MyBB Community Forums

The toplinks should be replaced anyways. Maybe I'll do that myself and choose better ones. Personally I dislike the default mybb toplinks and change them on all my sites.

Quote:One way you can make it better is color.

That would make it a different theme. It's not like I make one theme. I make dozens and they can't all look alike. There are only so many good color combinations. Have you ever seen one similar to this? Not that I believe this is the most optimal color combination but whenever you can make a unique color theme that's readable then I think it's an accomplishment.

I guess if the biggest complaint is the toplinks that's a good thing. As for the rating stars. Realize that because the forum bits are light (trow1,trow2) and the container is dark that having a star icon without pixels is near impossible. Shapes like a star will have problem pixels on the edges. I tried a few shapes and eventually settled on the current version as my best option.

There are limits built into MyBB. All my themes are pure CSS themes that require ZERO template changes. In one hand that makes my job easier but on the other it's harder because I have to do more in css for uniqueness. I am limited. I refuse to make template changes on most of my themes because it's often broken in updates and can screw up plugins.

I would rate this theme a 6/10. Not my best work but it's usable for the right person.

Maybe my philosophy is different than most designers. I believe in simplicity for design. Any webmaster will be adding their own uniqueness once it's installed. Things like their own banner, ads, and ficons. Once members start adding content, signatures, and avatars the site will visually "pop" imho. When you overdo the base then when you add these elements the forum can be visually noisy making it less appealing.

While I respect your thoughts about templates and the form of design, I have to say that that's not actually true, all designers beleive in simplicity (or they should, specially web designers). Though, there is a diference between blandness and simplicity. The fact that something is simple, doesn't mean it'll be good, nor viceversa. My point is that a nice simplicity is hard to achieve.

For one thing, MyBB is in no way simple. Neither is any other forum out there. Forums can never be simple because the home page is cluttered with, in MyBB's case, tables.

As with the color, I wasn't telling you to make it a whole new theme. I was only telling you that next time, try a better color scheme. I agree that color makes or breaks a design and I was saying that you should focus more on color schemes next time. Purple can only be pulled off by the top designers. I can't even make it work.

And making only CSS changes is what, I'm sorry, a noob would do. I know you are not of noob status. You're an excellent coder. But do the best Wordpress themes rely off of the default? No. They make it their own. They make it unique. This is not unique in any way because it resembles the default. It is lifeless.

Maybe you should go back to coding. You're extremely good at it and it's what got you to where you are. Coders can not be designers and designers can not be coders. There is too much of a mindset gap between the two. It just can't happen.

OMG..I typed out a long response to you computergeek67 and then accidentally closed my browser. Oh epic fail.

Short answer. I don't agree with just about everything you said.

Can I see the successful sites you created? I have had 3 that I used purple. One of my favorite colors.

People talk a lot of smack as if they know something and often they are just expressing their opinion which is based on their own failures. Until I see your success I don't care if you think I shouldn't design.

I design all my own sites and can show the great success stories to prove that I am accomplished not only as a coder but as a designer as well.

Quote: Coders can not be designers and designers can not be coders. There is too much of a mindset gap between the two. It just can't happen.

Says who? YOU? Add sysadmin to that "can't happen" because I do that too. Am I the best coder or the best designer? Absolutely not but I can certainly do enough of both to get by.

100% you don't have to like the design. I already know it's flaws but telling me to "go back to coding" is a bit insulting. Especially given I have had just as many years dabbling in graphics as I have coding. I will never be a top designer and heck...I don't even like to label myself a designer. But I have well rounded skills and vast knowledge.

I get the impression you think a website is all about design or coding. It's not there are many elements required in a successful site. You can do one thing really well but that won't make you a WebMaster. When I do MyBB designs I take a lot of things into consideration. From the coders perspective template changes are a severe problem. At Mybb Central 90% of the troubleshooting problems can be traced directly to custom templates. Why would I want to make things more difficult for end-users of my themes?

