I'm looking for some blog themes, since I don't feel capable of doing them myself. Does anyone have any they'd like to share?

A category has been recently setup on IPS Resources for this, although there have been no submissions yet

IP.Blog Themes > http://resources.invisionpower.com/index.p...&showcat=42

Also, there is a Blog Headers category too > http://resources.invisionpower.com/index.p...&showcat=98

Thanks! Hopefully people will start posting some.

I can't believe that there aren't any available yet. Come on guys, show us what you've got.

Bah, I'm working on one but was slowed down by my schools cross country site that took higher priority. I'll see what I can do after work and then post some previews, and later release them if they turn out good.

Cool! Thanks Ryan

Here's a new blog theme made by manHa http://www.ipbcustomize.com/sujet985-skin-...rk-stripes.html .

I have actually made several of them, but the problem is, there needs to be in image directory assigned to them otherwise anyone who uses the theme is feeding off my bandwidth, also, the blog themes display differently depending on the skin assigned to the blog prior to installing the custom theme, so there is no way to get the blog theme to display correctly with every skin out there on the market. So I have not released any of ours at IBSkin. This is quite puzzling and I'm hoping it will be simplified with a later release.

Oh that's great... if YOU can't figure it out, how are the rest of the unwashed masses (like me) supposed to.....

I thought Blog Themes were supposed to be easy to create (as long as you understand CSS), and distribute to others. *sigh*

awwww, I appreciate the compliment, but I'll be the first to admit, I may be talented, but I have much still to learn. I have a great understanding of CSS and HTML, but no matter how hard I try, I can get my blog themes to look great with the Invision Pro skin but not with any other skin. I know it has to be something I'm missing or doing wrong. I've just got to keep trying. I promise that if I get this figured out I will share all my information. But I am so stumped on this.

Hugs!
Sherri

Well I, and no doubt others, appreciate the promise.

The nearly-complete absence of new Blog Themes, even simple ones, puzzles me a bit. But perhaps I'm badly underestimating the amount of work it takes? The "pre-release" info provided by IPS seemed to indicate it was relatively simple, if you were already up to speed on creating skins in general. I just don't know because I have no comparative frame of reference, being a complete newcomer to IPB.

I'm sure this will work out in the end, but I have forum members asking how to customize their Blogs, and I have NO idea what to tell them.
I did provide them with that little code block that allowed you to choose a background and border color for the Classic Blue skin, and that's got them satisfied for the moment.

I've just ripped Rikki blog theme (made some color changes, changed the header etc.) and made it the default blog theme on one of my forums. *I wasn't see any Copyright © Rikki so, I think it's fine ... *

I did basically the same thing with a couple of themes I've seen, but mine aren't exactly right. I'm missing something somewhere. That's why I'm still looking for some others.

Distributing images is the trickiest part of the blog themes.

What was intended was to do the following

1) fill in "Theme Images URL", probably with a relative path (keeping in mind this CSS is printed into the header, it's relative from your forum root directory. Perhaps something like "blogThemes/thisThemeTitle/"

2) Then use the macro in your CSS {images} (which gets replaced with the above url).

3) Export the theme, it will have the above data in it

4) Manually pull your files and include with the blog theme when distributing it. I would keep directory structure in tact to make it easier for people to upload the images. So the zip might have

./Readme.txt
./theme.xml
./blogThemes/thisThemeTitle/(all images)

Users could just upload the blogThemes folder to their root directory, and then import the xml that way.

At least that's the idea...

Thanks Brandon! Now, any chance you could tell me if it is something I'm missing or messing up, as far as making these themes display the same no matter which forum skin is assigned to a blog prior to applying the custom theme? I have a theme waiting for approval here for my blog, it displays fine when the skin assigned to my blog is IPS Board Pro, but if I assign one of my custom skins or even the default blue IP skin it changes many areas of it. This has me puzzled. Is it something I'm missing? Should I spend more time trying to insure I have inserted the right CSS to prevent this problem or is this a problem that perhaps IPS is already aware of and working on?

Thanks!
Sherri
www.ibskin.com

The theme inherits from the skin, so since the blue skin has different elements and CSS you're likely not inheriting from everything, or inheriting from something that changes the display.

Simple solution really.

My controls -> Your Blog Settings, and change "Lock to following skin" to "IP.Board Pro".

Then everyone is forced to that skin, before your CSS is applied.

All I can suggest is that the IP.Board Pro skin wouldn't be the best to base it off, Rikki had to customize a lot of the templates to get it to do what he wanted, and its very different to other skins out there. Your best bet is to try to get it working with IP.Board Default and other skins first, and then try to get it working with the Pro skin, easier that way

Okay, thank you Brandon & Alex!
With knowing this, perhaps I can get some new blog themes out there soon.

I have just completed our first blog theme to be released tomorrow.
It is based off the Infusion skin. You can preview it live by visiting my
blog (if they have activated it yet, I'm not sure when they will get to
that.) and here is a screen shot...



Now that I've got this figured out, I'm pretty confident I'll be able to get them out pretty quick. I'll do my
best anyway. We will also have a few free themes available on our site and some will be available here on
IPS Beyond resource site too.

