Default Theme Poll

[Luca]

There are currently three themes available for the forums. They are all at some level of moderately developed for use, specifically, here and have the work of at least a year of contributions. All three of these are sponsored and maintained officially, but some are more good-er than others. So what should be set as the official look and layout of CalRef, including to guests who find us randomly from internet darkspace? Vote now!

To preview and use each of these themes, click the Profile button at the top of the screen.

Under the Modify Profile tab, click Look and Layout. The top option lets you change your theme.

This poll runs for seven days.

[Emily]

This is so difficult for me, because I have fond thoughts for all three.

Scratch is the skin I'm most used to and it's the "default" theme for CalRef in my head, no questions asked. I mentally connect it with my introduction to CalRef, so it's kind of important to me in that way and I feel it's a good choice to be the default for new people.

Aquarelle is the theme I've been using for a little while. I love it so much, I think the watercolour at the top is incredibly pretty, I love the slight pinks and greens, and it's the first time I've truly enjoyed a light mode on a website in years.

Yorky is the best-developed theme in my opinion, hands down. I think it's a wonderful showing of what the site is capable of, looks sleek, and has more features than the other options. It's tied with Scratch for my vote, but without the added weight of nostalgia colouring my choice.

I guess I've sort of talked myself into voting for Yorky actually.

[Natalie]

Scratch is a good skin and definitely my second choice. (Aquarelle is nice but I just can't use such light themes when given the choice.) What really draws me toward Yorky, aside from the colours, is how slick and distinctive it is. The other two are very traditional in how they present the forums, and while those traditions have good reason they somehow put me off a little. Maybe it's because I'm newer here than Valkyrie, but Yorky feels more uniquely "CalRef" than the others.

[Luca]

Yorky definitely has the most work done on it to make it have more of our cultural stuff in it. I like that the news shows up easily on that theme, whereas Aquarelle doesn't display it at all. I like that I can easily swap out the board banner and tagline with some weird daily joke with relative ease.

That said, I think that posts are easiest for me to read in Aquarelle because of the light theme and pleasant font style. Maybe that's something to change on Yorky in the future. Further, Scratch was what I was used to for years, selected because it had a similar colour scheme to Endar from long ago. That doesn't mean it should be what we have to use now, it just means that it's harder for me to grasp what "us" looks like for today.

[Emily]

Yeah I think Yorky should definitely be the default. I like that it has the most features and it's a good starting point for people new to the forums.

I also prefer Aquarelle for the font and pleasantness. I was the one who implemented custom fonts into TSL in the past if you want some help on adding better fonts to Yorky :)

[Natalie]

Huh, the font is part of what put me off of Aquarelle. It's kerned pretty tightly and I find it hard to read in the topic summary, which I refer to a lot when I'm writing replies.

[Luca]

Alright, with four on Yorky and none on anything else, I'm going to shift the default to that for the time being. Everyone is still free to select their own themes using the method described in the OP. I will continue to develop this one primarily and post updates to the development journal as they happen.

I've also removed the system themes of the default SMF core, which zero people should ever use, so the theme selection should be less cluttered in the future.