Thread

For the most part, I really like EE—but there has never been solid support for those of us wanting more themes.  The attitude seems to be one that says, “Oh, you can modify that yourself for EE.”

But I can’t.  I’m not THAT tech savvy.  And as better themes come out for WordPress, I want to stay with EE but I want more themes.

Here is my current choice in free themes:

http://www.wp-themes.der-prinz.com/magazine/

But it’s beyond my scope to implement.  Doesn’t anyone else think EE would benefit if more themes like this were available, out of the box, so to speak?

To be honest, I don’t fully get it. If you want that layout (or any other), take the source code, paste in a template and replace bits of the text with EE tags. You should be up and running in less than a day; it’s definitely easier than developing a “theme” (at least under EE 1.x), and some things can’t be done that way at all (creating relationships, eg, and such) and need some development anyway.

Unless you can make a few assumptions about your data structure (which WP can, but EE usually not) there’s no viable approach to one-click theming in EE; just my € 0.02.

That is my point.  Other systems have easy implementation to get you started with a different theme.  With EE, everyone expects you to do it yourself.  I don’t have a day to tinker with all this.  It’s like there is a hostility against themes.

There isn’t, not that I know, but I for one had rather not have EE (or any other CMS) make assumptions about my site’s layout and data structure. In addition, I am not sure that overall demand is very high. So far, nobody has stepped up to fill the void, as has been - to some degree - the case with third party plugins, modules and extensions.

Comparing with WP, we must keep in mind that creating a layout is quite difficult there (hence the need for themes), which is not the case with EE at all. Not saying this is a perfect situation, but it might help explain the status quo.

There is Marcus Neto’s http://eetemplates.com/.

I’d also refer you to Chad Crowell’s Skinning an EE site.

Truth of the matter is - and I don’t mean this in a hostile manner just being direct -  EE just isn’t designed to be an easily themed or skinnable CMS.  If that’s your requirement then you might want to investigate another CMS.

“Skinning” an EE site would be like trying to skin an Excel spreadsheet or Microsoft Access database - in order to easily do it you’d have to assume a standardized data structure on the backend, and EE just doesn’t do that.

I spent all day trying to modify the Branford magazine theme above.  I just can’t.

I mean, finding a CSS template and modifying it is usually easy.  But it’s so hard to find a magazine them like this one, and I’m not a designer.

I understand what people are saying about EE not assuming things.  And I do like using EE.  But, like I said, I am frustrated by how EE limits my own limitations further.  I don’t want to start from scratch.  I want to implement a magazine theme.  And I can’t ever figure it out.  It’s very frustrating.

Fascinating thread this as I’m currently porting a no longer supported Textpattern theme to EE.

Dean, since EE makes no assumptions about your data, theming is never going to be a 1-click thing as it is with Wordpress.

Having said that, nothing’s stopping you from reverse engineering a WP-theme into EE though something like the example you show will take a bit more than a day 😊

Why not have a look at http://www.pragprog.com/screencasts/v-riexp/building-a-dynamic-website-with-expressionengine
a series of screencasts that use a magazine style website as an example of an EE-site.

And, if you really need a certain design ported to EE, you can always contact someone from the pro-network.

If you have any Photoshop skills this site can be helpful.

http://psd2cssonline.com/

Dean, Creating installable Themes for EE is just not easy at all. I have worked with Joomla, Wordpress and now EE and it is easily the most difficult in terms of creating a package that is installable. But that said we do have a few templates but nothing like what you are looking for. I have a few in the hopper… but again nothing like what you have shown… But I will make it a point to explore something like what you were looking for. Who knows? 😉