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Ok - before anyone pelts me with tomatoes I wanted to make an observation about Simple:Press which I feel in my humble, humble opinion would benefit it's appeal to people who might be on the edge of getting it.
Simply put - create at least one default theme which is similar in style to phpBB's baseline theme (I picked that solely on the basis I like that one the most of the bb themes out there) *or* something which incorporates the phpBB theme philosophy. There, I said it, I don't mean any offense! Here's what I see if you allow me to explain my thoughts:
- Simple:Press doesn't seem to have even one default theme which I would categorize as 'compact' (perhaps even 'slick'). This is a matter of grand opinion I know but most of the forums I go to do not, in fact, look anything like Simple:Press' default themes. I'm not saying that's good or bad per-se but it does start to level out expectations for a crowd of admins who are looking at "standard" forum solutions.
- Simple:Press’ look seems “big” or “spacey”. By that I mean the themes takes up a lot of space. The way Simple:Press formats posts in the topic view is nearly 1.5x as tall horizontally as either vBulletin or phpBB’s defaults. The spacing, formatting and icons for the default themes are sorta generous across the board and lend a sense of a “large print for hard of seeing people” look to the thing. (just look at the phpBB support forums as a comparison)
- I know we can “roll our own” but it would seem a nice idea to say to possible customers ‘Hey, check out the variety you can get.’ with an actual example and not just say “roll your own”.
- I also understand 'different strokes for different folks' and maybe you are already responding to what you consider a far flung need and don't see a merit in this.
A lot of my current posts are about me adding little formatting touches to my Simple:Press forum to make is sleeker and trim down its visual footprint. I know it’s a personal thing for me but I might guess there are people out there who think like me. Simple:Press is in a unique situation to storm the market of WordPress forums since it already integrates so well. When I hear you guys have been doing this over five years and all the potential is there I really have to ask why this isn't bigger right now. At first glance I was not too hot on Simple:Press and only upon diving in and seeing I could basically make what I want did I think “OK – cool”. Problem is most people won’t do what I’m doing and want turnkey solutions.
I dunno – I’m kinda rambling and I’m sure you’ve heard it before. I would say though, being and artist by trade for many, many years I do look at things from an aesthetic view. I am more than willing to work on a theme like the one I am describing and make it a publicly available for the team and all. The deal is the artist part. I’m not a php or css technician and that right there slows me down on several fronts.
OK - long story over! haha
-Max
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I could go on at some length here but I will try and be brief.
Prior to V5, SP had a very fixed and virtually un-customisable design. This had much to do with history in that when I originally wrote it it was created for personal use only to allow me to better support other WP plugins that I had written at the time and I didn't much like the look of the available alternatives. All I wanted was something that worked in the way I wanted it to work. I had no intention of offering SP itself but when people started asking if they could use it the ball started rolling.
Perhaps the mistake - if there was one - was not to do what we have done with V5 earlier on. But we have forever been bombarded by feature requests and, for a coder, it is the coding that is the fun part. That is where the challenge is.
The aim of V5 was to rewrite from the ground up with a very fixed set of objectives:
- Themes and templates to allow for as much customisation as possible without resort to core code editing.
- Restructuring of all core database communication to lower the query count and get improved performance.
- Lighten the core size by the use of optional plugins.
- Lose no V4 features in the process.
- Add no new features as this was not what V5 was about.
- Aim, initially, to support the look and feel of V4 because many people hate change.
This process took roughly 14 months of hard work. Firstly there are only two of us producing code - and there is a lot of code! And secondly we still had support going on for our thousands of users.
V5 was released on February 19th of this year. That is just one or two days over a month ago. Since then we have released numerous bug fixes because any new software is going to have some issues - it is inevitable. Our small team of 3 people - 2 of whom also work for a living - fix these bugs, add the odd enhancement, run this support forum as well as desperately try to find the necessary time to write every single word of the codex documentation.
