Some free themes that don't look like 1995 clip art

[cualupe]

Why are there no decent themes that are free?

I used to use phpBB and they had so many free resources, especially themes.

People here charge exorbitant amounts for such small addons or features.

[ehren.]

I understand the annoyance, however you'll find that you get what you pay for. Most commercial theme designers such as myself spend a lot of time creating and supporting themes that have lasted years. You'll find that themes aren't abandoned or left outdated since the commercial designers have an obligation to support their products - and frequent theme updates are usually offered too with bug fixes or general improvements.

Roughly $30 to redesign your entire site is a great investment and certainly not exorbitant, especially if it can grab the attention of your visitors and turn them into members  

[Feneroin]

49 minutes ago, cualupe said:

Why are there no decent themes that are free?

I used to use phpBB and they had so many free resources, especially themes.

People here charge exorbitant amounts for such small addons or features.

Just compare free and paids themes. You will see difference.

 

Here best themes for IPS:

https://www.ipsfocus.com/themes/

[Square Wheels]

I get all of my themes from @ehren..  Some I even buy twice for multiple sites.

[Claire Field]

Yup, @ehren. does the best themes. Updates, help, bug fixes, it's just so totally awesome. Absolutely worth the price.

[Joel R]

5 hours ago, cualupe said:

Why are there no decent themes that are free?

I used to use phpBB and they had so many free resources, especially themes.

People here charge exorbitant amounts for such small addons or features.

Keep in mind that the community and pricing model behind phpBB and IPS are very different.  PhpBB is a free forum software, so most of their mods are developed for free and shared to selflessly benefit everyone.  IPS, on the other hand, is a premium forum software, so most of the Marketplace will charge fees and renewals that mimic the overall pricing of IPS.  

I had a major sticker shock coming from SMF to IPS because I was used to free themes, free mods, and a great community.  Users voluntarily supported and encouraged each other in a peer to peer community.  IPS is a very different kind of client community. 

If you want premium themes expect to open your wallet.  

[Mack_au]

Perhaps you should try using the built-in theme wizard to make your own, at least to start with. It's pretty customisation out of the box, and there's a lot of help available on these forums if you really want a specific "thing" or look.

And then if you aren't happy, go theme shopping. In 3x I had some free themes, but I also had one by Ehren. In 4x I've got my own theme I made using the wizard. It's not beautiful but it works for me.

I say this is place is still a great community, and has a wide range of both free and 'commercial' users that can do various things for various prices. It's up to you to figure out what you want from your forum and how much you want it.

[Makoto]

5 hours ago, cualupe said:

People here charge exorbitant amounts for such small addons or features.

I'm curious, what do you consider an "exorbitant" amount? I recently purchased an excellent theme from @OsmanK for only $30. I would have happily paid twice that.

 

[OsmanK]

7 hours ago, cualupe said:

Why are there no decent themes that are free?

In my opinion, it is necessary to look at the producer as well. Because designing a unique theme requires time and effort. I recommend you to empathize. 

[Mark Round]

Themes take time and effort to make as said above therefore a price is applied to the product and if you were to hire a web designer it would cost a hell of a lot more believe me! 

[ADKGamers]

I definitely don't think it's unreasonable to say that there's a sticker shock when coming to IPB from a free forum software or that there's no good free themes out there. And most people have covered the reasons above. 

If you're looking for a top notch theme designer reach out to @ehren. He provides great work and great support. There's a few others out there as well, but I personally use Ehren for my themes. 

[LiquidFractal]

8 hours ago, ehren. said:

I understand the annoyance, however you'll find that you get what you pay for. Most commercial theme designers such as myself spend a lot of time creating and supporting themes that have lasted years. You'll find that themes aren't abandoned or left outdated since the commercial designers have an obligation to support their products - and frequent theme updates are usually offered too with bug fixes or general improvements.

