In my spare time over the past couple weeks I have been working on an ExpressionEngine 2 theme that closely mirrors the original 1.6.x branch that was beautifully crafted by Jesse Bennett Chamberlain.

In my opinion, the EE2 themes are just not cutting it. If it’s not broken… why fix it? While opinions may differ, I have decided to recreate a version of the theme for EE 2 that Jesse created for EE 1.6. The new theme is about 80% complete.

The new theme will also by default show the site name in the upper left hand corner of the Control Panel… similar to the way the CP looked if one had installed LG Site Name.

I’m looking for any thoughts and/or suggestions on what others would like to see in a new EE2 theme.

Nice work Todd.

Frankly speaking, i love EE1.6 theme over EE 2 theme. I would like my EE 2 theme to exactly the same as EE 1.6.8.

Excited to see how this looks when it’s done as I completely agree regarding the EE 2 themes.

One small thing I noticed in your screen shot is that the collapse/open field icons don’t really align with anything and look a little untidy. That’s a very minor nitpick though.

Thanks for taking the time to build this, looking very promising.

F-a-n-ta-s-t-i-c! EE 2.x panel theme its so UGLY !!!! A pseudo-try to make a web 2.0 interface, but too late…FAIL!
Congratulations! Please, finish soon !!!

Have you guys seen the Corporate theme which was also done by Jesse. Its available in your Downloads

Yes, in fact the Corporate theme provided a nice starting point for building this retro version. While corporate is an improvement over the other themes… its still not as good as the original theme Jesse did.

John Henry Donovan - 28 April 2010 12:26 PM

Have you guys seen the Corporate theme which was also done by Jesse. Its available in your Downloads

Yep, it’s definitely the best of the bunch, but still not a completely polished implementation.

Corporate theme is nice, but i have it the impression whith was builded in the rush-time, in the last hour, because the critic about default new thema was huge…please, finish it !

Corporate theme is nice, but i have it the impression whith was builded in the rush-time, in the last hour, because the critic about default new thema was huge…please, finish it !

Actually the majority of the feedback we’ve gotten over the new themes is positive.  But we also realize that it is impossible to appeal to everyone’s tastes.  Good design is nearly always polarizing.  It’s when the majority of people are disinterested and you have neither fans nor detractors that you know you’ve missed the mark.

And nice work, Todd - when you’ve finished, please shoot me an email.

Derek Jones - 30 April 2010 11:01 PM

Actually the majority of the feedback we’ve gotten over the new themes is positive.

Can we do it a open poll about the new themes qualifications?
This will be so interesting….and maybe a surprise for you

Ana Lucia - 03 May 2010 04:02 AM

Derek Jones - 30 April 2010 11:01 PM

Actually the majority of the feedback we’ve gotten over the new themes is positive.

Can we do it a open poll about the new themes qualifications?
This will be so interesting….and maybe a surprise for you

We’ve had polls and elicited feedback over the course of a year or more, you aren’t going to surprise me, as I related above.

The husband is the last to know…

Well, lets go:

Really, i saw in the forum and another sites about EE hard critcs about the new default interface. Like i saw in this forum, just to citate a couple, here: http://expressionengine.com/forums/viewreply/365330/
and here http://expressionengine.com/forums/viewreply/365335/
And are 2 guys with hard knowledge about EE…

But you will found more about this critics in twitter…

I dont like the colors, the combination its horrible. For ME its like a interface for teenagers.
The corporate theme its a little bit better, to serious users.

Look, nothing about the Verlee’s works, really i like your style, but just for graphic design. Design for interfaces its very more complex.

I dont plan in this moment, to build a alternative to this, because i just buyed EE to know the system and offer EE like a differential to my clients(today i build sites using Modx and CMSBuilder)and coming soon i will start a service online offering commercial EE Site Themes (yeah baby, im working hard here) and webdeveloping/design packages for EE users - but maybe in the future i can offer a CP customized theme like a plus to my future EE clients.

But really, i prefer the interface style of Brandon Kelly (im your client, too), with for me, was a better option to build the new EE interface or even the company/designer with do it the default 1.6.x theme (team with wins, dont change it)...but its just my insignificant 2 cents…

And i really, really sorry (SO MUCH!) for dont participate in the EE Beta feedbacks…

PS: Good design for me its like the Beetle car. Was old? Yes. But was so good with they just repaginate it. The essential, the design concept was preserved. Think in do it a training to a final user and some months later do it a new training again, because all changed…(just the final user point of view)

Just a extra words: if the default design of EE 2.0 is so good, i dont think with somebody will spend your precious time developing a cp theme like the “old” theme, just for nostalgia. Run, Todd, run !

Todd, any progress? I will have it some time in next weeks…so i thinking in create a new CP Theme for 2.0 too…but i think in do it a theme inspired in the interface of CMS Builder (www.interactivetools.com)

Bump, any progress with this… I agree that the new EE2 themes are overly designed so would love to see something which more closely mimics the simplicity of EE1.

Hi Nathan. Yes, progress has been made since my last post. Admittedly, I was way off when I said 80% completed. When I set out to accomplish this, I was a little naive at how much time it would take. I’m plugging along though in my spare time.

When I near completion, I will need a couple beta testers who have MSM installed as I don’t have that expansion for EE2 and can’t test with it.

I’m gonna say I’m still a week or two out as I only have evenings and some weekend time to devote to this.

There are aspects to the current theme that I haven’t considered changing but I’m wondering if people want those changed too? Like the login page? Change it or leave it as is?

Nah, be creative  

http://dzineblog.com/2009/03/interface-design-inspiration-36-beautiful-login-pageform-designs.html

http://www.dreamcss.com/2009/05/21-beautiful-login-pageform-designs.html

Todd,

Just wanted to encourage you on this. Your theme just might be what makes me actually try EE 2. I’ve been resistant because of all the flash and glam I’ve seen in the screenshots they post and looking over @litzinger’s shoulder at the beta. Keep up the good work!

IJR

This is interesting,

Todd, are you using a bundled EE2 theme as a starting point and modifying the css/images? or are you writing the css, view files and js from scratch?

Reason being I started thinking about creating my own theme with the aim of posting the code publicly. It appears the EE2 themes are distributed under the same license as EE2 itself - therefor you require written permission from EllisLab to post the code.

I’ve created a feature request over here for EE2 themes to be placed under a more open license so folks can share their modified themes publicly, without fear of license worries.

Please chime in on the feature request if you’d like to see this.