New Template Download Page

Skinning and designing Serendipity (CSS, HTML, Smarty)
peacekeeper
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New Template Download Page

Post by peacekeeper »

Hi Folks,

on s9y.org are only a few templates to download. So I decided to make a template download page especially for serendipity. Everyone can send his own templates to publish. Now its your turn to decide, what you wanna see on this page and what is helpful for other users.

Some features i plan to realize:
- tags e.g. colors, version an so on
- ratings
- comments
- download counter
- browser compatibility

More wishes or questions?
Don Chambers
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Re: New Template Download Page

Post by Don Chambers »

Only a few? Are you sure you are looking in the right place? http://spartacus.s9y.org/index.php?mode=template_all

Templates can also be fetched via the spartacus plugin.

The templates listed there are those templates submitted by authors willing to include them in the s9y central repository. Some authors choose to host their templates directly from their own sites.
=Don=
peacekeeper
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Re: New Template Download Page

Post by peacekeeper »

There are about 75 templates on the official site. you can only download the template files an can not rate or comment them.

All Screenshots are very small!
garvinhicking
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Re: New Template Download Page

Post by garvinhicking »

Hi!

I've exchanged some private mails with peacekeeper, and honor his effort a lot. I do think the s9y template presentation needs to be beefed up, add some community features like ranking and download counters. And of course it would be nice for templates authors to have the ability to upload themes there, because the spartacus-CSV management really only gets us so far; a nice presentation page would really be helpful for users I think.

Regards,
Garvin
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yellowled
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Re: New Template Download Page

Post by yellowled »

peacekeeper wrote:More wishes or questions?
How about the possibility to have a) downloads hosted on that particular site and b) downloads on additional external sites (more like a listing or directory)?

I have some templates and a lot of ports on my website, and I wouldn't want to move them since a lot of them are linked to in my blog. I also wouldn't want to upload them again to another download site, but if said site offered a way to have a screenshot, a short description, and a download link to my website, that would be something :)

YL
Don Chambers
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Re: New Template Download Page

Post by Don Chambers »

Yellowled's ideas are good suggestions. I have a number of concerns about the general concept of "yet another place to download templates", but if it was more of a directory, that might be more appealing. And I am fairly concerned about ratings and comments.... I have seen those abused (especially ratings) on many sites... some people just like to post negative ratings because they have nothing better to do with their time.
=Don=
yellowled
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Re: New Template Download Page

Post by yellowled »

Don Chambers wrote:I have seen those abused (especially ratings) on many sites...
Well, I'm sure peacekeeper will make sure those ratings and comments will be carefully moderated by qualified experts. (I'm unavailable for that, BTW :mrgreen:)

YL
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Re: New Template Download Page

Post by tazilein »

I completly understand that many Templatedesigner/porter want to get feedback and some traffic/benefit - so they host templates on their own site instead of spartacus.

I estimate that around 60% of the templates are in spartacus, but 40% (and that are mostly the newer ones) are only published in this forum or on a private website. I searched a week ago for templates and found several sites (http://www.gallien.org/serendipity/inde ... hemes.html). It would be good to have one place to search for and get all templates available.
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peacekeeper
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Re: New Template Download Page

Post by peacekeeper »

Hi again,

thanks for your comments.

@yellowled I think it would be a problem to download it from other servers. In a few month it could be that half a the downloads doesnt work anymore. that sucks realy and in the end the page has a low quality!

what i wanted to do is to install every template an make some screenshots from the template. No one else should do that right now. your idea with some linklove to the template owner is ok. this will be included in the site.

@ don chambers
all postings from users will be moderated by me. i think this is not time-consuming.

More suggestions or concerns?
Don Chambers
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Re: New Template Download Page

Post by Don Chambers »

If a template author WANTS to make their template available for distribution via another site, (in addition to their own, or exclusively from another site), then a mechanism should exist for the AUTHOR to submit their template for that distribution purpose. Key point: Author must provide permission for their template to be available for distribution unless that template is already available via spartacus.

There should also be a means to list a template, provide keywords, screenshots (perhaps in pre-determined sizes), descriptions, etc... BUT all links for downloads/availability point to wherever the author instructs... which might be a link to their entire site, a specific page, or a zipfile for download. If that means that one day the author is no longer offering the template via their own site, we can try to contact them to obtain permission to host their template elsewhere if they are no longer able to host it on their own.

One final thing to consider - an author may need a method whereby they can insist that a template no longer be available for download from a 3rd party site, at which time it must be removed. While I cannot think of a reason anyone would want to do this, it is definitely something that should be possible.
=Don=
d_cee
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Re: New Template Download Page

Post by d_cee »

Hi
if the download page is hosted and moderated on s9y.org then I'm all for it, otherwise I'm completely against the idea.

I'm happy to host my own templates, let people comment and criticise them and download them. I'm also happy to host the s9y-bulletproof.com site - and any coloursets and templates users make for the bulletproof template.

I'd certainly be in favour of the template page on s9y.org being improved both in content and appearance.

Dave
peacekeeper
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Re: New Template Download Page

Post by peacekeeper »

Hi,

time flies... in the last 2 weeks I worked on a new template page. you can see the preview page on http://www.serendipity-templates.org/

The whole functionality ist not implemented yet. please give me feedback
yellowled
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Re: New Template Download Page

Post by yellowled »

peacekeeper wrote:in the last 2 weeks I worked on a new template page. [...]please give me feedback
I think it is a very bad idea to build this kind of site using HTML code/a template which is clearly not standards compliant. It just sends the wrong message.

I only have the one demo entry to refer to, and I realize this is work in progress, but since you asked for feedback:

a) the template's name should be heading or at least wrapped in <strong> tags, but definitely not <b> tags

b) the entry should use proper markup, not fake paragraphs seperated by <br /> tags

c) the image needs clearing (same on the detail pages)

... and don't even get me started on <center>, which is a deprected element which also has a pretty good alternative in the default template (.serendipity_center).

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but if you do this, please do it "the right way" from the very beginning.

YL
peacekeeper
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Re: New Template Download Page

Post by peacekeeper »

ok your are right... i made a few changes on several pages. the page has now xhtml standard and is w3c checked. some other problems will be fixed in few days.
peacekeeper
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Re: New Template Download Page

Post by peacekeeper »

do´s anybody know which font type the serendipity page has?
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