Question Horrible templates for Kunena 5

After years of using Kunena, it's been an awesome forum component. Now I have to be brutally honest here about both of the Kunena 5 templates. They are absolutely horrible, complete breakage of layout where I have duplicate elements, basically the whole forum looks like it exploded in my site. I'm just glad I put this on a test site first.

Being dependent on Bootstrap was the wrong direction to go. Kunena really should have put some effort into a half decent template that works in any template, albeit with basic styling, but styling where everything is laid out, in line, and at least usable without the need of using Bootstrap.

Even the kunena site here shows bad design and things not lining up, such as buttons, fields, and more.

I'm sorry Kunena, but I just don't have the time to build a kunena template from the ground up, so I have to stay with version 4.x until someone puts some effort into a default template that looks half decent. At least one that we can use as a foundation to create a new one without the need to rebuild from nothing.

I also know I'm not the only one who has experienced this design and layout mess...I've seen many others. Here is an example of what I am experiencing, just as many others have:

www.kunena.org/forum/k-4-0-installation-...-5-0-2-after-upgrade

For what it's worth, I agree with GeJay.

I'm very familiar with Joomla/CSS and could certainly customize the template to our liking as I did with Blue-Eagle. However, the new Crypsis bears very little resemblance to Blue-Eagle, making it unfeasible to begin a full customization.

We very much liked Kunena V4 with it's logically formatted Blue-Eagle and like GeJay, will also need to stick to K4 until the upgrade can be more seamless to our user population.

I understand that Kunena is free and much effort has been invested into its development from its inception; for this I congratulate the team. However it boggles my mind as to why a new release would so drastically change the front-end of this popular extension. So for us, it's no Kunena 5 until we have a solution.

Hoping for a "rebooted" K5 Blue-Eagle

Cheers,
K

I agree, the new Kunena look is just ugly. I'm really sad to think that it looks like a suicide.
I dont understand what happen to Kunena and where it goes. I'm lost.
So, I'm starting to look for another forum solution because I'm a bit scared about the future of what was until now a great component.

I do have to admit that I know they did a lot of work coming up with version 5, but unfortunately, the template crypsis and crypsis3 are not usable by any means. The one thing going for Blue Eagle is that it was a complete template and one that was easy to develop/modify a new template from. But I still stand by my opinion of the new one for v5. I was so excited with the completely new Kunena 5, but it crashed and burned when I saw the template.

Unfortunately, there really isn't a replacement if one was to change to a different forum component, so the only solution is to stay with version 4. However, staying on version 4 prevents me from upgrading my server to PHP 7 because the forum categories throw an error of "Orphaned categories"...a problem the Kunena team said it's not the component, it's a bug in PHP 7.5.6. I'm sorry, but PHP does not build based on third party components, it's the other way around. So I had to revert my server back to an earlier version of PHP

Thank you everyone for your feedback, is always good to know what people think about new releases, features, etc..

I just want to remember the fact that kunena is supported by volunteers, real people just like you and me (Yes, I'm also a volunteer)

Saying this, if you feel that kunena templates are ugly, that's OK, we respect your opinion.
All kunena users are welcome to become volunteers / contributors of this amazing project.

NOTE: If you have a very pretty and professional template and have the time to provide support for it, don't hesitate to create a pull request, there nothing to lose.

I have to say that after an initial uneasiness in the initial release, I really like the crypsis template and its look. Saying that some future improvements to customability would be nice, if possible.

what for suggestions do you have, to improve crypsis

Thanks 810! Here are a few small things I would like to see in the future - nothing urgent though, just small improvements.

1) "reply" button should be moved up a level so its not hidden under the drop down menu
2) attachments - on my installation when am I am in the attachment area with attachments uploaded, the attachments are shown very large - making the screen "busy"
3) attachments - space between attachments added (they are bunched up against each other in the post and then I have to add a space in the editor
4) avatars - when round avatar option is chosen, some avatars appear as elipses (somehow due to original avatar file dims)
5) more color options - i.e. color choosers for other items (to override my templates css) such as a) forum text color b) forum font c) titles d) category titles.

Hope this helps

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Hi, feel the urge to just reflect on this topic.
Sometime ago development of Kunena halted to a grind, new forum components started to see daylight as the developers could not work with the Kunena project: proposed changes where not listened to / implemented.
I did a full investigation of what other forum components where around and when I was at a point to make a decision, somebody kickstarted Kunena.
I immediately jumped in and I have no regrets whatsoever.
I run several community sites and the 'old' blue-eagle' was just not coping anymore: it was fully desktop centered and knowing that nowadays over 70% of all website traffic comes from mobile devices, everybody has a facebook / linkedin account, it is be responsive or 'die'.
I got a lot of questions from customers asking why they should use an old desktop product when they more easily can do it with facebook / linkedin: the driver being having the forum in the palm of your hand (mobile)

Crypsis doesn't look at all like blue-eagle and I agree that when you do not want things to change it may come as a shock
For me and my use cases, Crypsis is a change forward: it is fully responsive, works great on mobile devices and has a fresh / clean look.
My customers love it and their reaction is: finally!

That was a long time ago, as a website maintainer I took it upon me to test and implement crypsis in the very early days (somewhere starting the 4.x releases) on websites that where open for this change. When Kunena 5 came out, upgrading was a breeze! just like it used to be in the 'old' days.

So here is me saying: "Kudos to the developers and contributers for doing CPR on Kunena and bringing it back to live."
Is it there yet? No. Is there room for improvement? Yes!

But the groundworks are laid, and if we all roll up our sleeves and instead of complaining start contributing, I think this once again can be the-go-to forum component for Joomla! (and even for sites migrating to Joomla just because of Kunena )

HI Ruud, you offer valid points, most of which would no one would argue. Everyone unanimously wants a responsive forum/template with improving on the former.

The main issue of this topic, which is justifiably repeated in other Kunena forum posts, however, is this:
The disappointments resulting from the introduction of a new template with a front-end drastically different than its predecessor, with no options whatsoever to maintain the look. The visual design is too great a departure from the previous version. In software development this is generally not a good practice.

Look at the community response to the introduction of Microsoft's Windows 8? To Microsoft's defense, MS did return to the old look and feel without sacrificing improvements and corrected this faux pas. User communities can adapt to a certain amount of interface changes but this one has very little resemblance to the original.

Perhaps our user communities differ as I also run Kunena on several sites. For instance, one is a Firefighters Association website. These fellows fight fires and are not extremely tech savvy. An greatly modified interface would not be welcomed. Same with my other sites.

As mentioned before by many Kunena users, a better approach would be to:

1. Somehow keep Blue-Eagle as an option in K5 while introducing Crypsis. This backward compatibility would allow users to upgrade to K5 and customize Crypsis at their leisure without affecting their site members/users. I understand this may not be possible.
or

2. Offer Crypsis with an optional toggle (or css file replacement) to maintain the look of Blue Eagle
or... the best solution

3. Offer Crypsis and a K5 version of Blue Eagle.

Let's keep the discussion alive. Who knows, maybe the wonderful Kunena Team will come through.
Cheers!