History: Theme marketplace outline
Preview of version: 4
Planned themes.t.o site changes
- Homepage
- More or less split the homepage to give equal visibility to the marketplace (new) and to general theme information (existing + expanded)
- Showcase and link to new/latest theme submitted
- Invite submission of themes
- Link prominently to marketplace top page
- Marketplace top page
- Introduction, etc. including info for theme seekers and theme authors
- Individual theme thumbnails + info - generated dynamically
- Image
- Theme name
- Brief description
- Tags (for example: retro, flat, material, skeuomorphic, dark, business, admin, etc.)
- Link to theme's page
- Installation instructions
- Link to information page for theme authors
- Individual theme pages
- Produced dynamically from tracker info
- Display theme details, screenshot, etc.
- Live demo and download links
- The demo could display in an iframe, but having the link open in a new tab/window would be simpler.
- Information page for theme authors
- Invitation to submit
- Requirements to have the theme listed
- Tiki theme construction details (link to existing/new pages describing theme code, etc.) for designers/coders new to Tiki
Theme submission
Objective: Implement a theme marketplace.
Details:
- Themes aren't hosted at and downloaded from themes.t.o, but rather from the author's site.
- Themes are "registered" by submitting a tracker form.
- Authors submit the theme for presentation, including
- Theme name (to check if it's unique, as a kind of registry)
- If it's valid - for lack of a better term right now. This means the theme is available, meets standards, and the demo and link to demo work.
- Description
- Type (visual characterization, use case, etc.)
- Light on dark
- Dark on light
- Retro/One-page/Feature emphasis (blog/gallery/wiki/etc.)
- ?
- Special features
- Scroll effects
- Plugins included
- Layout modified via custom templates
- Tiki version minimum compatibility
- Screenshot (1200px by 900px for use on theme's page, scales down responsively for thumbnail use)
- License type
- Free or premium?
- Author's name
- Probably the author should be registered at tiki.org.
- Author's email address
- Demo site URL
- Rating (if we want to let people rate the themes)
- Etc. (compare industry precedents)
- Type (visual characterization, use case, etc.)
- What standards do we want to maintain? What do we require of the theme? Probably there should be a checklist. For example:
- It isn't "broken". That is, there's no exposed HTML, the content is visible, etc.
- It isn't just a simple color variant of an existing theme (this is subjective, depending on the degree of variation, maybe).
- It isn't a ripoff of a commercial theme or other proprietary IP.
- Not sure what to say about CSS validation given the validation results of current themes.
- Authors submit the theme for presentation, including
- One issue is whether to install the theme to demo at themes.t.o, or just have a screenshot and refer to the demo at the author's site? The second option is more typical, also easier for themes.t.o admins.
- The theme needs to be compatible with a currently supported Tiki version (LTS or current release).
- No longer current-version themes could be moved to "archives" or just tagged/categorized; they could still be a match for some sites.
Technical points:
- Tracker and wiki template output or plugin_list (dogfooding) display of theme information.
- Proposed tracker fields:
| Field name | Field type | Description |
| Theme name | Text Field | The "official" name of the theme. This may be a variant of the theme's file system directory name and CSS file name. |
| Author (original) | Text Field | The individual, company, or studio that created the theme in its original form (in the case of a non-Tiki theme adapted for Tiki, or in the case of a theme created for Tiki). |
| Website (original) | ur | The website of the individual, company, or studio that created the theme in its original form (in the case of a non-Tiki theme adapted for Tiki, or in the case of a theme created for Tiki). |
| License (original) | Text Field | The license of the theme in its original form (in the case of a non-Tiki theme adapted for Tiki). |
| Author (theme converter) | Text Field | The name of the individual, company, or studio that adapted an existing theme to use with Tiki (in the case of a theme converted for Tiki). |
| Website (theme conversion) | ur | The website of the individual, company, or studio that adapted an existing theme for use with Tiki (in the case of a theme converted for Tiki). |
| License (Tiki theme) | Text Field | The license of a theme made originally for Tiki, or of a theme after being converted to use with Tiki. |
| Screenshot | Files | A 1200px-wide image to show the appearance of the theme. This image will be scaled to use as the theme thumbnail, etc. Try to minimize the file size by using an optimized jpg or png8 file type (but not so much that the image has compression artifacts, etc.). |
| Description | Text Area | Briefly describe the theme, including things like its best use case, color characteristics, origin or motivation for creation, special features, etc. |
| Live demo | ur | Link to a website or page where the theme can be seen and tried out. |
| Download | URL | Link to the file that is a compressed archive (.zip, etc.) and is either just the actual files used for the theme or also includes "source" files such as Less files and original graphic resources and so on. |
| Price | Text Field | Either "Free" or "Premium" (monetary amount). Shopping cart, purchase function, etc. would be set up at the author's site. |
Background
(This is an edited version of an October 1, 2015 post to the developers mailing list.)
The idea is to revamp themes.tiki.org by giving it a focus as a themes marketplace (in addition to theme-related documentation, etc.). This would facilitate contributing themes to and finding themes for Tiki. At one time there was quite a bit of activity at themes.t.o, with new "aftermarket" themes being made and people posting in the forums about how to use themes and so on, but for several years it's been pretty quiet. The reasons are probably that questions about themes have been posted at the community site instead and, due to time constraints in the past (at least in my case), the flow of new themes slowed to zero.
Situations have changed now, though, so it's a good time to give the site a new mission. These are tentative ideas (feel free to give input):
• The site will be a marketplace for Tiki themes, as well as a theme docs site.
• Trackers will be used to store and display theme information.
• Themes will be listed with screenshots, specs, and other information, but not hosted (that is, not installed at themes.t.o).
• To see a demo of the theme, there will be a link to the author's site.
• Both free and commercial themes can be listed.
• There should be minimal requirements/standards for the theme.
• Themes (file packages) could be simple (just a bootstrap.css file with new values) or complex (CSS and Less files, icons, fonts, and templates, etc.).
• Since the "simple" themes are actually bootstrap.css equivalents, the site could also be a source of Bootstrap themes for general use (I don't know if this should be promoted, but it could be a way to expose people to Tiki).
• The license is up to the author, in contrast to themes for some platforms.
• Other suggestions?
To compare hosting/demoing approaches, for Drupal, theme authors are strongly encouraged to host their theme at drupal.org
(https://www.drupal.org/node/14208). On the other hand, the WordPress site has a themes area but themes can be hosted anywhere (https://wordpress.org/themes/getting-started/) and linked to from the directory.
To have some inventory when the marketplace opens, there are at least a dozen or so themes in the pipeline, including new versions of a few themes that were previously available for Tiki, like Tikipedia, and some adaptations of Bootstrap themes that are pretty different from what's in Tiki now. Anyone wanting to have a theme listed there to promote your own business or to add to Tiki's theme selection, please plan on doing that, as well as giving your suggestions about the site.