Serendipity Theme Contest finished!

Post by **garvinhicking** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 7:45 pm

I think all designs will be put in the final release, if all authors agree.

What I forgot to add: VOTING ENDS ON SUNDAY; 12:00 CET!

Regards,
Garvin

Post by **garvinhicking** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 11:16 pm

bpkri: The problem of h3 vs. h4 is also a template problem. Many staticpages use that h3/h4 order and have applied their CSS according to that. Plus, many templates depend on the entries.tpl of the default template and are using the h3/h4 order.

Thus, an individual template can change the order it likes, but the default template should stay a bit compatible to the old ways.

One other major thing is that google should not index the overview page, as this changes chronologically. On detail pages, the entry title is put in the document title, where it already should get the most relevant scoring. Repeating the title in other elements does not seem to raise the google "attention" level for those keywords, AFAIK...

Generally I do agree though with you saying that the title has a higher precende than the date. But when date's happen "earlier" in sequence on the page, we cannot just flip h3/h4 because it would break the logical numbering...XHTML2 fixes this. *G*

Best regards,
Garvin

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 10:29 pm

I vote for Garvin Hicking's theme.

I've previously set minimum font size to 14 (points?) in Firefox, and all three themes looked broken in 1024x768. When I removed this limit, they looked ok.

Carl's theme looks simple, but that's not bad for a default theme. The layout (particularly that upper right box) is a little messy for me.

The look of David's theme is too antique. But usability is very good.

The colors in Garvin's theme are beautiful. Right edge of calendar content is outside of the sidebar stripe. Maybe my fonts are different.

Old Serendipity theme is the most compatible and gracious to fonts and window resize. I also like that entries in the same day are grouped.

Nagy Ferenc László, http://blog.nfllab.com

cd33 · Post by **cd33** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 2:17 pm

I personally like the old s9y theme, but I have to agree that Carl's is better. Vote for Carl.

hgoor · Post by **hgoor** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 2:38 pm

I admit: bitching is easy.

Having said that: I think all three contestants did a good job, but I must say I think all of them are.... boring

Nonetheless: I voted for Carl's theme although I like the readabilty of the text (due to the slightly colored background) of David's version better..

Personally I like what this guy (he's a designer and I tried to coax him into entering) did better: http://homepage.mac.com/heuvel/digitalrendezvous/

Then again: a default theme is needed because not all of us are designers.

robert · Post by **robert** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 2:51 pm

hgoor wrote:Personally I like what this guy (he's a designer and I tried to coax him into entering) did better: http://homepage.mac.com/heuvel/digitalrendezvous/

It´s a good and nice style. But: no comments possible, no trackbacks.
It´s a "Mac Style" and it´s look like be created by iWeb (an application inside the iLife package from Apple), but I don´t know if it is - and: Apple make good styles for his application

.

But I would also be interested to see some of these "Mac Styles" in s9y.

hgoor · Post by **hgoor** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 2:58 pm

robert wrote:
hgoor wrote:Personally I like what this guy (he's a designer and I tried to coax him into entering) did better: http://homepage.mac.com/heuvel/digitalrendezvous/
It´s a good and nice style. But: no comments possible, no trackbacks.
It´s a "Mac Style" and it´s look like be created by iWeb (an application inside the iLife package from Apple).

But I would also be interested to see some of these "Mac Styles" in s9y.

Yup, it IS mac style - a dead give away since it is hosted at .MAC

The reason it doesn't have any functions (as yet) is because my friend is still checking out which CMS would be best for him.. He is considering WP and others...

In fact, since I have been looking at WP I must say I am rather impressed with it too...

houndbee · Post by **houndbee** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 8:48 pm

NOTE: I cast my vote on the poll already using my forum account.

Among the three, I think the competition is tough between Carl's and Garvin's submissions.

Great job Carl, David and Garvin! Wish we had more guys like you contributing to the community. *makes a note to self*

nino · Post by **nino** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 9:13 pm

I've voted for the best theme - David Cummins'
He also did my website and my blog. Please feel free to visit if you want.
The other two themes were also very good - keep it up - Garvin and Carl!! but Dave's theme is the best of all, but of course he is my husband

Jr Prod · Post by **Jr Prod** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 3:12 am

I prefer Carl's theme as well, it's simple and clear. Good job !

Thanks to all the theme's creators !

-------------------------------
www.fosenbauer.com/blog
Switzerland - Geneva

carl_galloway · Post by **carl_galloway** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 8:36 pm

Thanks to all for your votes, but most importantly for your comments.

May I add a couple of extra comments;
1. Despite only three entries to the competition, I still think this has been a very useful exercise. For the first time we've had a discussion about what users like/dislike. Personally I've really appreciated the comments about my theme. Seeing the reasons why users have preferred Dave's or Garvin's theme has allowed me to look more closely at all serendipity themes and identify the trends that are occurring.

2. hgoor, you are right that your friend's theme is very nice, it would actually be very easy to port this design to serenipity, but please understand that the default theme for serendipity needs to retain 3 columns because the admin suite allows users to select their sidebar position. Personally I dislike the traditional sidebar/content/sidebar look of blogs and cms, but that is what we have to work with. On the bright side, the development team have done an amazing job adding extra hooks that will allow us to develop new themes that break this traditional look, so give it a few months and I'm sure you'll see some amazing themes being released.

3. houndbee, stick that note somewhere that you will see it every day. I'm sure your contribution would be very gratefully received. After all, your themes have already inspired so many of us.

4. I won't comment on WP, but I chose and will be sticking with serendipity because it suits my needs better than any other blog software.

Carl

Post by **garvinhicking** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 10:46 pm

Read the winning announcement here:

http://blog.s9y.org/archives/111-And-th ... is....html

vvdheuvel · Post by **vvdheuvel** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:17 pm

Hi yall,

I saw my blog name flashing by in a search engine. Robert, thanks for the compliment "Mac Style", although I see it more as my own style!
I didn't use iWeb because of limitations of the application. Of course there are no trackbacks nor comments possible because you're looking at plain html code. I've studied some blog systems (Blogger, WordPress etc.) and these are the things they have generally in common, with some additions of my own.

I don't do themes for the general public (friends only) and if I do it will be for the Blog system I'll choose in the future (one tip it won't be Serendipity!)

Best regards,

Vincent

robert wrote:
hgoor wrote:Personally I like what this guy (he's a designer and I tried to coax him into entering) did better: http://homepage.mac.com/heuvel/digitalrendezvous/
It´s a good and nice style. But: no comments possible, no trackbacks.
It´s a "Mac Style" and it´s look like be created by iWeb (an application inside the iLife package from Apple), but I don´t know if it is - and: Apple make good styles for his application .

But I would also be interested to see some of these "Mac Styles" in s9y.

Post by **garvinhicking** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:41 pm

Hi Vincent!

Do you care elaborating what you dislike about Serendipity? Only if we get to know about weaknesses, we can improve them.

robert · Post by **robert** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 6:34 pm

@vvdheuvel
Oh, MacStyle is just a compliment

It´s a special form - for me - of fresh, coloured, modern Sites.
This means: You did a good work!!! It would be intereting to see it as a s9y Theme....

Serendipity Theme Contest finished!

Which theme should be the new default theme for Serendipity 1.0?

Re: #2 David Cummins

Hmm...

WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT

digitalrendezvous

Re: digitalrendezvous