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We bought ubb.threads 7.x but I must say we're a little disappointed. There is not many useful mods (Yes, I've checked ubbdev) and the standard design kinda' sucks.

It would be so much better if groupee would at least invest a little money in getting a proper graphic designer to make a few templates/stylesheets that could be included with the standard distribution of ubb.threads. It would be so much easier if we would have a few really good templates (1 or 2 good designs would be enough) which could be (color) modified by the license holder him/her selves.

I am sure it will be a good commercial move as well as this would make UBB.Threads look and 'feel' so much more professional.

Now you need to be (or hire) an expert graphic designer in order to get your ubb.threads forum to look a little more professional.

If you take phpbb 3.x for example there are at least a few default templates that look great and few more 'homemade' ones that look even better.

Just checkout the spotlight forum here on ubbcentral. You will notice that all ubb.threads forums look 99% the same. The default plain and ugly design with just a few color changes at most.

I suck at graphic design myself but as a ubb.threads user licenseholder I would surely like to have some templates/styles available like these ones!

http://www.shadowflames.us/development/index.php?style=49
http://phpbb-stylers.com/demo/viewtopic.php?style=4&f=2&t=1
http://v3-demo.themidnightphoenix.org/index.php?style=3
http://www.shadowflames.us/development/viewforum.php?f=65

Or at least make the default UBB.Threads style look al little better PLEASE!

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UBB.threads Developer
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I've made the offer to allow them to include several of my Serene styles with the default set.

As for templates; we don't really have the ability for admin's to allow separate templates to be selected; I'm hoping this will come in the future as it'd allow for so much more (look how drastically a theme can change in say PostNuke with different themes....

There are several designers (such as myself) who create themes that you may want to give a try though; I can't vouch for rates of others however.

I'm not sure if things will actually *change* with threads until we allow different template sets; as "hacking" your board kind of voids ones ability to seek support from Groupee's helpdesk, and modifying a template counts as hacking the board...


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At this point, I can't comment too much, but your concerns are going to be addressed. It's not as flexible as we want it to be, and the stock design isn't where it should be. We do have plans to address this and we'll probably start giving some information on this after 7.3 is finalized and we start on our next versio.

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Fair comment i say.
I'm okay with the designs but as mentioned as a newbie
or someone installing it for the first time, it could be better.

And as a fighter for the novice new member < Shield in Hand >

My feedback would be the software can still be too complicated
for a new member. So this has to be part of the plans when new features become available. To get an e-mail about a topic couldnt the option to have it under the "Topic Options" to say.

watch + E-mail
Watch Only

Then a member wouldn't have to visit my stuff, edit watch list just to enable the e-mail... (IMO)

(I had to add a big how to for my upload manager so members
had a clue how it works and what to do ).

The new "My Stuff" On the left is a big + IMO with 7.3.2
Lets hope things like the search gets a re-vamp.
Making it dumy proof too.

Its been good fun the ride so far, and i hope it continues to be,
Our own members who can be new or old do say it how it is.

Not to take away the great work up to now.
I'm in too deep to to turn away, but will pass it on as i see it smile

My Out side the box look at things as they are.
I guess i want to see more key features more refined.
In line image placing, for example. Its been requested many a time but after more than a year we still have the upload manager.

Our gallery we can not choose where the Image Manager storage folder can store images like the upload manager < Checks >
But we can with the "Upload" Manager.

I would love to see, for example 7.4 the Blog
the plans and how it would work available for debate,
then i'm sure you would have a good idea what we as users
would like to see or not?

Unfortunately the trend is for these things to come online with
so few features, and basic is it worth releasing it as a feature.
So at a guess, i'm would say it will be in the 7.4 and you cant add a image to the blog? (Ive no idea) but that's the trend that comes across. And then we have to wait.

And it is these little things that are mounting up IMO.

I am a supporter 110% of Threads,
and i hope the feedback we post is helpful and constructive too.
We want Threads to wipe the floor with others out there wink
And you guys who hardly ever get a thanks because we paid
for something, have done a cracking job, and I hope you
continue to do so for along time to come.

The one that confuses me greatly ( As an Example) is say the 30 day posters
which its in the default package, but so many threads users use it. If its as good as that why cant you get it into the stock asap. Its basic sales to me, the more features the more reasons
you have to sell the product.

