Why so few templates available?

[rovercar]

Hi,

I've been using CMS Made Simple for several important projects and have recommended it to many other people. The one question I have always had is, "Why are the so few quality templates available for CMS Made Simple?" Unless I want to learn to do all of the coding to make major changes to the templates I have found, there really isn't much, especially when one considers all of the good reviews and high praise CMSMS has received.

Am I missing some large repository of templates, or is CMSMS really there to generate work for custom website designers?

I also don't mind doing a reasonable amount of work to port something over myself, but the only how-to's I have seen on this a not at all in the realm of "simple" CMS.

Somebody set me straight or point me in the right direction, please.

Glen

[RonnyK]

15 pages of 10 Full-Templates isnt enough?

By default CMSMS comes shipped with 8 templates.

At the themes-site there are the uploaded/shared templates of users of CMSMS, http://themes.cmsmadesimple.org/

Under its Full Theme section, http://themes.cmsmadesimple.org/Downloa ... hemes.html are around 150 templates.

Ronny

[Deak]

I think that the problem isn't that there aren't enough Themes for CMS Made Simple, rather that we've got is mostly not original work, not of high quality, and is poorly maintained. Theme designers need to take some blame for that, but the community's website is also part of the problem. I've posted along similar lines before about how the work of module developers is not well promoted (and offered suggestions), the same is equally true of Theme designers. There's the additional problem with Themes, however, which is that once you've uploaded your work there is no way to update/maintain it.

[rovercar]

No offense intended, Ronnie!

And I don't suppose you can develop the entire system and do the templates, as well. I guess there just seem to be more of what I would consider attractive templates out there for some other systems, especially WordPress.

Having said that, however, I just did put a lot of effort into a thorough investigation of WordPress and Joomla, and I'm back with CMSMadeSimple. It just does what I want it to do in 90% of the situations in a really simple manner. So, I'm not complaining.

Except that there are a lot of either unattractive or unacceptable (theme- or color-wise) templates among all of those you mentioned. I've seen them all several times. If there were better themes/templates available, more people would use CMSMade Simple.

Glen

[RonnyK]

Glen,

no offence taken

There is promotion amongst the user-base of CMSMS, to upload their personal creations to the themes site.

Some more nice ones there would be fine...

Ronny

[Dr.CSS]

@Deak

If you have a problem with one of your themes you can send the fixed file to me and I can upload it for you...

@rovercart

The whole thing about themes etc. is that they are so easy to port to CMSMS, if you find a wordpress or anyother theme it can be ported to this, I even converted a j***** template that someone paid for, it's just a matter of what HTML/CSS knowledge you possess...

[Deak]

If you have a problem with one of your themes you can send the fixed file to me and I can upload it for you...

Thanks, duly noted!

[dtkkamarudin]

i saw a websites at freecsstemplates.com but it says taht is okay with wordpress etc.. my question is does this type of tempaltes can be used with cmsms or we need to do something on it first.. kindly help me..

[KO]

Here is post I did while ago... Maybe it helps you.

http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.php/topic,29760.0.html

[replytomk3]

Donate all of you (like I have several times) and then you'll actually do something about it.

[faglork]

The whole thing about themes etc. is that they are so easy to port to CMSMS, if you find a wordpress or anyother theme it can be ported to this, I even converted a j***** template that someone paid for, it's just a matter of what HTML/CSS knowledge you possess...

Right. You can basically take ANY template, simply substitute the module calls, and you are done. This is the beauty of CMSMS.

Cheers,
Alex

[jpatti]

There's only a handful of templates needed, really. 

You have your basic layouts: 2-column with sidebar on the left, 2-column with sidebar on the right, 3-column with sidebars on the left, on the right, on either side, etc.  Samples of all the typical layouts come with the install.

I mean, it's just really rare to sit down and write a template unlike anything that's ever been written before.  Obviously, there's a first time for everything, but it's really, really rare.  The built-in templates get you 99% of the way there for almost everything you need, unless you're stubborn like me and insist on writing yours from scratch to learn (cause pounding one's head against the wall is SUCH fun!)

Just copy the template of the basic layout you want with a new name, then copy the stylesheet with a new name too.  Edit the stylesheet to swap out colors and images in the CSS and you have whatever you want.

You don't really have to learn CSS this way.  Cause you just play with colors and URLs and don't have to learn all the display-position-float-clear business for layouts or do battle with the box model personally or learn the bazillion and one browser-specific bugs cause someone else already did all that. 

The couple stylesheets I looked at in the admin were EXTREMELY well-commented so this would be pretty darned easy to do.  Anyways, you're just looking for colors and URLs to swap out, so... not like you really have to learn CSS.

For specific themes... well, I usually hire an artist to make the header image, which is then owned by the customer, and use the colors in that image in my stylesheet, so... it'd be rare I'd have a whole theme to offer up. 

But it's so easy to make them yourself with what's there. 

[Utter]

I find it odd reading posts like the OP because it makes me realise how the CMS world has changed from the early days to the point that people now expect to have every aspect of the system laid on for them for free - backend database-driven system handles content and skin/template/theme/whatever deals with the design and hey-presto - web design and development without any design or development!!

When I first found CMSMS I was tearing my hair out because I knew I had to offer clients a system they could update themselves but all the other solutions forced my hand as a designer because they were so damned hard to design on top of - with Joomla, Drupal and the others you HAD to have a premade skin because creating one was such a bind but then all the sites looked the same. Only CMSMS made it possible for a professional designer to create a great design and bolt it seamlessly onto a PHP engine.

So my advice to the OP would be - CMS Made Simple really isn't about skins or templates - it's software for those who understand the parameters of professional web design and can learn Smarty and blend the database element together with their own designs. And people who say

Unless I want to learn to do all of the coding to make major changes to the templates I have found

have missed the point - that it IS aimed at people who not only 'want' to do that but who's profession is to create designs from scratch.

Of course, that's not to say you can't use a pre-made template and, as RonnyK points out, there are a fair few available on the themes site, but I can't see the dev team ever wanting to make 'free templates' a core interest of the project.

Hope that helps.

[panthus]

I agree with the sentiments here. I'm new to any cms/php/database driven stuff (only started in January), and what drew me to cmsms in the first place was exactly the fact that it's very, very easy to design your own templates or port existing ones from wherever to cmsms.

Even though I'm actually a designer for print media and didn't have all that much to do with web things before, I already knew some static html/css coding, so I just had to look at the preinstalled samples to figure out the necessary smarty tags and I was up and running. Simple and easy.

Now I can concentrate on learning all the more sophisticated smarty and php coding. 

My opinion: If you want to make a website, learn how to do it – and that takes some time, devotion and a general willingness to learn – or hire someone who does it for you.

By the way, learning can be fun – and rewarding … 

[calguy1000]

My opinion: If you want to make a website, learn how to do it – and that takes some time, devotion and a general willingness to learn – or hire someone who does it for you.

Amen.

This is not a solution for the average amateur person who has only a slight knowledge of (cough)Frontpage or dreamweaver, or even for most 'wannabe professionals'... CMSMS is made by professionals, for professionals.  Professionals aren't afraid of a bit of learning, and prefer learning how things work than memorizing a few keystrokes or code snippets.