Free themes

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Is there really only one free theme in the store for 5.7? I had used 5.6 for a long time and liked all the free themes I could find for it, but I switched to another CMS, and when I got Concrete5 5.7, I noticed there was one theme that the installation came with, and one theme in the store I could find for free for 5.7 and above. Are any of the older free themes ever going to be updated for 5.7?

 
MrKDilkington replied on at Permalink Reply
MrKDilkington
Hi pleasantstreetbaptistchurch,

You are correct, aside from the default Elemental theme, the only free theme in the marketplace is Fruitful.

It is unlikely that free 5.6 themes will be updated for 5.7.

When many of the 5.6 themes were created, mobile friendly design was not a requirement. This made converting free generic templates into concrete5 themes a fairly quick and straightforward process.

Creating a quality theme is time consuming and has become more complex, regardless of the CMS.

One of the most significant reasons for there not being more free themes is support. Many developers are hesitant to create free 5.7 themes because of the large investment in time required to support them. Despite a theme being free, it does not change the level of expectations regarding support. Also, the overwhelming majority of support requests are not related to the theme.

The positive reinforcement for creating free themes can also be limited. An example being the Fruitful theme. I can only estimate, but I can safely say that it has been downloaded many thousands of times. Despite its popularity, only five people have taken the time to write a review.

That being said, I have been working on free themes for 5.7 that should be in the marketplace in the near future.
workndawg replied on at Permalink Reply
workndawg
Well now I just feel bad. I didn't notice anywhere to do a review on Fruitful :(

I am using it on one site. I'm using it on that particular site mainly for the menu characteristics.

Seems to me after that it's more about learning to manipulate the blocks and container layouts and after that I pretty much use the one and only "Basic - Content Block" and do everything else in the blocks.

The Clipboard feature is very nice but I guess that's a Concrete thing.

I think a text editor usable in the blocks with all the features and especially the ability to obtain and "maybe" even save custom colors, would be all we need if we have a framework that we can do anything we need with Blocks and Containers.

So much goes unused in a template. You could set up blocks with specific features and save that to the clipboard or maybe even make it so it can be saved over in the Dashboard side with the New Page stuff if it's a real keeper.

By the way these Concrete sites collapse absolutely perfectly when you squeeze the screen width down, and I do mean perfectly !!!
I check that out on lots of big name sites out there and not usually the case.

After a couple very bad months wasted on Joomla I am very glad to be here.

Thank You !
WillemAnchor replied on at Permalink Reply
WillemAnchor
Nice to hear !

Redactor (the text editor) can be used within other blocks as well. I use 4 of them for editing my 'user info' block.
The colors...just enable them at: dashboard/system/basics/editor
workndawg replied on at Permalink Reply
workndawg
Wow I did not know there were other settings available for the editor! I guess now the only thing I would like to see in there is a Word Wrap/Image Position tool so I don't have to fight the image position so much.

I think I saw there are addons for Redactor but that's more than I know how to do yet.

But thank you for the info. I had color options in the editor working on other sites but was not seeing it here lately.

Thank you