Watch Me Sink
Madly Diligent
Looks like a mixture of barf and solid waste. Perhaps a sewage problem?
"The theme is overused!"
- Thread starter David
- Start date
Watch Me Sink
Madly Diligent
Actually the person that made that theme (Runic Warrior) has made a ton of themes, many great looking and professional ones too. It was a joke.
Well the theme that I use for my forum is clean, professional and very easy on the eyes. None of my members have complained about it. The same goes with the banner. I was told that it wasn't striking enough, while I hate large and heavy banners myself.
However I got ripped to pieces in a review of my board for. http://hortorian.com/forums
I love the theme, but apparently it is ''overused''. I have to agree though, the Afresh series are by far the most popular MyBB themes.
However I got ripped to pieces in a review of my board for. http://hortorian.com/forums
I love the theme, but apparently it is ''overused''. I have to agree though, the Afresh series are by far the most popular MyBB themes.
Black Angel
Resident
Although I agree that content is much more important than appearance, there is one surefire way to avoid hearing the "overused skin/theme" complaint..
Make your own skins, for use on your forum only.
Otherwise, if you use a pre-made then yeah, you run the risk of hearing that..
Make your own skins, for use on your forum only.
Otherwise, if you use a pre-made then yeah, you run the risk of hearing that..
I personally don't have the time the make a fully custom skin myself. What I did was I searched for a really good pre-made skin and make tweaks as needed. I have only encountered one other board that uses a similar skin, but I am sure there are more.
Kirisute Gomen said:
Oh thank goodness 🙂
...I actually started work on my custom skin for when we move and it was actually pretty easy to do. Took me 5 or 6 hours to get the majority of it done, pretty much all you have to do is browse existing themes, download the one closest in form to what you want, then replace the images with ones you do and go in and tweak the colours. you don't even need to change the coding. If you're like me, you wouldn't dare. XD
At the end it comes out looking almost entirely like a complete new theme.
Black Angel
Resident
dotDavid said:
I know that you don't need to hear that, and really when you think about it, the complaint, in and of itself, is idiotic.. because what do people expect with a pre-made theme anyway? If you thought the theme you wanted to use was hot, and therefore chose to use it, then chances are, so have the next 100 or so people before and after you. The only other option here, would be if you went to a designer and had them make a theme for you, but you still run the same risk because you will never know if they would release that custom theme to someone else. (especially if there was money involved which I have seen happen.)
Not only that, I don't even think that that be an option for those using phpbb as every skin I've seen on the phpbb forums I've been to, have all been pre-mades and skins that I have seen on many others before. I have used PHPBB before as an admin, when I was looking for better alternatives to Proboards, and before using IF. I did not like how complicated it was, in that, you had to go through all of these extra steps just to make, and change a skin, when all I had to do in PB or IF was edit the css directly, use the images I made for the skin and then save the changed.
I have never used MYBB, and so, I have no idea about what it takes to change, or make skins for a MYBB forum.Then again, I don't intend on using it, as I plan on staying with IPB, and so, I have even less of a reason to try MYBB.
The point here, is that you cannot please everybody, and in the end, a forums content is more important than its' appearance, and if the admin sticks with it, and puts in the effort and hard work, then that will shine through eventually. You can only be amazed by a cool skin for so long before it gets old.. that is why an admin needs to have content, and not rely on a good skin to bring members and activity.
Expired Account
Seasoned Veteran
As long as the skin looks good, I wouldn´t care if it was overused.
Okay, sorry to bump up an old topic, but I feel it's necessary. We're getting complaints about the theme we're using right now (Absolution) and I love this theme. I know it's used on a lot of forums, but I also know you can't please everyone. Now, I don't know if this has to do with me taking complaints seriously, but I just feel that this one is out of porportion. I know the theme should be changed, but I'm not ready to change it yet. I've put a bug in my co-worker's ear, but he doesn't want to go through the hassle of installing mods. People just don't seem to realize that there are loads of forums on the Internet, and if there's something they don't like about one site, they can just move on to another one. It's got me riled up, that's for sure.
el canadiano
Paragon
Black Angel said:
MyBB theming is a lot easier because you don't have to learn a proprietary language to run it. You just need (x)HTML/CSS talent.
Existence said:
Have you seen vBulletin? Many top level, professional forums use that theme, because its professional. When it comes to a point where they have more SE traffic than that others, theme isn't of high importance.
Hmm, I think this is related to your target audience. An audience of webmasters would hate poor themes because they will have seen them before and tend to be more picky. An audience of businessmen, though, would not necessarily care. If you audience is not composed of heavy forum users, it really doesn't matter.
XugoGaming
Acquaintance
I don't know, I feel like a forum loses some potential of finding its own identity simply by using a premade skin. Creating your own skin can be difficult, but if you are serious about designing a community I think it is well worth it.
Especially though if you have a main site, I can't tell you how annoyed I am to see a site with a forum that looks nothing like the site it is a part of, it makes them feel like entirely different web sites, which it should try and not do.
Especially though if you have a main site, I can't tell you how annoyed I am to see a site with a forum that looks nothing like the site it is a part of, it makes them feel like entirely different web sites, which it should try and not do.
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