I've got it where it is displaying properly with the IP Default Blue skin and the IP.Board Pro skin as well.
I'm not sure how I got so lucky, but I'm thankful for the help and advice from Alex & Brandon. I don't think
I would have messed with it any further if it hadn't been for them. Thanks Guys!

~Sherri
www.ibskin.com

Excellent!

I know obviously I have an advantage in that.. well, I designed Blog, but it was my opinion that it was fairly easy to create blog themes, but perhaps there's a knowledge barrier to getting started? Anyway, glad you've got started and hopefully that will encourage others to give it a go

Thanks Rikki!

Update...

Oh goodness, they have it activated and it doesn't seem to be displaying properly here for some reason. This is frustrating. It was fine on my site. Back to the drawing board.

That's putting it mildly Riki. 99% of my users will have no idea where to start with the themes.

I'm at at risk of losing users right now.

At the very least, please make it an option to use the old index view, as was done when new profiles were implemented.

I think I see what's happening. The blog_css.css file is being included after your CSS is printed into the skin, so your styles aren't overwriting it properly as a result. I'll try to have a look at that - it may be just an issue on our board, not sure.




Firstly, you don't have to enable themes if they're going to be too difficult for your users. Secondly, they have nothing to do with the index. Thus, I'm a bit confused about how your statements relate to each other.

Rikki...would you mind making some of your themes available for download?

Maybe with the next release some pre-made themes could be included.

Yes. My big issue is with how the feature was described prior to the release of the software.

The two statements have nothing to do with each other.

Finally got a few of them done and ready for release.
Two of these will be free themes uploaded to IPS Beyond.
The other three will be available from our skin shop pretty cheap.

I've got about 4 more I'm trying to get finalized and released tonight as well.

Evanesence, I can't see an entry for your blog theme here in the queue... Do you want to try submitting it again, and I'll approve it for you

Okay, sure thing, I'll do it now.

Thanks!

Okay, I have submitted my CSS now.

I think the themeing is great and my users love it. The image stealing/bandwidth issue does concern me a bit though and that is the reason I haven't shared any yet. Also, anyone can come to my site, lift the theme and start ripping my bandwidth right away. Is there any way future releases could in someway combat thet situation?

Use your anti-leech feature thingy in your control panel for your domain. You can set it to only allow image viewing from specific domains.

I can't use that option as my RSS feeds will then not display the images when passed around the net. I've been down that road before

oh, okay. I wouldn't have known it effected the RSS if you hadn't said anything. Thanks for the heads up.

How do you know that someone is stealing just your blog images in particular. It would seem if you are worried about this you should be worried about the whole site including the forums and gallery? Are you sure it's not actual traffic?


Rofl yoo

I am not concerned about it currently. I am saying that is why I have not shared my themes all over the internet. It is just too much hassle. There really isn't an easy way to do it and ensure your bandwidth isn't leached.

Hey you! Did you forget about me?

Nope, I approved it... looks the same though

Oh no no no
I don't understand what is wrong.
It is perfect on my skinning site with the IP.Board Pro and Default Blue skins.

You know what, when I click on "Preview" when I'm inserting the CSS here on THESE forums, it shows up perfectly. Then it is saved and it doesn't. Why is that?

Same happend to me several times after they approved it. During preview looks nice, but after approval the columns are not formatted as I set it up in the css even with just plain #FFFFFF;

Oh no, sounds like an error in the blog system.
I'm no expert on software, but I'm pretty good with the CSS
and I've tried everything I know to do and then some I looked
up and nothing is working. Hopefully IPS Staff can help us out!

We have 6 themes up now at www.ibskin.com/shop and they work with the IP Pro skin locked in to the blogs. Not sure why they aren't showing up here, but they work fine on IBSkin forums and other customers have reported that they work fine.

I'm going to get them up on the resource site today too.

I only see 4 at the shop.

I've already purchased your sand theme, and I love it!

Thanks!!!

It's amazing. 2.5 months later and still nothing at IPS Resources.

I just don't understand why those that developed this super system can't put up a few simple skins.

Sure would make is easier for those of us with no skinning experience see some variations of what can be done.

I've made several of them, but I've had too many people tell me that they can't get it to display right. I have the same problem here on IPS blogs. My skins look perfect on my test site, but then I upload one here and it is all messed up, so I'm waiting for the programmer who created the blog to do some sort of updates to insure that this whole theme creation thing works like it should before I release any more. I don't want to end up having a mess of problems because they work on my site and not my customers sites.

As far as I know, there isn't any planned Blog releases until IP.Board 3. Unless something major pops up of course

What I do to get it to look right is to just go in and look at ALL blog templates for IP.Board Pro skin and click the little pink "revert" box next to each one you see in the blog templates. Then my themes will display the way they should. Strange, but it works.

There was one I thought, but it was removed for some reason.

I just added ALL of mine for free download to IPS Beyond. Now I'm just waiting for an admin to approve them. I've had several skins uploaded for days now waiting for approval, but so far, no one has gotten to them. Perhaps they are just too busy at the moment and will get to it when they can. I've also noticed that the featured Resource is still for August and has not been updated yet either. Hopefully we'll see IBSkin up there soon.

Andy generally does the approvals, but has been out of town this week. I'll take a peek today.

Just going through these now for you