We were and still are, rather hoping - maybe naively - that we might get some help here and there from the community. And by help I don't mean people suggesting what we should do and what features we should add or what is wrong with the way something works. We get those all the time. it is inevitable. But people who have good graphic and Photoshop skills to create new and interesting sets of icons. People with a keen sense of UI to create new themes and overlays. People who might write the odd codex article on how to do something.
Without help we will get these things done. It will just take a lot longer. And with such a small team, everything has to have a priority which, at the moment, is firstly ironing out the teething problems that any new software inevitable encounters.
So - finally - how about a challenge? if you want your SP to look more like phpBB (which I must say personally is one of my least favourites of the big forum applications) then why not go for it? Leaving aside feature/functionality for the moment which is a different issue, I believe that we have the theme structure in place to mimic phpBB probably by as much as 80%-90% or so.
And for anyone who may stumble upon this post - the aim is to make SP as customisable as possible. We have tried to think of everything in terms of themes and options but it is inevitable that we have missed opportunities. If there is a template function that needs a new argument - or a change - to solve that gritty theme problem then as long as it is technically and logically possible to do so all you have to do is ask and we will try our best to be accommodating.
Oh - and finally - really finally! - if anyone out there would like to try and tackle the creation of a good mobile theme - which really is needed - then please come on board. Join the team even - we need more hands on deck to take SP where we want it to go.
OK - so I don't know how to be brief... 
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I would love to see more member submitted themes and would be glad to help anyone, much as I can, to create their own.
Maybe if one is quite good it could be added to the SP supplied themes.
Which, BTW, is why there is a red-sky and Shades of Gray overlay available today. I needed them for my sites and once created I submitted them for inclusion into the SP themes and they were accepted. It would be great to see other overlays submitted too.
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Maximillion said
I would say though, being and artist by trade for many, many years I do look at things from an aesthetic view. I am more than willing to work on a theme like the one I am describing and make it a publicly available for the team and all. The deal is the artist part. I’m not a php or css technician and that right there slows me down on several fronts.
Of course! Part of my long dissertation was sorta covering the fact I will be making this sort of theme regardless. I just need help. That's happening already so no worries. I also was curious as to the "vibe" for something like this from others.
I know you all have busted ass for a long, long time and I see the amount of effort going into the forums and the actual code itself. My gut check is somewhat confirmed by your statement Andy you don't particularly like the look of phpBB, which would explain why none of the default themes have that look.
I'm not trying to roll in here 1 month after a major release and demand a bunch of new stuff. What I am is excited. I like what I see and need some help. I'm also suggesting ideas. It's in my best interest (especially with a Gold membership) to see the community and the plugin expand. I want this to survive and thrive as much as possible. In my mind when you shifted the plugin to this type of subscription you also shifted the mindset of potential buyers. With no access to these forums I would probably not have gotten the plugin at all since this is where it's really at. Had I not already known about these forums *before* they went subscription I can almost 100% assure you I wouldn't have gotten the plugin unless the default themes covered more of what I want. In here, I feel empowered to make it happen.
You both have been awesome so no worries there. I'll just clean up my code as much as possible and start putting it out there for people to see.
But thank you for the responses. I know you care and so do I!
-Max
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and we love the discussion... its always good (as long as civil) even if not everyone agrees...
during the prolonged alpha and beta periods of 5.0 we rolled a lot of feedback from the users into SP... and we will continue to do so in the future... it will be a bit harder now with it formally released as we will have to be much, much more concerned with backwards compatibility... changes we make, cannot, without very serious consideration, go breaking themes that folks have put together... without a theme change you may not be able to properly utilize a new feature, but we should not be breaking anything existing in themes...
themes give you so much more flexibility than before... and individuality... but there is a learning curve... it will be easier when we get the codex fully populated... but we will always be here to help...
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Thanks for all the responses. All very helpful. I definitely look forward to diving in and sharing the results!
-Max
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and we will soon be updating our showcase page to show off what folks are doing with 5.0!
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