From the out side this looks to lay at Ricks door, but i'm sure that's not the case. But if it works then get it in there and sell sell sell wink

< Dont ban me lol >


BOOM !! Version v7.6.1.1
People who inspire me Isaac ME Gizmo
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I am realy quit satisfied with ubb.threads itself. Just the stock design does not meet the higher standards from some other community softwares.
If you take phpbb 3 for example: Has 2 included styles that look great. The same goes for vbullitin.
The style or template does not have to be user-selectable, as long as the board admin is able to choose from some (good and nice) stock styles/tenplates that he can (color) modify to his liking.
@Gizmo, I tried finding the styles you mentioned, but no luck.
I checked your homepage and your forum though. No offence, but your forum looks like any other ubb.threads forum with just some colors changed.
This design can not be compared to any of the examples I put in my first post. Those designs look a lot more professional.
I can only give a small word of advice for Groepee. Don't try doing this yourself, but hire a professional grapic and template designer.
I just found this ubb.threads forum on the net: www.sat4all.com/forums.
That is a start, but still nothing compared to the designs from my first post.

Mike

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There are several posted in the Styles section here and at UBBDev, simply look for threads I created in these forums for the ones I made. You can see some of these over at Elite Web Gamers (the anouncements forum has links to the preview url for each of the themes I have created; however, not all of these are freely distributed).

My UGN Security forum is for all intensive purposes stock in reguards to the styles. Keep in mind that the stylesheets are ONLY the colors/graphics of the overall outlook; without having a way to allow users to switch templates on the fly there will be no actual themes as template changes would effect a "theme".



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I know that many other forum software uses more icon-based links. I actually find the UBB.threads layout to be cleaner than some other forum software, especially vBulletin.

I know that prior to UBB.threads 7.x, many UBB.classic users refused to migrate to UBB.threads as they thought that UBB.classic had a better design. I personally think that the UBB.threads 7.x design is a huge improvement over the 6.x design.

I would however would like the option for users to place the right and left panels on the top and bottom, respectively. A WYSIWIG editor is also long overdue.

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Hi Gizmo
Can you provide a direct link to what you're talking about please.

I went here:
Gizmo's site

But did not find any links you're talking about. IF you have to register then that's a pain just to view what you're talking about.

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I too would like to see some better Themes out of the box.

Having a great looking clean look would really enhance the product I think.

I like this Black_and_Gold one that Rick has and I like the one on my site the Koniro, but they don't ship with the product and are 3rd party written.


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TinyMCE can be included in UBB.T; I've made this suggestion before lol.

Well, I'm talking about two things NT; one would be a template based system where people can use themes by customizing differant templates with their sytles (like the nukes do)

The other was my styles at EWG; see this thread.


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Yes, not bad Giz. But as was originally pointed out, that most are just color changes and the overall block structure is quite the same on all UBB sites.

This one here from Rick, the Black_and_Gold is actually one of the better ones I've seen. The Koniro has some nice color as well but the structure is still blocky.

I've not looked at or attempted to even setup a theme for UBBT so not sure how much effort is required in building a full theme, and if or how much the layout structure can be modified without causing reading or loading issues.

Overall though I think all of us are in agreement that some new / better method would be a welcome change. That and having the product actually ship with at least 2 or 3 really nice layouts would be sweet.

Here are examples from Joomla (not exactly the same software, but the idea of something more pleasing to the eye)

Demo at RocketTheme
Themes at Joomlashack
.
[Linked Image from kixhelp.com]
.
[Linked Image from kixhelp.com]
.
[Linked Image from kixhelp.com]

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Don't forget that you can do alot with css! My board is almost only css changes, and still looks like this:
http://enforum.merudi.net/ubbthreads.php

I only changed some templates to hide certain things I don't want, but couldn't disable.

A little tip for the styles. If all functional screen elements would have their own css class, we could all disable these elements fairly easy with display-style:none .

This is what I've done on this site to let ubb appear as a normal news-blog-site:
http://www.ricochetbond.nl/ubbthreads.php/ubb/postlist/Board/1/page/1

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Thanks Nims2

I think we all know that it can be done and that CSS will allow it. The issue though is the underlying PHP, CSS that the board is currently using requires some potentially large changes to make it an easy update/change for regular users.

