I am wondering, since Umbraco is so popular in the .NET world why aren't there themes for Umbraco, ready-made solutions? Is it that the community, the developers do not see any benefit in this? Is it that there is no demand for it? Or is it that the system does not lend itself to theming, even with the new MVC architecture?
Actually some theming was introduced in v4.6 however I don't think it ever became very popular and I'm not sure it works with never versions.
But I think that perhaps people are getting used to using the simple starter kit, Creative Website Starter, Sandard website etc.
However you have a point that themes have their place. But I'm not sure it's a priority right now. However people are free to do their own themes in form of packages that others can benefit from.
Your 2 cents are well appreciated! As far as I could understand by reading the forum there aren't any themes because of Umbraco's flexibility where every web site has its own markup. But I do not see why a theme cannot be shipped with all the pieces that can make a complete solution. Correct me if I am wrong here, because I know little about Umbraco but these would be: content items, document types, templates (Razor), css, js, maybe Macros?
I find it really really strange that such a popular system and powerful for that matter, does not have a market of such themes, where I being a small .NET company can just purchase a theme and get my web site going in minutes or purchase the theme for a client and setup their web site.
I can appreciate that it is easy to port existing themes (wordpress, etc...) to Umbraco but I am talking about setting up a web site in minutes because after all this is what small to medium sized business are looking for - quick not too custom, complete and affordable solutions.
Yes in order to be able to do proper skinning/templating it would require a solid foundation package so people would know the structure and then be able to create different skins.
But as you point out and as many others have pointed out elsewhere Umbraco is usually pretty empty when it's installed without starter kits etc. It's not like wordpress that has a standard theme that can easily be switched among many 1000 and 1000 of skins.
I can see your reasons why you would like to be able to simply purchase a simple skin and I do believe that it would be possible however I'm not sure that it would be as "plug'n'play" as the wordpress experience currently since it would take some work to probably redo the skin to fit the structure that fits the current Umbraco project.
But perhaps those businesses where you can easily just purchase a skin and get the job done does not require that much development. If it's simply just setting up a wordpress blog with some pages, a contact form etc. perhaps the client is better of with just using wordpress without any custom build functionality and the hosting cost of Wordpress is probably also lower than the hosting cost of Umbraco?
This has been talked about many times, I think the main reason themes don't exist is that there is no standard dataset / structure to work against, every site is different.
I think it's possible but the community / HQ would need to decide on a dataset, then everything would need to be coded so ONLY the css files change the look and feel as mark up is integrated to heavily into getting the data properties.
That's my 2 cents anyways, the dataset that came with the Umrbaco skins / starter kits was poor in my opinion and also relied on a hugely out of date blog4Umbraco.
You are right. For example we were very close to buying a Joomla theme and starting off with Joomla for our own web site.
But then again we are .NET developers and we wanted to have full control. I guess it was a bad business decision imposed by our developer mentality.
You have got me thinking about .NET and the quick .NET solutions that I am thinking of. Although .NET has made its stride towards the open source market in the past few years, it seems that its place remains in the enterprise. Umbraco certainly looks like an enterprise platform. Kentico, Sitefinity, Sitecore, they are all about the enterprise. Maybe you are right that such quick solutions do not have a place here.
But then again being developers we might give it a try nonetheless :-).
Is this a question of code? Or a question of marketing? Or maybe even morality?
A website is the extension of a business and if a requirement of business is differentiation, themes have no place.
The reason, one of many, that developers would choose to use Umbraco is because you can quickly create sites and functionality that are bespoke, not theme-based and therefore do not look like every other site that pretty much anyone can put together with limited knowledge. Can you spot a wordpress site at 4000m? That incredible pop-up that asks you to subscribe to a site you haven't seen yet? Yeah, like I'm going to do that, is that from "Marketing for Dummies" or "Marketing to Dummies", still can't decide.
From personal experience all you hear is people with sites that have been pushed down functionality routes that match what "is easy", rather than what is required for their business. Locally a popular restaurant and a golf course have the same "really nice" wordpress theme, the general public notice this and due to the negative comments, both are now trying to find additional money to move away from the "developer" in which they invested their public profile. This is the moral question, how could you do this to someone's business?
