How come most vB 4 themes are so generic?

I know people don't like the default, but why do nearly all customisations to it that I've seen keep the same images for nearly everything? It's not as if th icons seem too difficult to change, and some amazing work has been done by professional designers for vBulletin 3.8, so why don't more edit images like the forum icons, status icons, stats icons, etc, and maybe even the whole general style of the forum?

Have any of the professional forum skin makers tried making a style for vBulletin 4 yet?

 

Not many pro's have yet because the stylevars was so messed up they gave up in frustration.
It is supposedly "fixed" in 4.0.1, so we'll see what happens.

 

(edit) In addition to what Peggy said, I think they're all waiting, as every single little upgrade, all the way from the early publicly released Betas, has managed to break any customisations. Even with the free skins at vb.org there was a big pause after Gold was released, because many were caught off guard that an upgrade from a Release Candidate to Gold would break themes in that way. If I were designing themes, I'd get pretty tired too, if Gold and post-Gold releases held no implicit guarantees, like in all previous versions.

I'm sure we'll start seeing some more elaborate works after the dust settles post-4.0.2-3.

 

The closest I've got with my skin (this is my first skin, EVER,) is this:
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Ah damn, I've just overwritten the main logo :/

 

Ah, the updates break styles and what not, so most people can't be bothered until the software becomes more stable. Still, are the stylevars really that bad? I've never used them personally...

 

That looks like a really nice style, seriously. Sure, the images need editing, but I like how for once someone's made a style without the generic vBulletin 4 navbar with search at the top.

 

I think it's so much more to coding the templates and css styles now. An upgrade merges everything and doesn't allow to give an option of not doing it.

To be honest it's easier to just change colors in the variables which I see many doing. Instead of re-coding the templates and then having them mess up when vB4 is upgraded and the templates merged again.

My other gripe is not many designers are experts on CSS which is what drives those templates now. Most custom designs leaned toward custom HTML instead of pure CSS. So they are having to learn the fundamentals of CSS now and how to use those variable or they will have to upgrade css templates on any new release.

 

How about the images though? You can edit those simply by overwriting them and deleting the images folder every time you download a new version. At least, that's what I do.

 

Could be the ease of use factor.

In 3.x you made a change and could easily view and see what you did and usually it was one item that was changed.

In 4.x you make a change and then view it, then make another and wonder what the heck just happened as the first change has now changed again.

Stylevars are NOT at all intuitive.

The documentation sucks, no really, it's that bad. Besides being in mulltiple blogs it's not at all indexed or in any logical order. vBSolutions really needs a Technical Writer to document and create order to the blogs the devs have. And having devs as the document writers...big mistake for a "professional grade" tool.

 

if you could read some of the comments from the professional designers in the private 4.0 Alpha forum, you would get the answer to your question...they are quite revealing and disturbing. How about over 100 hours to convert an existing 3.8 skin to 4.0 then to have it break with 4.0.1? How many people do you think are going to invest that kind of time for a +/~ $20 skin? I know I won't be. Just one more reason IPB looks better and better all the time (and no, most professional designers, myself included, know CSS very well and have used it to produce our products over HTML for years).

I predict (fairly confidently) you will not see much in the way of decent 3rd party skins for 4.0 for some time and I doubt you will ever see the number and variety you do for the 3.x series.

 

100 hours? What makes the style so complex? Maybe some quotes from this private vB 4.0 alpha forum, because the product is out now, so it's no secret and people are wondering where the good styles are.

But damn, that looks unfortunate.

 

IMO, the quality of themes has dropped significantly since the vBulletin 2.x era.

Most are bland, and only sport color changes and maybe a header/footer rearrangement.

The only one, I've noticed, who has kept up that quality of design, is pank from eXtremePixels.

 

Naw I think that John did too with first vBSkinworks and now Transverse Styles.

There won't be any quotes from the private Alpha/Beta forum, because we testers are bound by the NDA that we signed.

 

God, we need more people less intimidated by silly civil laws. Like those who tell all the insider secrets about some recent video game or what not, except for vBulletin.

 

It may seem silly to you, but I'm a single mom of a young special needs son - I can't afford any lawsuits, whether real or implied.

 

Thanks I disliked the navbar and since it's vB Forums Classic, there wouldn't be much on the navbar that I would put.

Getting the search to work is a pain, can't use PHP to echo out the security code.

 

Alpha & Beta are over, or at least the software is available. Are you saying even now those people are not supposed to create/sell skins?

How about general modifications? Those too?

If true, what reasoning is there?

 

The good quality skins will definately increase in price, because the ones that do know will be charging more. So yeah $20 will get you a generic skin.

I personally see skins going up to double the price now. Along with a lot of !important elements.

 

In the short experience I had to style vB 4, I lived nothing but a hell. Stylevars get to be even stupid, and there's no real documentation about what they do. So yeah, you have to spend HOURS to make some color changes. I even had a better experience by writing my own CSS and forcing everything with !important, instead of dealing with Stylevars.

 

huh??

We weren't talking about quotes for skins. cheat_master was asking for quotes from the private alpha forum since the product is now released. We are not permitted to talk about anything that was discussed in the alpha forum per the NDA that we each signed. Read below.