Theme Review: Feedback requested :)
Hi there,
Working on a theme called "Summer Blues" and it's intended to be a premium responsive theme for Vanilla Forums.
There's more to this theme than meets the eye at first.
It's designed to cater to both the average user (just using it for discussions) and someone using it for buyer support.
There is a featured slider and content area (that requires being enabled) to showcase product works that may be for sale.
It's also a great area to give a little description about yourself. I intend to have screenshots and live example of this version soon.
It will also include the ability to "assign" discussions to other moderators / admins, as well mark the discussion status.
It will also include a simple to use API configuration for Authors to verify buyers from Theme Forest (caters to Theme Forest authors).
In the meantime, here's a basic use of it as a discussion forum.
http://www.owmthemes.com/themes/vanilla/SummerBlues/
Feel more than welcome to register and test it out if you'd like.
I've included some screenshots below linked to Dropbox:
Homepage (top): https://www.dropbox.com/s/ohdx4bfs7g3uf2s/Screenshot 2014-04-14 02.52.04.png
Homepage (bottom): https://www.dropbox.com/s/v1z4j3vo7co2txl/Screenshot 2014-04-14 02.52.42.png
Homepage (mobile top): https://www.dropbox.com/s/17qp9rr5umb9g7g/Screenshot 2014-04-14 02.54.18.png
Homepage (logged in): https://www.dropbox.com/s/15975ho5qp3zljv/Screenshot 2014-04-14 02.55.03.png
Login page: https://www.dropbox.com/s/m9gzazntzqyssdr/Screenshot 2014-04-14 02.51.15.png
Registration: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sgy8th45fhmm2l6/Screenshot 2014-04-14 02.53.32.png
Single Discussion: https://www.dropbox.com/s/l0vmw1jiitf99tg/Screenshot 2014-04-14 02.56.38.png
Inbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nyye3nh9nf9gg4x/Screenshot 2014-04-14 02.57.41.png
Private Messages: https://www.dropbox.com/s/l0qa6aumvto1fek/Screenshot 2014-04-14 02.58.14.png
Profile: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8cdqa721z3lj8ef/Screenshot 2014-04-14 02.58.55.png
Profile Preferences: https://www.dropbox.com/s/s6i3nqxftj5dacy/Screenshot 2014-04-14 02.59.26.png
It's still a work in progress, I have things to still add like Search and Social Networks, along with a few other things.
At the moment though, I was hoping to get some constructive criticism and feedback from fellow users of Vanilla Forums.
I appreciate your time and responses 
Comments
Good job.
However...
I really don't like the font, tbh.
The rest of is good, but not sure the diagonal gradient on the boxes works. A step too far.
Colour scheme could be tweaked, although that is more down to personal preference. The blue and mustard can be a bit strong an overpowering which doesn't really match the central content, I don't really like the strong blue in the main content or anywhere, and maybe there is a constituency issue.
I'm not really getting "Summer Blues" from this. For me sumer blues would be maybe a nice sky, with a field, and some daisies, maybe a moo cow. Or similar such scenes. I would expect a color scheme like that. Even if you were going for a cartoon world the blue is way off.
I think you selling point ATM is more the the responsive, technical side, I don't think the style is quite there yet.
grep is your friend.
Looks pretty good!
I think the deep blue in the header is too... saturated. The active/header styles in the navbar (discussions, activities, sign in) are pretty low contrast as well.
On this page: http://www.owmthemes.com/themes/vanilla/SummerBlues/profile/discussions/4/Smith the empty list text doesn't look like it belongs there.
Search first
Check out the Documentation! We are always looking for new content and pull requests.
Click on insightful, awesome, and funny reactions to thank community volunteers for their valuable posts.
Thank you both for your feedback.
The color scheme is one of 5 that will be available in the end.
I will definitely tweak the colors a bit based on your feedback.
Thanks a lot. It's given me more to think on and consider here
Hello x00,
Was curious if you've any font suggestions? It's using Google Web Fonts so it's easily changeable.
I'm happy to take suggestions on what might look best?
I was thinking of changing to FontFace because the font used in the logo isn't available in Google Web Fonts.
Again, thank you both for your feedback thus far.
. For me sumer blues would be maybe a nice sky, with a field, and some daisies, maybe a moo cow. Or similar such scenes. I would expect a color scheme like that. Even if you were going for a cartoon world the blue is way off.
or even a pic of janis joplin, next to a moo cow
agree with some of above comments, change fonts in discussion titles, less yellow.
I like the radiating blue spokes, perhaps a bit less contrast among the blue spokes.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
@OurWebMedia
I was thinking something less condensed and rounded like Open Sans.
grep is your friend.
lol I think I can make that one of my slider images
Thank you. I will give this a shot later today.
