Can we see some other XenForo themes?

[Deepmartini]

This default theme is nice but hard to read. Where can we see some other color schemes? Can we make our own buttons? Is there an easy change color wheel tool we can use in the admin panel to make changes?

 

[anotheralias]

The bar with likes and trophies is a signature, its just the trend here at the moment.

OH. Thanks for the explanation! I thought it was part of the board software.... ahahaha, I'm so stupid.

 

[Lucas]

Do you find it easy enough to read?

It is easy to read, nothing bad about the reading atmosphere.

What we're seeing right now is, at best, a pre-alpha or very, very early beta release. I have no doubt the default theme will be changed and modified as XenForo gets closer and closer to 1.0.

I know the current status of the forum software. Yet, it seems like it's pretty much going this way though, as there's way too many little details being worked on which I believe it could be a pain to be modifying later on.

Can you explain particularly what you feel doesn't fit?

The colors in general and the theme, seems like it doesn't have some strong colors, everything feels too light and bright. The logo doesn't really have an impact, the header looks a little small, and well, the colors are all too light and it feels like it's too wide open whenever you're browsing it.

But that's just me.

 

[anotheralias]

But, I think you're thinking like an admin - not like someone who's going to post on the board. Your average board member doesn't really give a damn about the snappy logo or the eye-popping color scheme - beyond whether they can read the posts, anyway - they care whether there are a lot of people posting. Because that's what makes a community a community - lots of people posting. No amount of fancyass styling is going to make up for a lack of activity.

Over the last few years it's been more about the appearance rather than the user experience. And that has resulted in a lot of really gorgeous boards that are no fun at all to use.

 

[gordy]

But, I think you're thinking like an admin - not like someone who's going to post on the board. Your average board member doesn't really give a damn about the snappy logo or the eye-popping color scheme - beyond whether they can read the posts, anyway - they care whether there are a lot of people posting. Because that's what makes a community a community - lots of people posting. No amount of fancyass styling is going to make up for a lack of activity.

Over the last few years it's been more about the appearance rather than the user experience. And that has resulted in a lot of really gorgeous boards that are no fun at all to use.

Very, very true! Please leave all the gawdy, tacky skins and themes to the after market crowd.

What I see now is clean and concise the non-content stuff is minimal and subtle and not detracting from the posts/content.

Less is more

 

[Nick]

The only qualm I can foresee, especially from many of my members, is that the plain white background is too bright for lengthy reading sessions.

Other than that, I love the style.

 

[Paul B]

The only qualm I can foresee, especially from many of my members, is that the plain white background is too bright for lengthy reading sessions.

[pedant_mode]It's actually #FCFCFF [/pedant_mode]

I know what you mean though, my forum has an off white/light grey background so this takes some getting used to.

 

[Kier]

[pedant_mode]It's actually #FCFCFF [/pedant_mode]

Which makes the pure white input boxes (subtly) stand out

 

[Mark.B]

This default theme is nice but hard to read.

Hard to read?

It's the most easy to read, easy-on-the-eye, aesthetically pleasing theme I've yet seen on a forum.

 

[Mark.B]

Which makes the pure white input boxes (subtly) stand out

Heh. This is one of those "OMG yes" moments, in that you realise you knew it was happening but weren't actually aware. There's lots like that on here, which is one of the things that makes it everything that a certain other piece of software isn't, but used to be.

 

[Lucas]

But, I think you're thinking like an admin - not like someone who's going to post on the board. Your average board member doesn't really give a damn about the snappy logo or the eye-popping color scheme - beyond whether they can read the posts, anyway - they care whether there are a lot of people posting. Because that's what makes a community a community - lots of people posting. No amount of fancyass styling is going to make up for a lack of activity.

Over the last few years it's been more about the appearance rather than the user experience. And that has resulted in a lot of really gorgeous boards that are no fun at all to use.

I guess you're right, but having an attractive color scheme will allow you to stay browsing for longer.

 

[anotheralias]

I guess you're right, but having an attractive color scheme will allow you to stay browsing for longer.

I think that being easy on the eyes is the key factor. More so than prettiness. If a board gives me an eyestrain headache, I'm going to limit my time on it.

 

[James]

I'd much rather Kier and Mike focus on the actual forum programming than the styles (as much as I'd love to see the templates at use). I find most official forum homepages use a default style to show a raw version of the product.

Just to answer someone's question earlier, the buttons can be changed by changing the class of "button".

On an off-topic note; I like the use of the "primary" class for the blue buttons

 

[goyo]

It comes down to everyone's personal taste...I like the style but for me Georgia/Times type of fonts harder to read compared to Calibri or similar. Of course OSX font rendering is different and I'm a Windows user.

 

[MordyT]

I want to see more styles, mostly just to see what XF is capable of...
Not just color changes, but style changes.... moving stuff around, etc.

 

[gordy]

Widgets, FTW

 

[Kier]

I want to see more styles, mostly just to see what XF is capable of...
Not just color changes, but style changes.... moving stuff around, etc.

Open up Firebug and you can play to your heart's content.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

Open up Firebug and you can play to your heart's content.

Ha... that cracked me up.

 

[Forsaken]

But, I think you're thinking like an admin - not like someone who's going to post on the board. Your average board member doesn't really give a damn about the snappy logo or the eye-popping color scheme - beyond whether they can read the posts, anyway - they care whether there are a lot of people posting. Because that's what makes a community a community - lots of people posting. No amount of fancyass styling is going to make up for a lack of activity.

Over the last few years it's been more about the appearance rather than the user experience. And that has resulted in a lot of really gorgeous boards that are no fun at all to use.

This works both ways; If the design causes problems (To bright, to dark, to bland), members are likely to drop in their activity on the site.

 

[anotheralias]

This works both ways; If the design causes problems (To bright, to dark, to bland), members are likely to drop in their activity on the site.

I think we're talking about two different things here - usability vs. eye candy. I have seen plenty of boards sacrifice "usability" for "eye candy," because the designers believe that people won't mind being half-blind on their site so long as their graphics are catchy enough. (One site I belong to right now has a pitch-black postbit and red links, which is just godawful on a glossy monitor.)

So just to address usability - I'm assuming that after you buy the software, you can easily create a few different styles for the nitty-gritty things that matter: postbit color and font type. I do prefer a way less-bright background myself, like around #CCCCCC, and I'm very fond of verdana - so I'd make a #cccccc/verdana style, and then a range of brights/fonts for everyone to choose from.

 

[Tigratrus]

The thing about XF, is that the basic toolset/infrastructure makes it unbelievably easy to skin.

Mark my words: There will an incredible profusion of skins/themes (what are we going to call them btw? As the early users we get to make that call yes?) for XF. jQuery + CSS is an incredibly potent combo for design/layout, once the 3rd party skin/theme (I think I like theme better, less gruesome collateral images ) designers get rolling they are going to knock your socks off with options.