Which types of child themes would you rather see?

1. 

   Justin Tadlock (Key Master)
   Posted 11 months ago | Permalink

   As version 0.6 of Hybrid grows nearer, I've been thinking about what types of child themes I'd like to create after that point.

   In this discussion, I'm referring to two different types of themes:

   Type 1) Completely packaged themes

   These are themes like you see now — Hybrid News, Leviathan, Life Collage, and Old School.

   Basically, these themes have all of the functionality built into them and have been completely styled. This is great if you just want to throw up a new design on your site.

   But, what if you just kind of want the functionality or the layout or the extra widget sections, but you also want a completely custom color scheme? It can be kind of tough to customize something that's pre-made, which brings us to type number 2:

   Type 2) Themes void of style

   Well, I don't mean completely void of style like the Skeleton child theme.

   The idea here is to set up a layout, typography, extra functions like additional widget areas, and maybe other specific things. It would be something that lacks a lot of color, but would give you a good starting point for something a little more custom.

   These would be something more like this screenshot:
   http://themehybrid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/hybrid-06-design.png

   My thoughts

   I'll definitely continue making Type 1 themes because not everyone is a CSS guru. It's kind of the entire point of a WordPress theme, really. But, there's always you DIYers that maybe just want to skin something with your own color schemes.

   I think there's room for both types, but I wanted to see how many people might be looking for something a little more vanilla. If there's enough interest, I'll try to make some themes without too much styling.

2. 

   Thomas Clausen (Member)
   Posted 11 months ago | Permalink

   I'll definitely hope you stick with Type 1, this is because I can't do the coding you can.

   I can also see a good need for Type 2. Especially if it was more than you doing the work. Not that you don't do a fantastic job, you do, but two minds are better than one.

   I think type 2 would make it possible for others to do new child themes with your great framework. If only they would release them here at themehybrid as well. :-)

   Have you ever thought about teaming up with other theme masters like Ian Stewart (even though his prize model is quite different than yours)?

3. 

   davek (Member)
   Posted 11 months ago | Permalink

   I'd love to see both types, but my preference at the moment is for a type 1 theme with 3 cols, fixed/fluid/fixed so we can see how a proper Hybrid child theme would do a fluid design, something more than the 960px width of fixed themes, so no matter what resolution I am viewing on, my screen is taken up almost 100% and maybe a fixed 200px width on either side of the main content.

4. 

   AKAuser (Member)
   Posted 6 months ago | Permalink

   I know this is old but I'd like to put a vote in since I just joined last month. My vote goes to more Type 2) Themes void of style. These themes would stick with emphasizing various layouts leaving all the styling to the user ~ including of type faces. So if you're using CSS for layout, then that would be included.

5. 

   realistdreamer (Member)
   Posted 6 months ago | Permalink

   I know I'm coming to this post late, but I'm sorta in the middle. I want to build a pretty ambitious CMS project, but love some of the thoughtful functionality in Hybrid and Hybrid News. I'm not afraid of CSS/XHTML, but I'm a Javascript/AJAX noob.

   It'd be great to have a theme with all the functionality of say, Hybrid News (love that slider), which could be totally skinned with CSS/XHTML.

   I'm probably going to be adding in WPMU/Buddypress (added complexity) and will need to take the functionality in the BP and Hybrid themes and apply to my project. Right now, I'm planning and waiting for WPMU2.9, BP1.1 and Hybrid0.7 before I get started.

   This is probably more advanced than many want to take on, but I think there is definitely a market for a "functionality back-end" that can be skinned however. I wouldn't mind if the functionality didn't have admin panel settings. I'll go into the PHP or DB to change settings if the readme tells me what's necessary.

6. 

   watsontcbc (Member)
   Posted 5 months ago | Permalink

   I'd certainly like to some more type 1s, but as an emerging CSS developer, I like your two levels of "blank canvas" themes, Hybrid, and Skeleton, and would like to see more variations like Hybrid, with different basic functions built in, but with flexibility for customizing the style. I could also use some tutorials on how to take advantage of these, based on their starting points and their options.

7. 

   Jan Egbert (Member)
   Posted 5 months ago | Permalink

   I would like child themes that offer custom content types and associated templates.

   Examples:
   post_type='event'
post_type='photo'
post_type='classified'
post_type='product'

   Or would plugins be the solution here?

8. 

   Justin Tadlock (Key Master)
   Posted 5 months ago | Permalink

   @Jan Egbert

   Custom post types are more plugin territory.

9. 

   Jan Egbert (Member)
   Posted 5 months ago | Permalink

   @ Justin

   I've just read your article about how you used custom taxonomies to build your movie database. Loved it! Been searching Google for ages and again I end up at justintadlock.com... a search widget on your personal blog would eliminate google. ;)

   Can you explain why you used a child theme for handling custom taxonomies and why you would use a plugin for custom post types?

10. 

    Ed Bejarana (Member)
    Posted 4 months ago | Permalink

    Why not turn to this community to create a library of type two themes? I figure there might only be 12 to 20 unique layout types needed.

    Then leave the showcase space for the styled themes.

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