I like this one over the the others. I like the font too. The other ones you made are nice as well but the hovers are hard to see and pastels are not my favorite shades.
Arial is the best font in my opinion.
❌ ✊ ♥. ¸. ••. ¸♥¸. ••. ¸♥ ✊ ❌
:O don't say that!
Comic Sans 4 lyfe!?!?!?!?
Search first
Check out the Documentation! We are always looking for new content and pull requests.
Click on insightful, awesome, and funny reactions to thank community volunteers for their valuable posts.
lol I've never been a fan of Arial, I don't mind Arial Narrow though.
Hahaha I can't remember the last time I even used Comic Sans :P Oh the memories!
Thank you. The others were just quick little projects I came about while exploring and learning how Vanilla Forums works. Took me awhile to master the layout and styling options so my next few freebies will be better.
I've always enjoyed Pastel and soft colors. However I've made each of those freebies in a way that was easily able to be customized by the person downloading them by adding all the color codes into the top part of the style sheet. It was mainly me playing with the responsive design as I tidy up my own responsive framework for Vanilla Forums.
I've not perfected it yet but should have by the time the next stable version is released.
Thank you everyone for your feedback thus far. It has proved very helpful!
Very nice theme!
I'll agree the typography on titles & messages is a bit difficult to read - too narrow. You could probably get away with it for titles if you changes the meta & messages to something a bit easier.
My first impression with this theme is like someone hit me on my face. The font and color is too strong. The technical aspect seem desirable
Not sure if this theme is variable width! Viewing this on a wide screen seems like a waste of screen space. I think the point of responsive is taking advantage of any platform or screen size available.
Thank you Lincoln for your feedback.
Working on an updated version to be available soon.
Right now all modifications are on my localhost but will again ask for feedback soon.
All the feedback in this thread has been extremely helpful already. Thanks everyone.
Thanks for the feedback, though the boxed layout is unlikely to change.
With some styling modifications it's not difficult to make it a fullwidth theme.
@chanh
You can make any theme responsive by simply changing all this width values of the main containers to a percentage . See my Glass themes.
You can even show them on a 55 inch screen and no extra space. The key is to also float things to the left .
@OurWebMedia
Your themes would be great for @R_J plugin role themes . You should make a dark one too. The point of that kind of theme switching besides testing themes, is to only change the colors not the layout.
So you only need the css sheet for any given theme. not the entire theme. You could offer the style sheets in one single theme then they would have more options when used with the role theme plugin.
❌ ✊ ♥. ¸. ••. ¸♥¸. ••. ¸♥ ✊ ❌
Thanks! This is exactly what I intend to do with those first things I released.
The idea was my playing around to familiarize myself and learn about the framework.
Though not going to work to much on new themes until the next version is released.
Some great ideas in mind.
Though I'll be honest, I hate the very boring layout that Vanilla Forums uses.
As I've explored and learned more from my playing around, I've learned to manipulate and develop the layouts and pages. That was my biggest challenge coming from WordPress to Garden framework. It's not as simplistic even though it is, the framework is difficult to learn, more so because of it's lack of mainstream documentation and resources like you'd find on WordPress when searched.
The "Green", "Grey" and "Default" themes will be one theme in coming weeks that I've submitted to the addons. I've also found a few issues between them that I am perfecting and hopefully these simplistic themes will help others as a starting point. Not intended to be the "best" or most dynamic, but simplified responsive themes that have no heavy framework involved and light knowledge can be used to modify.
Again, I take all feedback as constructive feedback and appreciate all that has already been provided.
Thank you all very much!
This learning Vanilla Forums / Garden has been an extreme learning curve for me, but I'm enjoying it!
I'd revise the sidebar panels to use the same design as the "All Discussions" tab: a white box with a yellow stripe:
and if you haven't already convert your themes to use a css preprocessor like SASS or LESS, assign key aspects of the theme to variables and then you can create multiple variations of the same base framework.
There was an error rendering this rich post.
I like the yellow graduation in the boxes. I would make the yellow in the discussions alternates the same yellow as the box. That pastel yellow does not look good to me.
I would make the light blue tabs a darker blue like the header.
❌ ✊ ♥. ¸. ••. ¸♥¸. ••. ¸♥ ✊ ❌
Thanks everyone for the input and feedback.
Based on some suggestions and notes taken, I've revised it to look a bit different:
http://owmthemes.com/themes/vanilla/SummerBlues/
It's not done yet and only part of it is shown, but would love general feedback.
Changes are:
Fonts: I'm using Comic Neue > http://comicneue.com/
Background: It seemed too much the rays, I tried something a little different but keeping both.
Color Scheme: I've softened the color scheme some and changed the sidebars.
Again, I love constructive criticism so please don't hold back your thoughts. Thanks!