How customizable are the themes?

[Trekkan]

Right now, things look good here, but ultimately it's not how I want my site to look. =) So my question is, how much effort has been put into the customizing of the software? I would assume at the minimum it's fairly decent, but as with other products there always seems to be some reliance between themes, smileys, phrases, etc.

So I guess my question is, how much independence is there between themes? Personally, I'd like to see them fully independent, but... that might just be a dream.

 

[Kuma]

I would imagine that the entire set of templates and css can be customized if you are willing to put the effort into it.

 

[James]

The software is fully-phrased and as far as I am aware it is completely customisable, templates and CSS.

P.S: It was also hinted that the template system sanitises everything to prevent any XSS exploits.

Go ahead and try. XenForo's template system is highly resilient to accidental XSS, as you will see when we demonstrate its workings.

 

[Shamil]

Looking at the output, it doesn't look too complex to edit the styling, but also looking at the CSS files, it looks like it'll be easy to change colours in the very least, and produce nice styles.

 

[Trekkan]

What I was looking at (sorry to make a vB comparision) is that there, smilies and phrases, etc... are all static across themes. What I'm looking for is the ability to have all display elements within each theme. This would allow for a full customization between themes, and to the end user, it's just a couple clicks and the website can be fully themed for them. For instance I run a gaming guild and we play multiple games. I'd like for my members to have themes based on the games they are primarily playing. Right now, there are so many things that are tied to each other, this is a real pain.

 

[Shamil]

I don't think phrases will be style-dynamic, however, I'm sure smilies can be configured - as they can in vBulletin, if I'm correct - I've never done customisations at this level.

 

[Floris]

You're sure, if you are correct?
Nothing beats confirmation by the poster that he doesn't know anything about it, when he's contradicting himself, while confirming his doubts. lol

 

[Shamil]

You're sure, if you are correct?
Nothing beats confirmation by the poster that he doesn't know anything about it, when he's contradicting himself, while confirming his doubts. lol

I've seen it done before, though I've never done it myself. Apologies for the ambiguous statement.

 

[Trekkan]

I don't think phrases will be style-dynamic, however, I'm sure smilies can be configured - as they can in vBulletin, if I'm correct - I've never done customisations at this level.

I have confirmation from Mike in another thread that phrases aren't part of the theme. As for smilies and vB, they aren't separate. What happens is, you can use a variable in the image path which will point to different style folders. However, what if you want a smiley in one theme and not another? You can't. So you end up having pretty much the same stuff per theme. So while not completely impossible to do, it's not a very good way to do it. I'd just like to be able to setup different categories of smilies and then assign that category to a theme. And bam, problem solved (for smilies).

 

[Mike]

You can't have separate smilies per theme. How would that work? User Mike is using theme Ninja and Kier is using Pirate. What if I'm posting using smilies that don't exist in his set? I could see using different smilie images, but a whole different set?

 

[Kim]

IPB has the ability to have different sets of smilies, you can apply which smilie set you want per skin basis.... it can be an issue as Mike states, but so long as you have the common ones named the same it works well. It does give the opportunity to have a set for Dark themes and a set for light themes, a set for Xmas or other occassions etc... but the big key is consistent naming of them across sets otherwise you get lots of broken images everywhere, which is no fun at all.

 

[Been Told]

IPB has the ability to have different sets of smilies, you can apply which smilie set you want per skin basis.... it can be an issue as Mike states, but so long as you have the common ones named the same it works well. It does give the opportunity to have a set for Dark themes and a set for light themes, a set for Xmas or other occassions etc... but the big key is consistent naming of them across sets otherwise you get lots of broken images everywhere, which is no fun at all.

To be honest, I don't see the need for that anymore. Almost all the (almost 600) smilies on my biggest forum render fine in both dark and light themes.
And you're talking smilies that are not animated, you have PNG which renders fine on all backgrounds.
If done right, most smilies work fine on all backgrounds. Even animated gifs.
Unfortunately a lot of them are done by kids or amateurs though. However I see that problem less and less.

 

[feldon30]

How would that work?

Basically like a StyleVar. And you know how I hate to use that term here.

What if I'm posting using smilies that don't exist in his set?

It would be a broken image.

Not perfect, but some people might like this.

 

[DaKat]

Basically like a StyleVar.

Bite your tongue!

 

[feldon30]

Bite your tongue!

I know, right?

 

[DaKat]

I hope to never see anything remotely related to a "Stylevar" again!

 

[Forsaken]

I hope to never see anything remotely related to a "Stylevar" again!

Theres probably something similar in XenForo; I remember Kier posting on AdminAddict that the stylevar that was released for vB4 wasn't what he had planned, and there were many things that were left out that would have made it infinitely more usable.

 

[DaKat]

Well for crying out loud, let's not call them "StyleVars", ok? Makes me cringe just to hear that term!

 

[Been Told]

ThemeVars

 

[Trekkan]

You can't have separate smilies per theme. How would that work? User Mike is using theme Ninja and Kier is using Pirate. What if I'm posting using smilies that don't exist in his set? I could see using different smilie images, but a whole different set?

If it's not found, don't render it as a smiley image, but whatever "text" would normally be used in it's place. No broken image, etc. Again, it's not that big of a deal to me, so I'm not trying to make it one. =) I just think it's doable and would be nice if it was done.