family web page

Client Joined: Jan 03, 2007 Posts: 94

Hi everyone,

I have been searching for a suitable family web page theme. I have googled, searched, and looked at alot of sites but was just wondering if any of you have a referral site. I found a couple on allthemes site that I downloaded but figured I'd also ask in here.
Thanks in advance,
Express

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 2:38 pm

Try Jaded: http://www.jaded-designs.com/

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 6:45 pm

What is your criteria for a "suitable" theme? What is wrong with the themes that come with Ravennuke and particularly the compliant ones that are listed in our forums?

I am not trying to be difficult and I'd really like to understand what you are looking for since I do a lot of work on themes. There are a lot of themes out there that might look "spiffy" or appealing but behind the scenes they are generating a ton of compliance errors and slowing your page loads down correspondingly. At a minimum run any theme you are considering thru the w3c validator and reject anything that doesn't come out clean.

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 2:25 pm

There isn't anything wrong at all with the themes that come with RN. Part of it is that I am new to all of this and do not YET know how to perform any editing to the existing themes.
Also, just looking to expand my knowledge as to what may also be available.
Express

Site Admin/Owner Joined: Aug 27, 2002 Posts: 17088

I haven't (yet) tried this out but see this article and download the application http://www.ravenphpscripts.com/article-3146--0-0.html. Since it is written specifically for RavenNuke(tm) it might help you along Smile

. BTW, the size of the file is mostly due to the fact that Mike includes a copy of NotePad++.

Also, see http://www.ravenphpscripts.com/nukemanual-customization.html

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 4:43 pm

Hmm, interesting.

I have today downloaded a copy of AutoTheme lite, but I haven't had chance to try it out yet.

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 5:49 pm

Thanks for the links!
Express

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 6:25 pm

Arghh!! First let me say to Express that you are asking very logical questions. And doing very responsible research. Second, while I have looked at the Karakas documentation for years I didn't know it had that level of detail regarding themes. My bad.

Having said that, on a practical basis we have been headed away from the direction the documentation points to for at least the last release of Ravennuke. Basically we have been eliminating the use of separate html files and encompassing as much as possible in the theme.php file. Fisubice is the only theme left in Ravennuke that uses the old structure.

The reasons for this are two: 1. the eval function which is used to present the html files is inefficient and 2. (more important) the eval function makes it difficult, if not impossible to output constants and so-called runtime variables. I should probably add a third: less files = less maintenance and less fuss and bother.

If you want to see the differences just download a theme such as Nukenews in 2.02 and then download the 2.10.01 equivalent. Study the changes that were made. They weren't rocket science but they are interesting.

Then, getting back to your original question ... I would recommend that you stick to the compliant themes that were delivered with RN 2.10. If you want to use a different theme then run load it in a 2.10 test sytem and run it thru the w3c validator and learn to make the changes needed to make it compliant. There are plenty of posts about this subject to get you started. And feel free to contribute it back to the community when you have it working.

As to editing existing themes, that's a sore point with me. I just wiped out the customizations I had done on my so-called production site because I uploaded the files we are using internally for 2.20. Mainly these affect the headers ... almost exclusively they do. But we need to find a way in the theme architecture to hold people harmless from software upgrades when they've customized their sites. And to make it possible, for instance, to customize a theme header without messing with PHP code.

CSS and maybe some MYSQL tables hold the answer to this but I'll leave it at that for now.

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 11:40 pm

After reviewing the provided links, I ended up just changing a few things in fisubice. Really happy with it. One thing I did learn was that creating a .png transparency for a header while viewing it in IE, you always end up with a shadowed background. Viewing that same image in Firefox or other browsers and it appears as it should, as a transparency. Again, thanks for the help and input.
Express

Theme Guru Joined: Jan 11, 2006 Posts: 170

I can tell you that I have dissected every aspect of a nuke theme. My solution to it's unnecessary complexity was to design a theming utility in which a person doesn't need to know PHP or html to build a theme from scratch.

Of course, no matter how much you study the subject matter you inevitably leave things out that you, the designer, doesn't notice even during alpha and beta testing. Such is the case with my theming utility. I have released versions 1.0, 1.1 and 1.1a all in the span of a month.

You can use PMCCT version 1.1a and build any kind of theme you want without the hassles of editing multiple files or dealing with a code heavy theme.php file. Throw complexity out the window and build a complete theme by editing one file, the configuration.php file.

I have not included a copy of Notepad ++ or the sample themes in the release version 1.1a in a effort to decrease the download size. You can still get them from my site though.

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:45 pm

Thanks PPM! I am intending to look this utility over just as soon as time allows. Hopefully we might be able to somehow incorporate the combined knowledge into RavenNuke(tm) to revamp the entire theming approach which we (especially fkelly) is chomping at the bit to do Wink

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:25 pm

I too am an advocate of changing the entire process of theme making for RavenNuke (tm). My view toward Nuke, in general, is that if you get a CMS for free then you should never have to pay for a theme or spend countless hours looking for one that suits your content.

The only hurdle I have planned to leap, in my design, is the creation of a interface which the configuration.php file can run under and make the overall process even easier for novices. I am envisioning an interface (template) such as the one for phpbb forums to alter their themes.

I plan to start testing the interface concept this week.

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:59 pm

If you have any desire to integrate seamlessly into RavenNuke(tm) then you need to work with fkelly as he is pretty much the lead on the themes integration.

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 10:13 pm

The 'go alone' ordeal is better suited for me. I do use and support RavenNuke(tm) but I have no plans to create an integrated project for it. I have lots of code changes planned throughout the theme package and can control things better on my own.