What do you think about custom themes; do you make and code your themes or do you take an already made theme and just tweak it a little to your taste. At this point, I have only edited templates; never made one of my own yet but I plan on it in the future.
I've never played around with the MyBB script. If there are themes which I dislike, I'll most likely create a custom theme. There's no point paying for one because I can do the work myself, Time is the only issue, I don't take an already-made theme to make tweaks to it. ( maybe for the default theme, but you have to strip it and add your own code anyway.. )
Ive been doing themes for MyBB for about 2 years. I generally just get the default theme and modify the stylesheets and templates.
I love custom themes! I generally try to get one made for my sites, and I have one in the works right now as a matter of fact. It really helps to set you apart from your competition.
Generally MyBB is one of the easier software to code, but I am not a coder myself, more of a designer. I feel that a custom design cant do any harm to an online community but further develop it.
I tend to try and hire a good myBB custom theme designer, I know a lot and they are cheap enough ($80) so I would always try and get a custom as it can help kick start a community.
How long does it typically take to create a theme from scratch? I am learning CSS as I go along and I can make simple color and border edits to themes but spacing and positioning still has me stumped. Or is the positioning set up in the PHP files? So much to learn and so little brain space
I usually buy my themes, the last one I bought was around $40 and was very nice. I'm pretty bad at making themes so I don't even bother. If you want to run a successful mybb forum I think a custom theme surely takes place otherwise your not much different from other forums and other forums can easily copy you, mybb forums and other forums need to be unique to be successful.
I purchase premium themes, having a custom built one can lead to many problems if the creator isn't as professional as he claims. I mainly purchase them as it gives a unique feeling to your theme which is pretty good if you ask me as it encourages members to stay and get a lot more involved.
I dislike most of the free myBB themes (of course, there are some that I absolutely love), so I usually make my own myBB themes. It takes a lot of time+effort, but in the end it is worth it
Custom themes cause problems when upgrading software. I tend to leave mine as close to basic as possible.
