Is there any downside to having more than one theme?

[Kelleytoons]

So I'm about to go public with my forum for old people - old people (like myself) are VERY picky and demanding (just in case you hadn't realized.  Honestly, I'm a pain in the lime).  So trying to please them all is... impossible.

But trying to please as many as possible is... possible.  Is there any downside towards having, say, three or four themes they can choose from?  It seems to me when I switch between the theme *I* like and the regular boring default theme that nothing of content changes.  As an admin other than the usual sort of things for themes (like making the logo your own) is there any extra maintenance I'll have to consider?

[nixer55]

A big one I can think of - maintenance.

Changes / upgrades to the MyBB core can effect theme template css.  Happens frequently - and why you should ensure custom themes are upgraded as MyBB versions are released.  Might take a little work - might take a lot - lol.

[Matt]

Yes, as above, if a new update changes a template, if a theme has come packaged with an older version of that template, changes may need to be applied to it so it's in sync with the new version. That's essentially what the authorization mismatch error is caused by, themes coming with outdated templates which aren't fully compatible with the underlying codebase any more.

Other than that, there's no inherent drawback to having multiple themes.

[Kelleytoons]

Okay, that sounds reasonable. And a theme that is current now (that is, updated for the very latest MyBB as of today) is most likely not going to be horrendous to maintain until and unless MyBB makes a MAJOR change, right?

The folks pushing for this can, I guess, do the maintenance. (It's my other admin in particular). I'd kind of like him to try and understand the effort anyway <g>.

[Matt]

Theoretically yes. If a theme is newly updated it should be fine and ongoing maintenance should be low. The issues come when a theme hasn't been updated for 2 years or something and is way out of sync. We're not planning on many more updates to 1.8.x as we're hoping to push for 1.9 which has an all new theme (don't worry, you won't be forced to update anything straight away!) so hopefully won't be too many changes to have to apply anyway.