I could easily go to town and rebuild the templates. Would it surprise you to know I coded the postbits at WorldBeyBlade?

http://worldbeyblade.org/Thread-Beyblade...#pid211000

I did not design it but I coded it so it would not only work but it's cross browser and validates.

Quote:And making only CSS changes is what, I'm sorry, a noob would do.

And only a noob would be so shortsighted as to not think of the site success overall not just from a design perspective but from a coders viewpoint as well.

This site is only CSS changes too and it's gotten rave reviews from it's members.
http://www.leetcoders.org/

That's 100% my design.

Gurple isn't my best. But heck....I seen people use MUCH worse and have success.

I just took 10 minutes to view all your threads and designs. The first thing I noticed...I have NEVER commented on a single one of your designs. And I'll tell you why. They aren't that special. To me they are too similar to Afresh.

Your Majestic is nice. However I don't see where the very few header template changes you have made gives it a higher design status than my work without template changes. What's going to happen is a person will install a plugin and they won't understand why it didn't work. Most sites eventually make their own template changes anyways. I prefer to give them that freedom.

http://community.mybboard.net/attachment.php?aid=15428

The changes there are so minor anyways I don't even see the point it doing them.

Bah...my short response became longer than my original long one. It's a big angrier too. Sorry but you made some comments that didn't sit well with me.

Have a nice day and good luck on your designs.

(2009-11-06, 10:52 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]Maybe my philosophy is different than most designers. I believe in simplicity for design. Any webmaster will be adding their own uniqueness once it's installed. Things like their own banner, ads, and ficons. Once members start adding content, signatures, and avatars the site will visually "pop" imho. When you overdo the base then when you add these elements the forum can be visually noisy making it less appealing.

Actually, you'd be surprise how many of us really think like that, not long ago me and combus were talking about a minimalist design, that with little or no effort you could change it and make it your 'own'. As combus said, there is a fine line between minimalist and plain.

@Computergeek67 Also, I'm actually no coder to save my damn life, but I can code enough to make a MyBB theme, now that it's not my strong point, but it's not always the case in which a designer is not a coder, we do know a bit of coding, kay?

(2009-11-06, 11:30 PM)computergeek67 Wrote: [ -> ]Maybe you should go back to coding. You're extremely good at it and it's what got you to where you are. Coders can not be designers and designers can not be coders. There is too much of a mindset gap between the two. It just can't happen.

Not true at all, you're just beign reductionist. To show you an example, I know a guy who can make a MVC based Bulletin board, and managed to make the look very smooth and stylish. And what about UI engineers? They have to be able to conect the back-end with their front-end, and that's not only about HTML, CSS and some images. Even on this site you can find, for example Deadriot, who is a top level developer and designer.

Most coders need to deal with incorporating design elements. The opposite is not true or required. I have even seen amazing designers that can't code their own templates into basic xhtml.

It's rare that a coder doesn't have basic principles of layout and design. It's practically a requirement that any code written must utilize xhtml at some point.

Quote:Actually, you'd be surprise how many of us really think like that, not long ago me and combus were talking about a minimalist design, that with little or no effort you could change it and make it your 'own'.

That's to me important. Part of my problems with Afresh is that they are actually more difficult to make unique than any other design. The elements are so dependent on each other to fill the design. I rarely see anyone take Afresh and make it unique enough for their own purpose.

I'd like to think every design I make is intended more as a template (pun not intended) to base the site from. Given the css nature of the theme I think it's relatively easy to go in and make your own adjustments to header, footer, or postbit. The hard part is imho done and that's the buttons and a proper color scheme that works.

I also take the extra steps in my layouts by changing just about ever css element possible including textarea and popups. I leave no stone unturned to ensure the theme doesn't have any anomolies.

As an example let's just take the Mybboard community. It's NOT the default template. They took the default, made adjustments, and called it their own. They have yet to release it and I hope they never do. It's a perfect example of taking something simple or plain and spicing it up for your own use. Every admin imho should have that aim.

Don't like it, sorry.

Don't be sorry.

It seems like all your themes are the same. Maybe you should try expanding your design ability?