Merged Templating choices - including 3rd party designs - for Kunena

Is it just me or is kunena still being crippled by a lack of choices for templates.

Theres the one that it comes with and a handful of third party choices, most of which that have fallen behind in support. I was using one main source but thats ceased to be of use because they havent been updated to support beyond K1.6

So far Ive only found one developer that supports K1.7

Can anyone point me to more sources?

www.templateblender.com/

Thanks, mindriot, for starting this topic. I hope you do not mind if I moved it to the General Talk about Kunena category.

The Kunena team does not have any influence over people who independently have created templates for Kunena in the past. The team cannot compel independent developers to upgrade their templates - many of them that no longer work or that are no longer supported by those who designed them - when the team releases changes/bugfixes to Kunena.

What would help, when people discover problems with a third-party template written for Kunena, is to post a review in the KED about that template so as to give the developer an opportunity to respond. If developers do not respond to complaints or questions about their products then I think the consequences for those products (and those who advertise them here) are fairly obvious.

I accept the main point you're making which is about a general lack of template choices available for K 1.7 (or, possibly, for Kunena in a wider sense). We hope to improve on this situation by offering more choice in K 2.0.

Thanks Sozzled. NP. I will elaborate further and hopefully manage not to just restate points

I am aware that the Kunena team have been busy bringing Kunena up to a very good standard, but I do feel it would greatly help its wider acceptance if it had more styling choices.

I did not intend to imply criticism of the developers so I hope I didnt come across as such, and I do acknowlege the main developers have no power to compel third party developers. I do agree that third party developers could keep things more up to date, several times since the first Kunena have I had to change provider to get current support, twice having to give up on templates I was very happy using, and spend disproportionate amounts of time finding a new solution that matches a specific template in style and colour.

Since 1.6 / 1.7 I think it must be much easier to support styling templates as prior to that there were regular changes in the template code being mixed up with program code as it were and probably made the job of keeping up much harder, perhaps thats what limited more contenders.

I personally think Kunena is second to none in the Joomla arena, and certainly on a par with several of the yardstick forums in general, and I do think the lack of more styles to help integrate with joomla templates is probably harming take up a bit, but Im no expert so I could be wrong

Seems if the third party developers in general cant see the opportunity, the Kunena team have in fact an opportunity to spawn a whole range of styling options totally integrated into development and guaranteed to work. Perhaps the Kunena team should seek a partnership with some of the major template makers for Joomla, tie in theme releases with the monthly releases of those Joomla template clubs releases, then it would be a win on both sides.

Ive made a bit of an effort to have a go at soliciting a discussion, if Im lucky we can reveal some more choices, perhaps if it goes well it would merit a sticky :woohoo:

www.kunena.org/forum/170-K-16-and-K-17-T...ent-template-options

We agree. The Kunena forum and most of the add-ons designed by the team that you see today will continue to remain free: free to obtain, download and (as far as is humanly possible) supported. However, in the future, there is also the opportunity to structure things in a way that allows for professionally-designed, developed, and supported add-ons - including templates - to be offered on a commercial basis as many other Joomla developers have already done for many years. The basic product will always free but you pay for some optional extras. The issue then becomes a matter of deciding what's a basic, must-have feature, and what's optional.

We're not there yet, of course, but if we were to head down that path and do as you suggested, there would clearly be advantages in forging new partnerships.

In the meantime, however, many of the alternative templates,designed and developed by other members of the community, are also free. The level of guarantee that these third-party templates will work with Kunena (as well as a commitment to any long-term support) varies with each product. I still suggest using the KED as the vehicle to transmit any messages people have for third-party template designers.

Nice to be in agreement

Absolutely regarding the KED, hopefully anything revealed in the thread I linked can be added.

Recently we have seen pages hosted at www.templateblender.com now result in the following message when you attempt to view them:



The Kunena Project advises all members of this community that any software hosted outside of joomlacode.org/gf/project/kunena/frs is not endorsed, supported or maintained by the Kunena project. Kunena is a registered trademark and any misuse of the Kunena™ trademark is a violation of international conventions on intellectual property rights. Any website that uses the Kunena name or provides products or services used with the Kunena component must carry the following disclaimer, clearly printed, on all pages of that site where the products/services relating to Kunena may be available:

Kunena is a registered trademark of the Kunena project team. This website and/or any of its services are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Kunena project.

Hi,
I'm have a big prolem.
I'm install kunena and I can't find any free template?!
Do someone know's some free dark template PLEASE?!
Early on kunena website was templates, now this exist :$ why?!

Hi,

Where are all; the free templates gone?

Thanks

*** Topics merged ***

There is not a "lack" of templating options available for (a) those who want to search for them, (b) those who are willing to pay for them or (c) those who are skilled and who have the time to build their own templates. We agree that the technical information in the Wiki is not particularly easy-to-follow for those people who are not skilled web-designers but this is not the primary focus of this website to explain, in specific details, how exactly people need to equip themselves with the knowledge and the necessary design skills in order to tackle these kinds of advanced issues.

For most people, the standard "out-of-the-box" K 2.0 Blue Eagle template is easy enough to install and customise with a few minor CSS tweaks as required. For those who are looking for something more sophisticated, there are many sources where they can obtain third-party products developed for Kunena. The caveat, however, is this: if people have problems using third-party templates with Kunena then they should first approach the people who developed those things for an answer.

It is unfortunate, perhaps, that people who report problems on this forum (when they are using third-party Kunena templates) will be advised, in the first instance to (a) contact the developer to see if there is a fix for their problem and (b) if that third-party developer cannot help them, they should try the K 2.0 Blue Eagle template next.

In response to the general question "Where have all the [free] templates gone?", please see the following topics that explain the current situation as far as the Kunena project is concerned:

1. Closure of User-written templates category
2. Changes at www.kunena.org
3. "Fair use" advertising policy
4. KED 404 error