearly a week now (He should be back Monday), so we do not know what his input on the matter is. However, it is our hope to eventually create a custom DaemonForums theme that will become the default theme.

[anomie]

Ok, thanks for the info.

FWIW, I thought the 'Curves' theme looked fantastic! Clean and aesthetically pleasing. (That's what I had mine set to earlier.)

[kienjakenobi]

Thanks for letting us know. I will certainly take that into consideration. I thought the Curves style looked royally ugly, so this shows that everyone will not be pleased with the same style. Carpetsmoker has yet to like a single theme that I do.

[ephemera]

i had chosen curves too

[Carpetsmoker]

The problem is that I've updated/improved the default template in various places, no big changes so far, but sometime "soon"™ there will be larger changes, for example one of the things I'm working on is integrating the "Guides" forum with a wiki.

Having 4 different styles basically means 4 times as much work updating them.

One problem that has already crept up is that curves and clean blue don't display a "Thanks button".

It is possible inherit templates from the default style, none of the styles use this feature, probably because the designers didn't really know what they were doing...

In any case, I don't see what's wrong with the default style? This is what BSDForums used, just with slightly different colors...

[anomie]

Originally Posted by Carpetsmoker

In any case, I don't see what's wrong with the default style? This is what BSDForums used, just with slightly different colors...

I can't speak for others, but IMO perhaps some nicer colors would go a long way. Metallic blue on gray on light-metallic-blue-gray seems really drab to me.

As mentioned, though, everyone has different tastes.

[kienjakenobi]

Originally Posted by anomie

perhaps some nicer colors would go a long way

Yes, we can change the colors fairly easily.

Originally Posted by Carpetsmoker

One problem that has already crept up is that curves and clean blue don't display a "Thanks button".

This is rather easy to fix. Just create a thanks button in an image editor and then save the image in ftp://daemonforums.org/<curves>/buttons/post_thanks.gif

That should instantly put a "Thanks" button in the right place.

However, in the end, I think it would be nice to maintain two themes. Yes, that creates double the work, but I will gladly aid in maintaining them. Once there are more options for vBulletin 3.7.0 themes, we could install several, let people try them for a while, and then create a poll to see which theme (Other than the default) we should keep.

That, however, might be some time into the future. As stated, our selection of free themes is rather limited right now.

[Carpetsmoker]

I can't speak for others, but IMO perhaps some nicer colors would go a long way. Metallic blue on gray on light-metallic-blue-gray seems really drab to me.

Ok, make a colorset and I'll enable it...

[anomie]

Originally Posted by Carpetsmoker

Ok, make a colorset and I'll enable it...

Thanks for the offer. I'll look into this some more and try to determine whether I am skilled enough to actually make something pretty. (TBH, I really don't know the vBulletin app. I was hoping it'd be trivial to change colors.)

[Carpetsmoker]

I was hoping it'd be trivial to change colors.

It's not that hard, it has a nice GUI and everything, but it is a bit time-consuming.
In any case, I have a "development version" of these forums set up to test and experiment with, I can give you (Or anyone else) the password if you want to play around, PM or e-mail me.

TBH, I really don't know the vBulletin app

Until a week ago I didn't either