If you are trying to attract customers that "don't care" about the presentation or functionality of a site, then beware, it's easy for them to jump ship or "compare" the offer so it becomes a price war, the lowest wins and nobody moves forward. They can have a f***book page set up by a 6 year-old, but what will it do for their business?
A website is marketing - how you build it is development.
To sum up: with Umbraco - "The limit is your own imagination" with others - "The limit is - "We don't use Umbraco""
I think that the reasons that there aren't high quality themes available for Umbraco have been covered pretty well in this discussion. However, we've had a stab at solving those issues with http://www.themebraco.com
You can sign up on the site to hear about the full launch and be one of the first to hear about our new themes. We believe that we have come up with a solid, flexible solution that will allow users to create the site that they want, while still remaining beautifully designed, responsive, and a high quality Umbraco-based solution. Unlike other "Umbraco" themes out there, our themes are built exclusively for Umbraco.
There are now!!! A new service from uSkinned is now available. There are 3 themes/starter kits available at the moment with more due to be added before the New Year.
The aim is to provide quality theme designs, fully responsive and integrated properly with the Umbraco CMS to provide maximum control and flexibility.
I have a solution for your question. We have the best theme of Umbraco. If you are planning to build a new website for your construction business?
I recommend you to go for Constro - a Responsive Umbraco theme designed especially for your business! This business Umbraco theme is designed with the aim to make life easier for developers. It comes with features that make it easy to use and design websites without any hiccups.
Why aren't there themes for Umbraco?
Hi Guys,
I am wondering, since Umbraco is so popular in the .NET world why aren't there themes for Umbraco, ready-made solutions? Is it that the community, the developers do not see any benefit in this? Is it that there is no demand for it? Or is it that the system does not lend itself to theming, even with the new MVC architecture?
Thanks
Hi Milen
Actually some theming was introduced in v4.6 however I don't think it ever became very popular and I'm not sure it works with never versions.
But I think that perhaps people are getting used to using the simple starter kit, Creative Website Starter, Sandard website etc.
However you have a point that themes have their place. But I'm not sure it's a priority right now. However people are free to do their own themes in form of packages that others can benefit from.
If you're looking for a starter kit for umbraco MVC have a look at this package by Chris Koiak http://our.umbraco.org/projects/starter-kits/standard-website-mvc
Just my 2 cents.
/Jan
Hi Jan,
Thank you for your answer!
Your 2 cents are well appreciated! As far as I could understand by reading the forum there aren't any themes because of Umbraco's flexibility where every web site has its own markup. But I do not see why a theme cannot be shipped with all the pieces that can make a complete solution. Correct me if I am wrong here, because I know little about Umbraco but these would be: content items, document types, templates (Razor), css, js, maybe Macros?
I find it really really strange that such a popular system and powerful for that matter, does not have a market of such themes, where I being a small .NET company can just purchase a theme and get my web site going in minutes or purchase the theme for a client and setup their web site.
I can appreciate that it is easy to port existing themes (wordpress, etc...) to Umbraco but I am talking about setting up a web site in minutes because after all this is what small to medium sized business are looking for - quick not too custom, complete and affordable solutions.
Thanks again for your answer!
Hi Milen
Yes in order to be able to do proper skinning/templating it would require a solid foundation package so people would know the structure and then be able to create different skins.
But as you point out and as many others have pointed out elsewhere Umbraco is usually pretty empty when it's installed without starter kits etc. It's not like wordpress that has a standard theme that can easily be switched among many 1000 and 1000 of skins.
I can see your reasons why you would like to be able to simply purchase a simple skin and I do believe that it would be possible however I'm not sure that it would be as "plug'n'play" as the wordpress experience currently since it would take some work to probably redo the skin to fit the structure that fits the current Umbraco project.
But perhaps those businesses where you can easily just purchase a skin and get the job done does not require that much development. If it's simply just setting up a wordpress blog with some pages, a contact form etc. perhaps the client is better of with just using wordpress without any custom build functionality and the hosting cost of Wordpress is probably also lower than the hosting cost of Umbraco?
/Jan
This has been talked about many times, I think the main reason themes don't exist is that there is no standard dataset / structure to work against, every site is different.
