something i would never use, but 23 should have: an *official* dark theme
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December 20, 2009, 11:51 AM
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i'm not a big fan of dark themes myself, but for those that use them it makes sense for 23 to provide an official "dark" base theme.
advantages could include using a darker matte color for the gif icons, improving their appearance on black, and improving the general quality of the "black" themes by providing a higher quality baseline.
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December 20, 2009, 12:27 PM
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I second this! I like to see photos on a dark background and have stolen GustavoG's background, just removing the small caps that I don't particularly like. Not being a CSS proficient person, I proceed by hit and touch or rather hit and miss, so I'd be grateful, for an official dark base theme
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December 20, 2009, 02:46 PM
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There was a "Dark Theme Challenge" way back in 2008, mentioning an "official 23 dark theme". Guess you'd need to wait for some rainy days in Denmark.
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December 20, 2009, 02:56 PM
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i see. i'm actually tempted to open up a free account and build a dark theme and see if it spreads around.. but an official theme, very basic and mirroring the default theme with little embellishment would be best.
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December 20, 2009, 03:09 PM
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Apart from the fact that you're only allowed one account, best thing would be to use Stylish (if you're on Firefox) and design the theme there, it's totally "unproductive/annoying" to design a theme using 23's webinterface.
Also, since there really are no "themes" on 23, I think it would need some programming (on 23's side) to decide, which icons (light/dark) to show.
Edit: Firebug also helps a lot.
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December 20, 2009, 03:20 PM
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the other account would have to exist in order for people to have an initial place to copy the theme from. i guess it could be my wife's account or something.
stylish would help.
there are some tricks that can be used to handle the dark icons properly in an unofficial theme. the img in .tag-icon-container could be made invisible and a replacement placed as the container's background. in most places the icons already are backgrounds and could just be swapped out. so i'd have to make some new icons i guess, from scratch, and upload them all to a private 'sprite sheet' image hosted on 23.
the big problem there is that the theme becomes dependent on the image host account.
it could work, but an official theme would be much more trustworthy.
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December 20, 2009, 03:39 PM
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Yeah, icons seem to need most of the work. Since users can "steal" your theme, I'd not make the sprite private, so the "thieves" can also use them. An official theme would rock. 23 could set up an "23 dark theme account" once the theme is perfect and host the images there. Let me know if you need help.
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Team 23
December 20, 2009, 03:43 PM
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Hey guys,
I'll chime in with some random observations...
First, I love the title of this thread.
I agree with Iko that the textarea in the theming section isn't very helpful for developing the actual theme. For that I'd suggest a combo Web Developer and Firebug (which I use myself and would work cross-browser) or CSSEdit for Mac which is Benny's tool of choice.
I'm fairly confident that you could change all the standard (white-matted) icons with CSS-only tricks. If not, just bitch about it to yours truly. Striatic is right that the bigger point is that you're depending of third-party providers. Over on Visualblog and 23 Video we allow stylers to upload ressource files (say any file <500KB) for their designs, and we might do that here as well. Or if we might choose to host the files staticly on www.23hq.com if we were asked? (We're very nice when it come to such things -- and it is Christmas after all.)
We did have plans for a black theme in 2008, and there were a couple of very good submissions in the bunch from the contest -- but having said that I've never seen a black-background layout I'd want to have a the real 23 layout, and to me that's the test; even when only offering it as an alternative.
Luckily though, I wouldn't be charged with implementing a dark theme, so I can promise anything and everything... Are there sites (not necessarily photo sharing sites, but certainly portfolio sites of different kinds) that actually do this well? And in a way that is generalizable enough to be used in by a lot of 23 users?
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December 20, 2009, 03:53 PM
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i've looked around a lot, and while the current black themes leave a lot to be desired as "official" themes, dotism's theme was pretty much perfect - with the exception that he removed most of the icons from the sidebar, something that looked alright but isn't really acceptable for an "official" theme.
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December 20, 2009, 03:57 PM
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Images could be hosted on a 23 account (so no need to depend on a 3rd party provider). I once had a "theme" that was successfully stolen using this image (http://www.23hq.com/IkoTikashi/photo/3401191) which worked ok - as long as I had my account active.
I think I liked dotism's theme (who sadly no longer uses 23) - although it was a bit too dark imho.
And yes, 23 are very nice (if not *the* nicest) people, Christmas or not.
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December 20, 2009, 06:41 PM
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I have always wanted a somewhat dark theme elsewhere (read: flickr) but had no alternative but to browse the site in what felt to me like reading the lettering on a bright light bulb. For some of us, it can be *painful*.
I was very glad to see that 23 offers a method to customize styles, and immediately started dabbling in a darker theme. I first tried a gray background, which I prefer usually, but very quickly ran into problems with elements "vanishing" from sight. So I went all the way to black, and it mostly worked, though my style was very undeveloped and I kept finding more and more elements that needed to be tweaked.
Eventually I found dotism's style, copied it and adapted it. All this while I was using the textarea in the theming section, which isn't *helpful* per se, but the problem isn't with the textarea. The entire page loads extremely slowly, no matter what one does, and this strongly discourages fiddling with the theme. I wish I could change the style without being offered all the random colors I'll never select... I'm guessing that is what causes the slowness.
When dotism quit (ouch) I copied another black theme and proceeded to tweak.
I think an "official" dark theme would be great if it were offered directly, not as an overlay over the standard theme. Right now, the standard theme is cached, but the variation themes are served with every page.
It would also be great if the personal theme carried over to the group pages as well, the "just in" page, etc. The constant switching of themes can be a bit jarring (back to staring at the bright light bulb). In essence, a personal style would be "how I like to see the site and how others see my pages", instead of the current "how my pages look". When I visit someone else's pages I'd see their chosen style, of course.
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