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Sorry to ask such a basic question, but since I can’t look at the source, I have to ask 😊

- When you buy the forum, the theme + template you get is the “31three” version? What I’m looking at right now? OR the old one you can see on the screenshots on the module description’s page?

- How much of what I see here is part of the forum template? Does it start at .viewport?

- how is the CSS setup? Would it be possible to post part of it for me to inspect, just 100 lines in an attached txt file would be enough to get it. Pretty much, I’m wondering how isolated the Forum CSS is from the rest of EE templates… Since it looks similar to the CP, I’m wondering if they’re somewhat dependent etc…

Right now I’m still trying to figure out if it will be less work to move my client’s PHPBB forum to EE or just customize their existing PHPBB. The user integration is nice, but not a deal breaker… The default look of EE forum would blend in pretty easily with the site I built and I’m trying to cut dev time…

Thanks!

The 31three forum theme is property of ExpressionEngine and is not available to the public. The forum ships with a few different themes though. I like to start with the developer theme (just a stripped down theme) and tweak it to make it my own.

Everything you see here is a part of the forum. It’s just a matter of how experienced you are with HTML and CSS so that you can make it your own (if you choose to do so).

The CSS is set up just like you would expect it to be. Markup and Presentation are kept separate for the most part. There is the occasional inline style, but in the theme I just did (stated with the developer theme), nearly all of the changes I made to the style were done in the CSS file. You can view my forum here: http://www.kentuckygolfing.com/forums and just view the CSS and what you see is what you get. I’ve added a few styles of my own, but most of it is EE’s.

I won’t lie though, this is my second attempt at customizing the forum theme. My first attempt took about two weeks to get it going correctly (about an hour or so each night I’d say). I scrapped it and started again with the developer theme. The most current theme took me around a week of an hour or so every night of tweaking. The most difficult part is figuring out the template system and where everything is located. I just takes a while to go through it. I’m comfortable with it now though and could probably customize a new theme fairly quickly.

hope that helps

Thanks for the feedback deronsizemore.

On a whim, assuming that the 31three theme must be included since I had read numerous posts on here along the lines of “what you see here is what you get when you buy the forum module,” I bought the module and so far I’m not too impressed… All the included themes are amateurish at best, besides for “shares” which looks good but is too wacky for most cases… I can’t understand why they don’t provide the only theme they got that’s usable out of the box.

Looking at the underpinning of the theme system, it looks like it’s going to take me as long as any other free alternative to customize it…

Yes, it’s my fault for not waiting for an answer to my questions and just assuming… But the logic behind not including the only professional looking theme they have while at the same time using that same theme to promote their module is a little…

Yeah, you do get the 31three theme for the EE Control Panel, just not the forums. I’m sure someone from EE can answer much better than I as to why they don’t offer it as a theme for the forums. I’ve asked the question before wondering if this forum theme would ever be available and was just told it was owned by EE and wasn’t currently available. I just left it at that.

Now that I am fairly familiar with the forum templates, I really don’t think it would be difficult to reproduce a similar theme as what you see here on EE. Granted, it would be easier for them to just allow it for download. The theme you see here on EE is essentially a customized “developer” theme, which is packaged with the forum module. Change a couple colors on the developer theme, upload some icons (since it doesn’t have any) and you’ve got a very usable forum.

As for the shares theme, I personally don’t care for it. It does have the web 2.0 look, but I think it’s almost to difficult to tell what’s going on in that it doesn’t look like your normal forums so uses could be lost.

Good luck

The support theme is customized to fit the specific needs of EE’s support forum, which is part of the reason it isn’t included.  Customizing it is about like customizing other forums I’ve played with- which I’ve always found to be a fairly tedious endeavor.  Not difficult per se, but it can be time consuming.

I’d agree with Deron- the best approach is to take the developer theme and tweak the css to get the colors and backgrounds to your liking- assuming none of the other themes are close enough for doing that.  I personally like the classic theme- with the colors/images tweaked.  It’s another good option.

Thanks guys,

To me, it looks like a “business” decision. I seriously doubt there’s any technical reason why the theme is not included. It would be pretty easy to remove the EE specific header…

I don’t think it will be difficult to customize… But I thought it was going to take me a couple hours to get it tweaked to my needs but now I’m looking at a couple days instead… The $100 is definitely not going to “pay for itself” on that one, so I’m not exactly ecstatic about the investment… I’ll be more careful from now on when buying from Ellislab… my bad.

I think you’ll find that the reason that this forum’s theme is not included is because (I might be wrong on this though) Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain created the whole look of the ExpressionEngine site and also the EllisLab and EngineHosting sites for them. The look of this forum is part of their identity so I wouldn’t think that they want lots of forums springing up everywhere that look like this one.