I think it's possible but the community / HQ would need to decide on a dataset, then everything would need to be coded so ONLY the css files change the look and feel as mark up is integrated to heavily into getting the data properties.
That's my 2 cents anyways, the dataset that came with the Umrbaco skins / starter kits was poor in my opinion and also relied on a hugely out of date blog4Umbraco.
Rich
Yup, the skins never really got to work and now it seems like it's been abandoned/forgotten.
To do this it would really take some proper considerations about the dataset - But I agree that it could be possible to do it properly indeed.
/Jan
Hi Jan,
You are right. For example we were very close to buying a Joomla theme and starting off with Joomla for our own web site.
But then again we are .NET developers and we wanted to have full control. I guess it was a bad business decision imposed by our developer mentality.
You have got me thinking about .NET and the quick .NET solutions that I am thinking of. Although .NET has made its stride towards the open source market in the past few years, it seems that its place remains in the enterprise. Umbraco certainly looks like an enterprise platform. Kentico, Sitefinity, Sitecore, they are all about the enterprise. Maybe you are right that such quick solutions do not have a place here.
But then again being developers we might give it a try nonetheless :-).
Thanks for your thoughts in this!
Milen, Jan, Rich,
Is this a question of code? Or a question of marketing? Or maybe even morality?
A website is the extension of a business and if a requirement of business is differentiation, themes have no place.
The reason, one of many, that developers would choose to use Umbraco is because you can quickly create sites and functionality that are bespoke, not theme-based and therefore do not look like every other site that pretty much anyone can put together with limited knowledge. Can you spot a wordpress site at 4000m? That incredible pop-up that asks you to subscribe to a site you haven't seen yet? Yeah, like I'm going to do that, is that from "Marketing for Dummies" or "Marketing to Dummies", still can't decide.
From personal experience all you hear is people with sites that have been pushed down functionality routes that match what "is easy", rather than what is required for their business. Locally a popular restaurant and a golf course have the same "really nice" wordpress theme, the general public notice this and due to the negative comments, both are now trying to find additional money to move away from the "developer" in which they invested their public profile. This is the moral question, how could you do this to someone's business?
If you are trying to attract customers that "don't care" about the presentation or functionality of a site, then beware, it's easy for them to jump ship or "compare" the offer so it becomes a price war, the lowest wins and nobody moves forward. They can have a f***book page set up by a 6 year-old, but what will it do for their business?
A website is marketing - how you build it is development.
To sum up: with Umbraco - "The limit is your own imagination" with others - "The limit is - "We don't use Umbraco""
(Written with a smile.)
Just for a reference to some themes for Umbraco can have a look to BindTuning.com
Sells themes for Umbraco, all customizable to fit your branding.
In 30 minutes have a sharp looking Umbraco theme installed and running vs. 1 to 2 weeks of custom development.
You also can try the trials installing in your enviroment before buying a theme.
have a try http://bindtuning.com/cms/umbraco/themes
I think that the reasons that there aren't high quality themes available for Umbraco have been covered pretty well in this discussion. However, we've had a stab at solving those issues with http://www.themebraco.com
You can sign up on the site to hear about the full launch and be one of the first to hear about our new themes. We believe that we have come up with a solid, flexible solution that will allow users to create the site that they want, while still remaining beautifully designed, responsive, and a high quality Umbraco-based solution. Unlike other "Umbraco" themes out there, our themes are built exclusively for Umbraco.
Check it out and decide for yourself at http://www.themebraco.com
Disclaimer: I built the Themebraco site :)
There are now!!! A new service from uSkinned is now available. There are 3 themes/starter kits available at the moment with more due to be added before the New Year.
The aim is to provide quality theme designs, fully responsive and integrated properly with the Umbraco CMS to provide maximum control and flexibility.
https://uskinned.net
Cheers,
Marc
I have a solution for your question. We have the best theme of Umbraco. If you are planning to build a new website for your construction business? I recommend you to go for Constro - a Responsive Umbraco theme designed especially for your business! This business Umbraco theme is designed with the aim to make life easier for developers. It comes with features that make it easy to use and design websites without any hiccups.
So what are you waiting for?
Cultivate your business with Constro!
Purchase Now
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