Suggest Styles For Me To Make

I don't want to say I'm running out of ideas but I could use some suggestions. Coming up with styles named Long, Hair Don't Kier (coming soon) and If It Ain't White, It Ain't Mike (also coming soon) is pretty ridiculous. If you don't have any ideas but see a non-xenforo website whose color scheme you like suggest it here and I might whip up a basic imitation of it.

I have 2 for you

1) An IPB copy (of the 3.1 or 2.x look, not the current 3.2 / 3.3)

* 2) http://xenforo.com/community/threads/paid-request-public-release-style-phpbb-to-xenforo.29475/

* #2 will surely test your skills

What's the first one look like?

2nd one is a colorizer? I'm not a coder/programmer etc.

Ignore the larger than life logo (not my doing)

http://www.bbqsource-forums.com/invboard/index.php

I like that board's color scheme.

I've got to update all my skins with node icons as sprites first.

It's the default IPB 3.1 theme.

I helped release (update) it for vBulletin, but I'm still trying to learn skinning for XF.

That's not something I suspect you'll be able to do with just color changes (I don't think). Some photos will be needed as well. Would be interesting if you could do it.

I'm not trying to make a site exactly match another site. That would call for template edits and css changes. My goal is to make a ridiculous amount of skins in a short amount of time. I also try to make them easier to update for whenever a new version of xenforo is released.

To achieve this:

1. I use shortcuts such as Colorzilla Firefox addon to list the html color codes from that site.

2. If I want a gradient I go to Dynamic Drive's website and create one.

3. For future and existing skins I now use Shelly's PSD files for sprite node icons (I was doing it wrong so now I gotta update)

4. and for the style path's I now use the same folder for all skins (yourforum/styles/qapla)

5. I try not to touch the templates so that noobs don't get confused when they need to revert something.

A lot of times I just improvise or add something I like. There are some skins I've made that I don't like but I post em anyway cause my tastes aren't the same as everyones. Plus if someone doesn't like something in a skin they can always change it.

You could always develop your own framework ...ie ... templates outside of the XenForo templates so that upgrading will not an an issue.

I'm not a coder/programmer etc.

I'm still interested to see what you come up with.

A style built using HTML5 widgets that gets away from the typical table look of nearly all forums.

World of Warcraft.

StarCraft II Theme(Some examples can be found here: http://blog.templatemonster.com/2010/07/29/free-wordpress-3-0-theme-starcraft-2/ and http://www.awesomestyles.com/phpbb3-styles/view/starcraft2 but you might want to make sure you are ready to update it for Heart of the Swarm as they are all on Wings of Liberty for now, mostly because HOTS is not out yet.)

Tech Theme(Something with binary or just an overall nice theme that can be related to a tech site.)

Something that I could use for a comic forum - but not with images of comic super heroes. Just playin' around with colors, speech bubbles, pencil and stuff like that.

Thanks for the style suggestions. I'll work on them after I'm done updating my old styles. One of the reasons why I'm releasing free themes is because as a vBulletin 4 owner, I have a lot of friends who also own vBulletin sites. When I tell them about xenforo they aren't too keen in switching over because they think it's just a fad. Xenforo still lacks some basic features. I think that for XenForo to succeed in winning over new customers, XenForo must exceed in several areas. Right now we know the obvious ones like speed, SEO, an intuitive front end and back end but the modding community and skin community pales in comparison to vBulletin because XenForo is still very new. So I'm just gonna make a lot of skins freely available and try to keep them updated as much as I can with as little edits as possible as well as add whatever cool template modification resources I can think of.

I also regret jumping on the XenForo bandwagon so late. I'm also doing this to make up for lost time. I should've joined as soon as I heard about XenForo but due to the lawsuit stuff I didn't think it would last long. It was also because I didn't know of the developer's backgrounds. I didn't know they were part of what made vBulletin so awesome in the first place.

Hey I see some people complaining about my skins in the Twitter sphere:

https://twitter.com/#!/KW802/status/187997770483896320
https://twitter.com/#!/smackLAN/status/187995519270912000
https://twitter.com/#!/TheRevTastic/status/188008356164804608
https://twitter.com/#!/KW802/status/188003335050235904

In response to all those tweets I will agree that the paid and free sections should be separate.

Edit: Actually they are.

Yes I am like a kid that's very excited about a brand new toy even though it's not that new.

You think what I'm doing is bad, you should ask my members about it. I used to change themes all the time and some of them would get upset. I had to stop making themes on my site because it was blanking out the site (a xenforo problem that hasn't been fixed yet) and I got tired of trying to appeal to everyone's suggestions. Now that I've stuck with two themes only, I am free to make as many themes as I like with a xampp installation of xenforo.

So really, my new toy isn't just xenforo, it's really xenforo as my local xampp installation because now I can create as many themes as like with no limitations or complaints from my members since I am not creating the themes for them. I feel free. Freedom is a wonderful feeling. Once you get that whiff of freedom you don't care anymore. One of the things I won't care anymore about after reading your tweets is making template edits. I won't include anymore template edits in the themes I release including my own credit in the footer.

This is the only accommodation I'll make for people who think my themes look ugly. I personally don't think all of my themes are ugly, but I know some of them are. I've seen both ugly sites and ugly paid themes before, not calling out any names. If ugly is what people like and what people will pay for then ugly is what they'll get but at least it's free from me and with no one to credit for the ugliness but the person who installed it.

And like another tweeter said, I do agree about their complaint of having standards. I'm personally annoyed at myself for not including sprites as nodes for all of my themes so I will be updating all of my themes with sprites as nodes and even changing some of the few sprites as nodes that I did upload because the file size is too large and I didn't use the original photoshop templates that Shelly originally posted in the Resource manager. I did a rush job of that but I will correct my mistake and re-upload them. So if you're mad about me updating my resources then you will be mad again. Sorry about that.

Same old faces I see doing the griping, who would have thought? And just because your releasing FREE themes here for others to use, dear me!

lol

I seen a dude on myBB release tons of free themes. Because myBB forum software is free, I don't think most webmasters would've complained about it but because xenforo is a paid software, people expect higher standards and when you get 'expectations for higher standards' you also get drama.

Nobody can complain about the standard of free themes being offered, after all they "ARE FREE" to use, plus who say's they are Pro designers? Those people put a lot of work into them, then expect nothing back in return. Nobody has a right to moan about that, they should respect the fact they offer them freely for all to use. Different if your offering commercial paid themes, then you expect a standard from them. I wouldn't buy a theme of that SmackLan, it's not the first time I've read him moaning about people releasing free themes here, just miffed because he's trying to sell his own in direct competition against them.

Release another 100 free themes to upset them more... I would...