Question Horrible templates for Kunena 5

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!

totally agree with what you have said. the templates that are around for Kunena and the ones with the Component are absolutly awful.
i have tried to see if there's any css files to change temps but in all there are no css files 'HELP'
Kunena is a great forum component for joomla but it's being thoroughly let down.

Still horrible, but I also believe that the dependency of Bootstrap via Joomla was a big mistake and I've mentioned this to Joomla long ago. Depending on a third part framework like Bootstrap (Joomla still uses BS v2) is no different from when Joomla was trying to get rid of Mambo code so they can focus on everything being "Joomla". Took awhile, but they did it...only to now integrate Bootstrap. They really should have created their own for Joomla so that it's strictly Joomla.

Where am I going with this?

Style conflcts, especially with templates using Bootstrap 3 (and now v4), as well, products that don't use Bootstrap CSS and JS from BS. This was one of the issues I had.

Unfortunately, there was not a lot of options for a decent forum component without venturing into third party forums and using a bridge (not an option for me). So I decided to spend the few dollars and got the paid Blue Eagle template for Kunena 5. Worked well and I was able to make custom style changes easily.

Still some quirky things about Kunena that I don't like but it works for now. I am actually planning to drop the forum though and opt in for a ticket system.