THEME CONTEST!

Skinning and designing Serendipity (CSS, HTML, Smarty)
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garvinhicking
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THEME CONTEST!

Post by garvinhicking »

Please read the Blog
Last edited by garvinhicking on Wed Feb 08, 2006 11:54 am, edited 5 times in total.
# Garvin Hicking (s9y Developer)
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d_cee
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Post by d_cee »

Hi Garvin

I'm getting a 404 not found when I click on the link

Dave
garvinhicking
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Post by garvinhicking »

I fixed the link. Stupid phpBB BBCode parser did not recognize "!" in URLs.

Regards,
Garvin
# Garvin Hicking (s9y Developer)
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carl_galloway
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Post by carl_galloway »

Yeehah, I'm in, so if anyone likes my work start sending me your requests for what you'd like to see in the new default theme. Remember, winning isn't everything, and if we get another dozen themes to add to the repository it would really start to make people sit up and notice serendipity blog.

Carl
d_cee
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Post by d_cee »

I am considering doing some work on a competiton entry but wondering if it is worth my while. I've done considerable work on themes and templates over the past few weeks - and thanks Carl & Jude for the encouragement. However it seems my themes and restyles have been completely overlooked or ignored by the development team.

Would my competition entry suffer the same fate? Or is it just that my contributions are not good enough?

Dave
garvinhicking
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Post by garvinhicking »

I am sorry, but am being a bit in a hurry because of work and doing my own template, so I might just have overlooked them. I only saw one re-do of Judebert's ladybug theme...and, uhm, I must admit I'm personally not so fond of that colorful template. If you want me to add that theme to the theme repository, I can do that, though. Other people surely appreciate it. :-)

Posting a template for the contest is a good idea! Have a try!

All submissions to the competition will be publically displayed, if sent to me of course. I just need to get a knowledge of your submission. :-)

Regards,
Garvin
# Garvin Hicking (s9y Developer)
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d_cee
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Post by d_cee »

Hi Garvin
thanks for the reply. I've so far posted 4 themes in the past few weeks, Gumball, Bazooka, Joshua Tree & Ladybird - my rework of Judebert's colourful 'ladybug' which I've toned down into what I hope is a more useful colour scheme. In all I've had more than 150 downloads of the templates, Joshua Tree being the most popular.

If you think any of them are good enough, I'd be pleased if you would add them to the repository as it's having the themes used that makes doing them worthwhile.

As for the competition - it's all down to time. I'm stacked out with work just now and use my theming of s9y as a bit of a diversion from clients work.

All my themes can be downloaded from my themes site.

cheers
Dave
garvinhicking
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Post by garvinhicking »

Hi!

Great, I've now committed the Bazooka, Joshua Tree, Joshua Nino and Ladybird themes. The Joshua versions and bazooka are quite nice!

I still hope you might find time for the competition. :-))

Best regards,
Garvin
# Garvin Hicking (s9y Developer)
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d_cee
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Post by d_cee »

Thanks Garvin

I'll do my best to find time for a competition entry :)

Dave
carl_galloway
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Post by carl_galloway »

Dave, pleased to read you're going to find the time to enter the theme competition. If its any help, you come up with a concept and make it look pretty, the rest of us can tell you where its broken so you can fix it.

As for the development team, I hear you, but in Garvin's case he is as busy as you and I. Sometimes I marvel at how often I manage to squeeze 48 hours into 24 and still find time for my fiance and clients. Most of Garvin's emails to me tend to be very short and not so sweet, and half the time I reckon he wrote them as he's hopping out of a taxi and slipping on his running shoes, but he (and the rest of the development team) do notice. Heck even the reclusive Jannis noticed my site after a couple of months and made a small comment.

Dave, you work is very good, and shows signs of genius, but I think the themes you've chosen to hone your skills on are actually holding you back now, they are too structured and this tends to block the mind from looking outside the square, which of course restricts the imagination or leads to frustration. I would love to see what you could do with the default theme which has a lot less styling. Feel free to email me if you want feedback on your design, maybe I'll even show you what I'm working on :wink:

Carl
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Post by carl_galloway »

Garvin,

we are getting close to submitting our entries for the competition, and I wonder are the themes going to be hosted on an s9y server with the template chooser installed, or would you prefer we all host our own themes on our own servers?

Will you be announcing the entries so that everyone gets a fair hearing, or would you prefer we announce our own themes in these forums and then send the zipfile to you for whatever you need to do?

Carl
garvinhicking
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Post by garvinhicking »

Hi Carl!

I've contacted Jannis to ask for an "official" s9y hosted blog on s9y.org.

I will announce each entry on the serendipity blog!

Sadly, it seems like only 3 themes will be entered (yours, mine and davids).

Regards,
Garvin
# Garvin Hicking (s9y Developer)
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d_cee
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Post by d_cee »

Hi Garvin & Carl
garvinhicking wrote: Sadly, it seems like only 3 themes will be entered (yours, mine and davids).
I seem to remember Jude saying he was going to do one too?
Dave
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Post by judebert »

Gave up; no time. It was going to be a doozy, too. :lol:

Well, I did submit Ladybug, but I fully understand that it's too colorful for the majority of users, and therefore not suitable as the default theme. I'd have no problem with someone submitting modifications to the contest. In fact, I'd be rather proud.
Judebert
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carl_galloway
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Post by carl_galloway »

Jude, I was actually going to submit a theme based on your code and incorporating your ladybug, but like you I ran out of time, and had to make a very difficult decision. However I may revisit that after I've bedded down a couple of other projects I've committed to.

I'm disappointed that only three themes are being submitted, I had the feeling from haunting these forums that another two or three themes were being worked on, no names, but these people should really send their incomplete themes into Garvin, if you've come up with a design idea that the community likes I'm sure we could collectively convert it into a full polished default theme - think of the kudos!! 8)

Carl
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