So much Themes for blogs, only a few for the whole CS

I've been searching for some good-looking skins but I've found only a few options:

• 
  
• Aero (NB Development) a bit heavy and difficult to make it work
  
• AeroCrystal (from the same)
• Iroha (now appears to be incompatible with 2.1)
  
• and the ones that come with the default install.

When will we have a richer catalog to choose OR MODIFY THEM to make more themes???

To be honest, I'm not at all convinced that its Telligent's responsibility to do these things.  They have a few 'classic' themes that are generic enough, they give you the ability through skins to make your own.  I don't think it's in Telligent's interest to be spending time on making specialised themes - I'd much rather see continual improvement to CS's functionality.

So really, you have a few choices:

• Develop your own themes, and it really isn't that difficult.
• Use one that's already developed, such as the Aero ones.
• Hire a company to do it for you.

I personally think CS has a nice balance right now.

Cheers,

Paul

The problem is that to make a good Theme you need to know both programming in ASP.NET and CSS (and of course, to know the structure of CS). I've tried to modify a Theme for myself and I don't know how to do lots of things.

If only there were complete guide to skinning or more people involved in creating them...

We're right that Telligent has no responsability to do these things, but I think you would agree me when I say that a strong Theme catalog would be a powerful feature to atract users. Hiring a company for skinning is a cost to add. In other communities like Opera, Mozilla o Winamp, users do their own themes. Here at CS it does not consirably happen. In my oppinion it is for:

• Complex skinning mechanism
  
• No documentation (only a short approach)
• Users that did some interesting themes that don't release to the public. People learn from people. If I see a nice Theme, I try to learn how was is done

Well, I think that sharing a bit more would be great. For example, Telligent hasn't told me to make a Spanish Language Pack, but I'm developing it and have the intention to release publicly. Want more? My application to manage photo galleries for the Windows Mobile platform.

I would like to see movement here, please. If somebody has some idea about skinning, please, show it to the scene.

Thank you.

I don't know how much help it's going to turn out to be, but I'm in the process of documenting my journey into the world of re-theming community server 2.x.  It's going to be rather slow going, as I work full-time, am a student full-time (starting up again in a few weeks), a single parent full-time, and horrible at documentation. 

 But this is what I'm trying to accomplish...

 I want to create a complete theme, XHTML and CSS Standards Compliant (XHTML-strict if I can manage it), that relies heavily on CSS so that completely changing the look of the app could be accomplished through CSS only.  Each step of the process will be documented on my blog, and I will try to add a little something every day.

However, I am not an expert on CS 2.x.  In fact, aside from the manual installs, I've not peeked under the hood much.  So this will be a learning experience for me.  As far as credentials go, I'm not an expert graphics designer, CSS designer, .NET developer, or Usability expert, but I think I am enough of all four to lay a good foundation for other people to build upon.

My Blog will be maintained here : http://jasonpbrown.com/blogs/the_brown_report/default.aspx

Here is the groundwork for one of the designs I'll be trying to convert into a theme, so you can play around with what I mean by CSS design : http://sigmapiumsl.org/dev (this design may change significantly yet)

To get a more thorough idea of what I intend to accomplish by relying soley on CSS for design, check out http://csszengarden.com

Ultimately, I'd love to provide one or more CS 2.x themes, but then offer up "stylesheet packs" for each one that radically change the design and layout of that theme.

 

Wish me luck!

Jason

 

 

SuperJMN, I accept most what you're saying, you're quite right.

Telligent doesn't make it easy to do skinning, the documentation for it is quite poor.  That only means however, than you need to do more knife and forking where css classes are used and what note.

 I still think though, it's not up to Telligent to provide more skins.  However, perhaps that should do a competition, i.e.:

$10,000 to the best skin, and some free enterprise licences to the runners up.  Entry requirements are all skins must be fully public and reusable.  That way, Telligent can inject a little life into the skin making community, while themselves not taking responsibility.

Thoughts?

 

deadlyviper, that's just what I've been thinking about while I was coming home

As well as there was a Module Contest, we might have a Theme Contest. The prizes? I think the Telligent boys have it easy to give some free license or some cash.

It would be great for everybody here, at CS. We have a really powerful tool to beat other web-based communities. I voted for CS amonst them installing and running it. As a programmer I see all the professional work here and the ground-breaking technology and design it has, a mile far from other alternatives. That's why I have a "Powered by CommunityServer 2.1" logo made by me in my website and try to collaborate in several ways. Let's get this project and take it to the place it should be

If you check out the Daily CS News, you'll see that there was mention of version 2.2 being dedicated making the skinning much easier.

See the following thread for more info:  http://communityserver.org/forums/thread/537591.aspx

 

Yeah, I was just looking at that.  Makes me wonder whether or not it is worthwhile for me to document the process of retheming CS as is.  I wonder that the proposed timetable is.  6mos?