Question Hey Team...

Our next version will hopefully get much better theme(s) with improved usability. All current themes suffer from major usability issues.

I think that the main reason why the themes are so bad is that most of the FB core logic is found in templates, which makes it almost impossible to change them. So themes will just add some nice images and alters css a bit.

As we are currently beginning to move the core logic out of templates, it will be much easier to make your own theme in the future.

kenmcd wrote:

Very nice to see a much more "usable" interface.
The basic usability issues in FB have been an ongoing irritation.
Prime example - the non-standard pathway confuses 99% of users new to any FB forum.
I see from your example site above that you have fixed this problem.

Your other interface improvements are also welcome usability relief.

A Kunena theme similar to your much more usable theme would also be a great addition.
Most of the current FB themes suffer from the same "useless-eye-candy-is-better" disease as most Joomla commercial templates.

Yes, you nailed it. My feeling is that a lot of people expected Fireboard to compete with big boards such as Vbulletin, and even worse, the dev team tried to mimic the appearance of those forums, which is wrong in my opinion. We can't compete with big forums, and we should not even aim to do that. I think efforts should be concentrated on what makes the ex-fireboard best, and that is integration with joomla.
Let's not even start about all the unnecessary drop-down menus, profile with extra menus, even more menus, etc... It could really use a good cleanup.

Matias wrote:

Our next version will hopefully get much better theme(s) with improved usability. All current themes suffer from major usability issues.

I think that the main reason why the themes are so bad is that most of the FB core logic is found in templates, which makes it almost impossible to change them. So themes will just add some nice images and alters css a bit.

As we are currently beginning to move the core logic out of templates, it will be much easier to make your own theme in the future.

I actually like the current solution, because nobody *forces* you to edit the core logic, you can create a theme that will include a different CSS/images and be done with it. However for someone who wants to do more, he can edit the core files as well, while still keeping the original files in the default dir for easier comparison and upgrades down the road. Without this possibility it would be impossible for me to accomplish what I did....so I would definitely keep at least a part of the current solution, but the aim ultimately should be that most, if not all customizations can be done via css and not require code modifications. That's exactly the main focus of my interest.

Riba wrote:

kenmcd wrote:

Very nice to see a much more "usable" interface.
The basic usability issues in FB have been an ongoing irritation.
Prime example - the non-standard pathway confuses 99% of users new to any FB forum.
I see from your example site above that you have fixed this problem.

Your other interface improvements are also welcome usability relief.

A Kunena theme similar to your much more usable theme would also be a great addition.
Most of the current FB themes suffer from the same "useless-eye-candy-is-better" disease as most Joomla commercial templates.

Yes, you nailed it. My feeling is that a lot of people expected Fireboard to compete with big boards such as Vbulletin, and even worse, the dev team tried to mimic the appearance of those forums, which is wrong in my opinion. We can't compete with big forums, and we should not even aim to do that. I think efforts should be concentrated on what makes the ex-fireboard best, and that is integration with joomla.
Let's not even start about all the unnecessary drop-down menus, profile with extra menus, even more menus, etc... It could really use a good cleanup.

I'm osrry but I disagree to some point, kunena needs to be able to compete with the big boards, just being fully compatible means not that much, I know undreds of people who prefer to have a good community, and doesn't care having a "small" CMS like it's big board portal could be, or an integration with a blog system...

Promoting a board that can compete with the big ones, at least with phpBB, is also promoting joomla...

You have other CMS with phpBB already integrated as part of it, like dragonfly.

@ Riba:

I have no intention to force our users to use only some predefined variables as in many Joomla components. I have better idea: templates will be called with only some mandatory/common information provided. You can do whatever you want by using Kunena API.

johnnydement wrote:

I'm osrry but I disagree to some point, kunena needs to be able to compete with the big boards, just being fully compatible means not that much, I know undreds of people who prefer to have a good community, and doesn't care having a "small" CMS like it's big board portal could be, or an integration with a blog system...

Promoting a board that can compete with the big ones, at least with phpBB, is also promoting joomla...

You have other CMS with phpBB already integrated as part of it, like dragonfly.

I'm just being realistic, you misunderstood me. In order to compete with those you need a fairly large and dedicated development team, I'm not against it - with some luck we may be there eventually.

Part of my concern is:
- do you want to cram as much features in the forum
- or do you leave out features that are already handled well by the CMS or third party components and concentrate on the core forum functionality?

I'm in favor of the second option. I heard that plugin API is being mentioned, that could be the ideal soluton - anyone could add the plugins they need and leave out the stuff you don't want or need.