Jump to content

The skins available for IP board are pretty universally awful

Interferon

By Interferon
in Feedback

Recommended Posts

Interferon Experienced

Interferon

Posted
Posted

I have been browsing the skins available for ip board, and I must say they are terrible. Huge headers that will only be replaced, unnecessary stylizing details, and bad color schemes. I'm not artist, but I know these don't look good. I like ip board a lot, but I honestly can't find anything good to say about the community skins, paid or free.

I'd like to see a few subdued professional-looking skins offered by Invision Power Services themselves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mark Grand Master

Mark

Posted
Posted

While I'm sure our designer will be flattered, I have to strongly disagree that only we are capable of making quality skins. There are many talented skinners out there with various different styles. The best IPB skin I've seen was not the default ;)
I won't name any but you can find various skinning sites here: http://community.invisionpower.com/resources/custom_services.html?category=58

Not saying say it won't happen, but I would be concerned supporting a myriad number of skins would be a bit of a nightmare for technical support.

All that said... one of our two designers does sell skins outside of IPS.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Interferon Experienced

Interferon

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Two things bug me:

-Almost everyone uses pastel-ish colors. I'm not sure what it is, but all the colors seem a bit off, and actually make me a little sick to my stomach.

-The default IPB skin, and most of the user-made skins, use a lot of vertical space for everything. For example, the bar above each forum category, plus the bar below that says "Forum - Stats - Last Post Info" is about 100 pixels tall. The header font in the category bar is huge. The bar above where I am typing, where it says "Fast Reply" is enormous. Vertical monitor resolutions aren't really getting any bigger since the manufacturers decided to make everything widescreen, so my ~1000 pixels are limited.

Here are some forums I think look good:
http://boards.polycount.net/index.php
http://www.torquepowered.com/community/forums/48
http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/showforum84.htm (this one uses IPB)
http://forum.codecall.net/


Another problem is that most skins have to be purchased. I don't mind paying for a good one, but without trying it for a few days, there's no way I can determine problems that may exist. I installed IPBBeyond3 and had to remove it due to incompatibility with the gallery and blogs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ditchmonkey Community Regular

Ditchmonkey

Posted
Posted

-Almost everyone uses pastel-ish colors. I'm not sure what it is, but all the colors seem a bit off, and actually make me a little sick to my stomach.




Maybe you should see a doctor :rolleyes:

Skinbox has some nice skins - as nice as any I have seen for any other forum software.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ryan H. Mentor

Ryan H.

Posted
Posted

That is the dynamic blog header, Each admin has to make the header for their site not the skinner.



To be fair, though, it is a part of each skin's images.

As I do not own the components, I'm unable to provide any support for them right now outside of packaging their images.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ditchmonkey Community Regular

Ditchmonkey

Posted
Posted

Does that defeat the purpose of a skin with a customizable color scheme? Why does a header image have to be used, when the forum does without it?




This really is a good point. I really don't see the logic in getting tricky with a dynamically generated blog header image when the rest of the IPS suite is so modern in design and easy to customize.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
bfarber Grand Master

bfarber

Posted
Posted

You are not required to use dynamic headers in blog. You can disable it in the blog settings.

If you do wish to use dynamic headers, a static image file is used as a base and text is written onto the image file. Naturally, then, whichever image file you have in your images directory for the base is going to be used, and you'd want to edit it to match your custom skin. We supply one that matches the default skin.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Michael Grand Master

Michael

Posted
Posted

I'm also going to have to disagree. The base image should match the skin, and that is the skinners job.



If the skinner doesn't have IP.Blog to be able to make their skin work for it, then what should they do? Making a skin work for all IP addons is a bonus, not a requirement. I say, if a skin doesn't mention that is works for IP.Blog, then you should assume it doesn't. If you need it to, then look for the description of the skin to say it does, or ask the author.

In any event, this feedback seems to be more about the skinning community as opposed to the actual IP.Board product.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Interferon Experienced

Interferon

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I think this indicates the skinning system may be very powerful, but it's so much work that no one wants to use it, not even IPB themselves. I run into design issues like this all the time with my software. It can be difficult to balance flexibility and ease of use.

IPB powers some pretty advanced sites, so it is understandable if the skinning system is complex. I'm going to have to pay someone to design a custom skin anyways, because the needs of my site are pretty demanding. However, for people who can't afford that, the default skin is a problem.

I am going to give you a very good piece of advice now.

The default skin should be as simple and unnoticeable as possible. It should look completely generic, and maybe have an easy way to alter the main color scheme. Your users don't want people to come on their forum and say "oh, it's IPB". They want the forum skin to be out of the way and unremarkable. Icons should be monochrome and simple. The fonts and bars should be smaller and "generic" looking. Why? Because if you have an easily recognizable forum it screams out amateurishness. No one wants their forum to look amateur. Having a loud easily recognizable skin says "I just uploaded this on my server because I don't know how to make a real website. I'm doing as little as possible. Don't take me seriously.".

I am pretty good at analyzing a market, and this is something I think would improve sales. If you have an advanced and complex skinning system, then your default skin should be as inoffensive as possible, because many people are likely to rely on it for a longer amount of time.

I find it hilarious that the first responder to this thread, who told me I wasn't looking hard enough, has a dead link in his signature:
http://www.skinground.com/home.php

I'm actually pretty worried about this. If almost every skin either has problems or uses the default bulky look of IPB, what are the odds someone I hire will be able to write and maintain a skin that doesn't look like that? I might end up having to use something else instead of trying to make IPB into something it's not, even though I love the community features of IPB.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Tom Christian Experienced

Tom Christian

Posted
Posted

I think this indicates the skinning system may be very powerful, but it's so much work that no one wants to use it, not even IPB themselves. I run into design issues like this all the time with my software. It can be difficult to balance flexibility and ease of use.



IPB powers some pretty advanced sites, so it is understandable if the skinning system is complex. I'm going to have to pay someone to design a custom skin anyways, because the needs of my site are pretty demanding. However, for people who can't afford that, the default skin is a problem.



I am going to give you a very good piece of advice now.



The default skin should be as simple and unnoticeable as possible. It should look completely generic, and maybe have an easy way to alter the main color scheme. Your users don't want people to come on their forum and say "oh, it's IPB". They want the forum skin to be out of the way and unremarkable. Icons should be monochrome and simple. The fonts and bars should be smaller and "generic" looking. Why? Because if you have an easily recognizable forum it screams out amateurishness. No one wants their forum to look amateur. Having a loud easily recognizable skin says "I just uploaded this on my server because I don't know how to make a real website. I'm doing as little as possible. Don't take me seriously.".



I am pretty good at analyzing a market, and this is something I think would improve sales. If you have an advanced and complex skinning system, then your default skin should be as inoffensive as possible, because many people are likely to rely on it for a longer amount of time.



I find it hilarious that the first responder to this thread, who told me I wasn't looking hard enough, has a dead link in his signature:


http://www.skinground.com/home.php



I'm actually pretty worried about this. If almost every skin either has problems or uses the default bulky look of IPB, what are the odds someone I hire will be able to write and maintain a skin that doesn't look like that? I might end up having to use something else instead of trying to make IPB into something it's not, even though I love the community features of IPB.




Funnily enough, the site is going under updates, hence the massive H1 text on the front page.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
Invision Community © 2024 IPS, Inc.
×
×
  • Create New...