This is a simple point that cannot be overemphasized.  Imagine investing time and money into a theme or app, and to build so much of your community around it, only to find one day that it's no longer supported or that the developer has just lost interest or disappeared?

With @ehren.'s themes you're paying a subscription, but you're also securing a commitment.  It's easy enough to check out the marketplace reviews to see who the really dedicated developers are here.

2 hours ago, Mack_au said:

Perhaps you should try using the built-in theme wizard to make your own, at least to start with. It's pretty customisation out of the box, and there's a lot of help available on these forums if you really want a specific "thing" or look.

Yep - there are some theme developers here who are quite generous with their time helping out n00bs, as I can personally testify to.

[LiquidFractal]

I don't own any of them, but I would also add that @TAMAN has some really cool themes for sale in the marketplace as well.  He's also very helpful with theme-related questions in these forums.

[Lindy]

Doing quality themes on Invision Community can be a challenge. While other software literally go years without a notable update, our development cycle is rather rapid and we keep themers on their toes; they earn every penny.  

As mentioned, the built-in mechanism in the AdminCP makes it pretty easy to change colors -- so easy that even I can do it. If you want a quality, custom theme that really sets your community apart from the rest -- you can rightfully expect to pay appropriately. 

[rhyker2u]

On 7/30/2017 at 4:06 AM, Lindy said:

Doing quality themes on Invision Community can be a challenge. While other software literally go years without a notable update, our development cycle is rather rapid and we keep themers on their toes; they earn every penny.  

2

Filed a ticket about that a while ago. You shouldn't do theme updates in minor IPS4 releases IMHO if that's the baseline towards other themes. Makes keeping quality themes up-to-date a challenge indeed, but making admin's lives a nightmare. As we tend to do fixes of our own, and the further we move away from any branch (IPS4 or theme) the more difficult it becomes to upgrade later on and to install/expand plugins. However on that note I'm delighted to see the changelog https://invisioncommunity.com/release-notes/ on 4.3.5 are made public now.

On the matter of theme design? I totally agree on paying money for themes/plugins for premium quality. However some of us are very tight on budgets and reliant on donations. So if there's a way to work closer to how things are on WP for example? By releasing Lite (free repo) themes vs. Commercial on a 3rd party marketspace like Envato with more perks and premium support (or invision's own marketplace with or without in-app upgrade purchase in a free/lite theme)? That would be bliss. As to buy every theme commercially to then chose 1? Wish we had the budget for that. And just by running demo's on author sites I don't always get the right feel with a theme for purposes of our own, which is where the lite vs. pro approach comes in again. It tends to create a win-win for everybody. Not familiar with @ehren.'s work for example. As we got started with @Heosforo free theme (which by no means is low quality). It just came up yesterday in his feedback topic there are more excellent themes available. Didn't know, do now. And I'm probably not the only one who doesn't know. Anyway just my 2cts. 

P.S. sorry for bumping this topic ? Ran into it through google search

[rhyker2u]

Not to mention how quality theme development & maintenance doesn't have to be in hands of only 1 person. As there's this thing called GPLv2 license with or without github. Where a group of people can make something better, and then having premium support by the author always makes sense (who decides when the major release are in the marketplace) to those who are not into coding. Also, a fairly high fixed price structure with or without SAAS ain't always the best solution from a customer point of view. For example: I'm from West-Europe where paying $25-75 for premium is considered pocket change, in other parts of the world its half of a month's salary. Not surprisingly a lot of IPS4 sites look like 1995 clipart indeed. Hence with aforementioned tips in mind, lowering the entry price for quality plus offering optional donation makes a ton more sense to me. So with the freed up money we can purchase more IPS4 modules (on self-hosted sites), to offer more benefits to our memberbases,  extend functionality with more plugins, which will attract more developers, generate more traffic to marketplace (and thus increases sales towards premium things), and everybody will benefit more ... including invision with free demo's of IPS4 (clue) ?