How easy is editing themes with XenForo?

[AlexTheBat]

I am considering investing in XenForo, but one of the things that is holding me back is that I'm not terribly familiar with their themes/styles system. I am....... immensely picky with themes, I'll admit, and do a LOT of custom tweaks in general. But it's sort of hard to tell at a glance how easy it is to do it with XenForo. Do people generally have a hard time doing this themselves?

 

[we_are_borg]

Its something you will need to get used to but when you know what you are doing its not that hard. I have bought my theme from PixelExit and made some adjustments this is what most users do, making a theme from zero is hard work.

 

[AlexTheBat]

Its something you will need to get used to but when you know what you are doing its not that hard. I have bought my theme from PixelExit and made some adjustments this is what most users do, making a theme from zero is hard work.

Thanks, I appreciate the insight. I mostly do edits/adjustments as well vs starting entirely from scratch, but I have been known to try. I did have a poke in the demo, but it seemed a little.... split up. I'll see if I make the plunge in the end for my new project.

 

[DigNap15]

I'm on XF
Just about out of the box (but that works for me)
There needs to be manuals for all this stuff.
Its almost as if they want to force you to buy a theme from a developer.

 

[AlexTheBat]

I'm on XF
Just about out of the box (but that works for me)
There needs to be manuals for all this stuff.
Its almost as if they want to force you to buy a theme from a developer.

I did somewhat get that vibe when I was looking at the demo. PHPbb is what I'm currently fiddling with for a test site and while it's not exactly top of the line, at least editing a theme is easy once you're in your file manager and you have a basic awareness of where things are supposed to go. Wordpress is even easier by comparison, but XF seems to be very... fragmented?

I'd feel better about buying a premium theme if 75% of them weren't just recolourings and some header modifications. I spent several hours tonight trying to compare things and pick out ones I might like to use as a starting base and honestly... not a lot there once you get past those aspects. Everything else is just base XF. Which is nice enough, but still - I don't want to pay $30-$40 for something I could do myself in an hour or two and will spend ten times that modifying beyond that.

 

[R0binHood]

It's pretty easy to find all the css templates using the built in template system



Or you can just use the single extra.less template and add all your custom CSS there, or break it down by adding your own templates and including them.

 

[apathy]

I originally started with SMF and would just open the template files in a text editor, so moving to Xen where it's all done through the Admin CP and the templates are way more separated (you'd usually only have 1 or 2 CSS files on SMF for instance) it was pretty jarring. However, if you just commit to it you should get the hang of it in no time... I've only been using Xen since November I think and I'm already quite fluent with it. There are resources on the Xenforo forums to help getting to know the template syntax (like conditionals and such) also.

 

[Taylor J]

I'm on XF
Just about out of the box (but that works for me)
There needs to be manuals for all this stuff.
Its almost as if they want to force you to buy a theme from a developer.

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