http://themeshaper.com/the-best-ideas-for-a-new-wordpress-default-theme/
Here's all the ideas for a new wordpress default theme.
Default theme 1
* A set number of simple pre-defined layouts using accepted CSS techniques
* Speed as a priority with a minimal amount of functions in the theme
* Simple HTML with as little PHP as possible
* No changes necessary that cannot be accomplished through the admin panel
* A theme that follows best practices and can serve as a teaching tool and doesn’t aim to be the theme to end all themes
Default theme 2
* 110% of inline documentation, even in the stylesheet
* an example of how design, semantics, and web standards can work in unity with WordPress
Default theme 3
* Turn everything into a widget, so you can construct the layout of your page using drag-and-drop.
* Replace Classic with Sandbox and make it the fallback for themes lacking all possible templates
* Leave Kubrick as the default, it makes it easier to hunt out sploggers ;)
Individual ideas
* Theme choice become part of the install process
* A series of Sandbox Stylesheets become the new default
* a mini-database of WordPress how-tos (very cool)
* should look good as a blog and a CMS theme.
What are your ideas for a good Drupal 7 default theme?
Comments
I think we could possibly
I think we could possibly think towards something more functional, less clicks, perhaps something along the line of magento's admin theme or expression engine.
We should probably also provide more visual cues as far as icons for non-developers. As far as contrast goes I like garland, its nice and easy on the eyes. I will have more ideas later but for now I have to go work on some websites :D
vision media
350designs
Print Huge Edmonton Printing Services
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Tj Holowaychuk
Vision Media - Victoria BC Web Design
Victoria British Columbia Web Design School
Garland does pretty well as
Garland does pretty well as a default theme that gives you something pleasant to look at until you're ready to do something else. Wordpress has a very different user base from Drupal - and I think the core themes should reflect this.
We could do with:
* An admin theme (like tjholowaychuk says)
* An ultra-documented zen-like theme (theme 2 in that wordpress list) (although I'm not convinced something like that needs to be in core)
* A theme built specifically for css layouts & color module, with a couple of examples - this could be augmented by a contrib install profile which would bundle dozens of css themes together into a package (when install profile packaging is working).
Back to the list, theme 3 means reworking the blocks/region system along the lines that panels 2 is going. That's probably for Drupal 8, or Drupal 9.
A theme built specifically
If you mean creating a core theme that can be adjusted easily with css tweaks along the lines of http://www.csszengarden.com/ that could be a worthwhile addition to the themes packaged in core.
+1 for that
I have only briefly looked
I have only briefly looked at Zen, there are defiantly improvements which could be made, but I do agree we need a very well structured template for this. In house we have an internal theme we use simply called 'template' ( what a suprise ), it holds up great. Search engine friendly semantics are a must, the markup should be structured appropriately to get the content high in the markup while still providing flexibility.
Our template also has base styles for table stripping etc right in the theme's CSS so our designers can quickly adjust colors without needing to double check that they have adjusted the proper areas ( specific table sub headings in the permissions table etc ). Also I think a light and dark version of something like this would bold well.
vision media
350designs
Print Huge Edmonton Printing Services
Design Inspiration Gallery
Tj Holowaychuk
Vision Media - Victoria BC Web Design
Victoria British Columbia Web Design School
My thoughts
The default theme has to handle the administration very well, there is another discussion going on about a usable admin theme. I love the Garland theme, but I think that by now we need a more modern design perhaps. Something very clean, stylish and simple, that is also relatively easy to customize.
Maybe the idea of having a separate theme just for admin like rootcandy is a good idea. So something interesting would be maybe to have a default content theme, and a separate default admin theme.
--
Nicolas
A de-drupalized theme
Personally, I'd like to see a de-drupalized theme. No drupal logos and a default favicon in my address bar. Currently when I install Drupal it seems to be all about Drupal and not about my site. I suspect this is part of the "I installed Drupal, um now what?" problem.
Garland is really great. It just looks really Drupally. If you know what I mean. A clean theme that suggested possibility, something like Minima did once, or the Tripoli CSS defaults are doing now, is much better than a theme that has a "look" to it.
But it's tough. Drupal is used by site owners looking to set up a small personal site at the same time as people looking to create the next huge social platform. Who do you serve? Install profiles with different default themes might be the way to go. I would have loved an install profile for a three page site with a home page showing recent news, a company directory, a contact page and a blog, when I started fooling around with Drupal.
When it comes to widgetizing everything and customizing from the admin panel. well Drupal's already there. The blocks functionality is perfect.
Aside: very cool to see my blog (ThemeShaper) linked from here. I'm currently working on my first public Drupal project (version 5) and I'm really growing to love Drupal.
Garland is a nice-looking
Garland is a nice-looking and functional basetheme but its not a good theme to learn from.
It would be nice to have a basetheme that is less complex and less cluttered with divs.
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