jciv’s blog

Skins and Themes

March 15th, 2006

Is anyone else tired of the default WordPress theme “based on the famous Kubrick?” I can’t stand it anymore. Its not that it is a bad design, it is that so many blogs use it. It gets boring after a while. There are lots and lots of themes available to choose from. But the only other choice by default is even more boring (not just from over use), it is now known as WordPress Classic and was the default on older versions. The default install should at least throw in a couple other nice skins for variety.

I noticed MediaWiki has a similar problem. They have several skins to choose from in the default install, but the other choices are all very plain. And there is a pretty obvious bug in the only other half usable skin, Cologne Blue, it says “The Free Encyclopedia” at the top. Not that it matters though, almost everyone that uses MediaWiki uses the default skin, MonoBook. That bugs me too, MediaWiki is getting so common and most everyone’s wiki look just like Wikipedia. Is that by choice or because there is no real choice?

I understand why projects don’t want to include many skin choices. Once you include a skin, users are going to expect it to continue to be in future versions. POPFile has a bunch of skins installed by default ranging from very nice to hardly usable. All but one skin author has abandoned their skins. That skin author happens to be me and that has evolved into a larger role as a developer which includes keeping the other skins up to date. In the next version though, we are finally going to drop some of the least popular skins. That should make the project look more professional and make maintenance easier.

Entry Filed under: rant