I think that if you look at it like this then it makes perfect sense. I for one wouldn’t want a site that might be in direct competition with mine and looked the same as it would probably confuse people.

Well that’s just the way I see it but the EE crew would definitely be able to give a much better answer than that.

Hope that helps a bit?

Best wishes,

Mark

Thanks guys,

To me, it looks like a “business” decision. I seriously doubt there’s any technical reason why the theme is not included. It would be pretty easy to remove the EE specific header…

I don’t think it will be difficult to customize… But I thought it was going to take me a couple hours to get it tweaked to my needs but now I’m looking at a couple days instead… The $100 is definitely not going to “pay for itself” on that one, so I’m not exactly ecstatic about the investment… I’ll be more careful from now on when buying from Ellislab… my bad.

I have effectively recreated this forum theme, with some modifications - and I can assure you it wasn’t easy. I need/want to show it to EllisLab before using it or offering it up as an alternative theme from what’s included.

Yeah, the $100 may not pay for itself on the first one, but if you were to use your modified theme again, it just might.

I have effectively recreated this forum theme, with some modifications - and I can assure you it wasn’t easy.

As I said I am pretty sure I remember reading somewhere about this and as it (the forum theme for this site) was created as part of the new business branding I don’t think that they (EE crew) will ever release it or would be very happy with people re-creating and using it.

Probably best if we can hear back from one of the crew on that though?

Best wishes,

Mark

I think that if you look at it like this then it makes perfect sense. I for one wouldn’t want a site that might be in direct competition with mine and looked the same as it would probably confuse people.

I understand the principle, and I could definitely accept it better if they provided a stripped down version of that theme that’s not exactly the same but is still usable out of the box. I guess it is subjective, but I don’t think any of the provided themes qualify as “professional.” It certainly looks to me that they designed them in house instead of getting a pro (like 31three…) to do them.

I think that what is more confusing is to have a CP that looks great and a forum module that looks like… well, I’ll let you fill in the blank 😉 And this confusion is the reason why I bought the module…

I don’t have a problem with Open Source free stuff that require getting your hands dirty to get it to look good. But when I buy something, I expect to be able to use it out of the box.

Anyway… enough ranting… I’d better get cracking… got lots of work ahead… Forget about Sunday!... :’(

The Forum theme uses icons that were purchased for use on ExpressionEngine.com. We do not have distribution rights for them and that’s the major reason we don’t include it.

Some people find the forums easy to theme, others don’t. As always investigate and ask before making a decision.

Lots of people use the forum themes “out of the box.” I can respect that you don’t like them Minimal Design but thousands of others do which is why we include them. If we thought they were sub-par we wouldn’t have included them.

I just wanted to throw an additional .02 in here. The forum themes that are included when your purchase the forum module are very usable out of the box. You do not have to do anything to them to make them usable. Granted, they may not fit your overall design of your site, but nothing you buy will. EE can’t make every single person happy as that would take thousands of themes. They’ve given everyone a base to start with and you can either take it and tweak it your design or just roll with it as is. No forum software you buy will be perfect out of the box and will likely require some tweaking to fit with your overall design, so I don’t see how EE is any different?

Or does it simply come down to the fact that EE isn’t releasing their “support” theme for the general public to use?

Thanks for the feedback. That makes sense, Icons drawer’s icons are great. I own a copy myself…

Then would you mind sharing the template without the icons? I wouldn’t mind at all. It would be an incredible time saver as a base to start from. It would be much more useful, in my personal opinion, than the default “developer” one. Even without the icons…

And sorry if I sounded harsh about your themes. Well, I meant what I said, but maybe I could have said it with more tact… I did mention it was subjective, and I was purely talking about design, not functionality, when talking about “usable.”

Thanks!

... and I was purely talking about design, not functionality, when talking about “usable.”

Thanks!

Gotcha! 😉 I wasn’t out to offend (if I did?), just curious.

Removed by me

Minimal Design, my apologies. I didn’t give you a professional response. Its late, I’m tired, and I should have just gone to bed. Since my initial response was public, I figured my apology should be as well.

You’re welcome to continue the conversation here or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you like.

A better version of what I originally wrote is simply this. We created the support theme to match our brand, which is important to us. And its not something we want to distribute to the public in general due to the icon license and for business reasons. I can certainly respect the opposing argument and I’m empathic to the themes not being to your liking. Bottom line, if you’d like a refund on your forum purchase, just let me know and I’d be happy to make an exception and give you a refund.