No offense but your site has the typical blocky style as well, though so many of these "stock" CSS sites also have a similar feel to them so don't want to change one clone style for another clone style (IMHO)

I'm sure Rick has some ideas and hopefully in a future update we'll get to it grin


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I understand what you mean ntdoc wink i was just pointing it out for the less advanced users, still a lot is possible within the limits of the exisiting template.

The best solution for this would actually be the support of multiple Styles folders. These are highly customizable and it would be fairly easy to make it selectable from within the control panel.

I recon that this is for advanced users only, but that is not actually a very big problem, since advance users will just create the very cool style, so that the rest of the world can download and use them. It doesn't really matter how easy you make the styles, there are always people around that rewrite the complete engine if they feel fit to it wink .

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Like I said NT, until we get the ability to have multiple templates, themes such as that will not be a reality...


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Originally Posted by ntdoc
I'm sure Rick has some ideas and hopefully in a future update we'll get to it

I'm hoping grin grin grin grin grin

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One of my hopes for UBB.T is a system like the Nukes use, which allow you to simply make full fledged themes for the product, hacking templates and stylesheets and providing them.


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Making it look better would also surely increase sales as well.

I was with classic for a long time and wanted to upgrade but the rather drab look of these forums made me rather wary and I had lots of questions as to how I can make it look better. I'm imagine the look of this forum puts some people off which is a shame.

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I found the best solution! It's the same solution b2evolution uses for their templates. They managed to implement such a flexible template system, that you can use widgets, move them around like, top, left, bottom, menu etc. And that for a normal end user that doesn't need to programm at all.

And the best, it's all open source, so someone could probably just copy and paste it in ubb wink .

See http://demo.b2evolution.net/HEAD/blogs/admin.php?ctrl=widgets&blog=1
user=admin password=demopass

Or the source: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/evocms/b2evolution-2.4.0-rc2-2008-01-23.zip

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we're using Smarty, not much more you can do to get more flexable wink...


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We'll definitely be addressing this. Right now a theme really only consists of a style and an image set. We definitely need to take that one step further where templates are a part of a theme as well, at least optionally. Meaning you should be able to package several, all, or no templates with a theme, that would overwrite the original templates.

Anyways, like I said. I can't really talk about this yet, as we're still focusing on getting 7.3 finalized. But as things progress a bit, you can expect some details to come.

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See... I told you Rick had some ideas about it already grin

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Well Rick, please consider this fine solution:
http://manual.b2evolution.net/Skins_2.0

It gives very good information about how the system works, and would be a real big win for ubb smile . And to see the different skin possibilities http://skins.b2evolution.net/two.php

Why re-invent the weel after 7.3 wink .

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p.s. they use the system that you can overwrite partially or all or none if you don't want to. Just check it out wink .

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I'd advise against actually overwriting things wink... You know, multiple template folders with an tick to the user to choose an available theme (kinda like we have now)


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Hopefully we will see a template compatible with mobile screens smile

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If we where to allow multiple templates, a mobile template would be trivial.


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I think I know what you mean..... (I hope)

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lol; ok, how about: "If we allow multiple templates, creating a mobile template will be simple"


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Originally Posted by Gizmo
I'd advise against actually overwriting things wink... You know, multiple template folders with an tick to the user to choose an available theme (kinda like we have now)
Well not actually realy overwriting files, but some kind of inheretance option, that certain files in the template directory are used, but if the are missing, the default files are used instead. This creates the option for partial templates / skins that work very well, and are still upwards compatible.

Did you check out the template/skin structure of b2evo? And if so, what you think of it?

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I totally agree that a new type of design is needed. Eve Community's design looks very nice. (http://support.evecommunity.com/eve)
That kind of look or something else would be nice. smile

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Really? I find that the UBBCentral current design is far better than the eve default...


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Yeah, I really like the Eve Community design and the product. Too bad only hosted versions are available. tongue This design is pretty good imo, but I would say it isn't the most pleasant design for a forum. It is not bad, but it could be much better. wink Just my opinion. smile


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Well I think the point being is that it too is mainly just COLOR change. The same design and block look is there too.

This Black_and_Gold Theme here on UBB is one of the more fancy ones I've seen, but it too has that blocky look that might be difficult to get away from.

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Ubb design is much better than eve. Eve looks sooooh 2007 tongue .


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