🎨 Theme Design What are the easiest platforms to customize and design?

[Cedric]

Designing and customizing a forum can be an exciting yet challenging task. The look and feel of your forum play a crucial role in attracting and retaining members. But with so many forum platforms available, which ones make the customization process a breeze? If you think about it, there's a reason why role play forums choose Jcink over anything else.

Let's dive into a discussion about the easiest forums to customize and design! Share your experiences, insights, and recommendations with the community.

Here are some discussion points to get you started:

1. User-Friendly Platforms: Which forum platforms have intuitive interfaces that make it easy for even beginners to customize and design?
2. Themes and Templates: Have you come across forums that offer a wide range of pre-designed themes and templates, making it simpler to achieve a unique look?
3. Customization Options: Which platforms provide the most extensive customization options, allowing you to tweak every aspect of your forum to match your vision?
4. Coding Skills: Are there forums that require little to no coding skills for customization? Or do some platforms cater to those who want to dive into the code to create something truly unique?
5. Third-Party Plugins: Discuss any forums that offer a variety of third-party plugins or integrations to enhance the design and functionality of your forum.
6. Responsive Design: Share your thoughts on forums that excel in creating mobile-friendly and responsive designs.
7. Community Support: Consider the availability of a helpful community or support resources for forum customization challenges.

Remember to share your favorite forum platforms, success stories, and any pitfalls to avoid when customizing forums.

Eager to hear your thoughts

 

[prophet]

Honestly I've found ZB/IF/Jcink incredibly easy but tedious. There was/are CSS layouts that basically tell you what everything is and how to adjust it. I've coded/designed one IPB theme previously but that was around 5 years ago. I've always been curious to see how xenforo works but never had the opportunity.

 

[Ravenfreak]

As someone who has barely any skills to make a theme from scratch, I feel that Woltlab Suite has the best theme editor. It's the only software that I've used that has a real time visual editor, that shows you what you're editing. This is what it looks like:

 

[Arantor]

Pretty sure IPS has something like this too, but it’s been a while since i tried skinning an IPS.

 

[Jane]

For themes..Jcink. Jcodes has a ton of themes converted from ZB, plus all kinds of codes for different things. Ease of use..simple. There is myself and one of my users who are with Jcink. She made my bunnies and Christmas theme for me. Two of my members have been with PB for 20+ years and would never change.

 

[Arantor]

Shame you’re still stuck with tables for parts of it.

 

[Sinistra]

Pretty sure IPS has something like this too, but it’s been a while since i tried skinning an IPS.

Yes IPS still has it just not as advanced as it used to be. They also took out all the css files from the admin CP, so you have to hunt for classes and IDs to alter anything anymore. Which honestly is a pain in the butt.

As for me, IPS has always been easy to theme because it's my preferred platform, so I know the inner workings when it comes to theming. If I was starting out on a new software, my choice would have to be xenForo. I have had it for a month and I made Anime Insight's skin in less then 30 minutes. Granted I just altered it a little bit but it still looks like I spent a month designing it. So the potential is endless when it comes to xenForo.

 

[TwitchisMental]

User-Friendly Platforms: Which forum platforms have intuitive interfaces that make it easy for even beginners to customize and design?

When I see this question I think of MyBB, XF, and Woltlab. They all have a nice GUI for making a theme. MyBB's editor being the more minimal of the three.

Themes and Templates: Have you come across forums that offer a wide range of pre-designed themes and templates, making it simpler to achieve a unique look?

I think pretty much all of the major forum software options have a good selection of pre-done themes. I'd be willing to bet that XF and IPB have the most themes released for download.

Customization Options: Which platforms provide the most extensive customization options, allowing you to tweak every aspect of your forum to match your vision?

This is another one where I believe all major forum software does good in their own ways.

Coding Skills: Are there forums that require little to no coding skills for customization? Or do some platforms cater to those who want to dive into the code to create something truly unique?

I find that the big paid for options make customization pretty easy without needing to know HTML or CSS.

Where as others like SMF and phpBB, you do need to know HTML and CSS pretty well.. It is a good idea to know some basic PHP aswell.

Third-Party Plugins: Discuss any forums that offer a variety of third-party plugins or integrations to enhance the design and functionality of your forum.

I think this is where all forum software does good. There tends to be more options with paid software like XF and IPB, but free forum software options like phpBB and SMF also have a good amount of plugins/mods.

Responsive Design: Share your thoughts on forums that excel in creating mobile-friendly and responsive designs.

Just about every major forum software handle mobile quite well. MyBB being the exception as their default theme isn't responsive at all.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think any forum software really "excels" at mobile view though. I truthfully rather view a forum from my desktop.