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Themes.org Reborn at Freshmeat
GSpot writes: "While doing my weekly surf to see if there has been any change in one of my favorite websites, themes.org is being redirected to themes.freshmeat.net and seemingly has been reborn yet again. The previous incarnation had a dreadful interface that was difficult to navigate and when it worked it was painfully sssssllllllooooowwwww. The current version is upon a first impression a much more pleasant experience. I plan on visiting often." Mirotrem points out this brief history of themes.org running on the site (written by Chris D.), detailing the moves the site has made to this point. (Freshmeat, Themes.org, and Slashdot are all part of the world-controlling conspiracy under the VA Software umbrella better known as the Sinister Andover Keiretsu.)
The previous incarnation had a dreadful interface that was difficult to navigate and when it worked it was painfully sssssllllllooooowwwww.
What, didn't like "Fetching Rover", or voting with marbles? How about The Scooter? Scooter? WTF?
To think this was a site to make "X Purty" - MS Bob is laughing at us from the grave.
Hey, I thought the company was called VA Software...
What the hell was wrong with the old themes.org, not the previous one(what a disaster), but the one before? It was beautiful, each section had it's own theme(fitting, being a theme site), and in each section there were sub-categories, adult, people, anime, games, etc.. Now it's had two overhauls and has gained absolutely nothing from this. And where is the X resources section? Backgrounds, icons, tiles etc.? I'm just very sad, themes.org used to be an excellent site, the best themes site ever. Now it's just... blah. ;-(
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
What was wrong with the old themes.org? sure, do a rewrite, but keep it basicaly the same. Right now, I don't liek the freshmeat one for several reasons, 1, opening windows and taking away broswer compoments, like url bar?? grrr
Ya ya, I can easily enough get arround that. But still, what was wrong with the old site? It was painfully obvious no one liked the new, why couldn't they just reverted and used some brains on how to make that one better.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
flog(if(horse=="dead")then return horse);
Some alternatives to "Themes.org" are Deskmod, Skinz, my own site, System 26, and numerous other sites in the skinning community. They all accept and support Linux windowmanager themes, as well as KDE and GNOME themes, and have been around for quite a while now.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
How about carrying themes for Apple's Mac OS X? Expanding the platform reach is never a bad thing...
am glad they finally did something with the garbage heap that t.o had become. I remember back in the day when t.o was a very neat place with some talented people running the show. Then they turned into something really, really, bad....(worse than the OLD fat, dieing on the toilet Elvis). Freshmeat has always been cool --- thanks to the Freshmeat team. And to the people that let t.o die in the first place --- what rock are you all under? The aquisition by OSDN should have made you better -- not killed you. But at least it probably sold a few panner ads for the rubbernecks that would drive by to look at the carnage.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Yet after some time, it was no longer a secret that only one person - the "reviewer" - set the marble rating according to his or her taste. The reviewer who constantly rated my themes didn't like my style (as it differed quite a bit from his design), so I didn't have any chance to get more than 4, at maximum 6 out of 10 marbles. Other submissions which more or less imitated a reviewer's style got 8, 9 or even 10 marbles even if they were at most average or a remake of a former theme.
Very soon the number of daily submissions decreased significantly, and many people complained about the unfair rating system. I made a few more themes even before themes.org became unusable but refused to submit them before the reviewing system gets redesigned.
Also, for people running Windows (gotta play warcraft3!) there is this site. The skins work with XP, but if you have 98/2k you can also use them by running Windowblinds. Note that this is commercial software, which is kind of a bummer.
> Freshmeat, Themes.org, and Slashdot are all part of the world-controlling conspiracy under the VA Software umbrella
I know this was said in jest but it kinda struck me. For news, themes, and software these are three fantastic sites. I know we all lamented when /. fell under the control of a corporation but altogether things have worked out quite well. Although /. can't be said to be identical to when it was privately owned, it sure hasn't been forced to make too many concessions. I think the staff at Slashdot, Freshmeat, Themes.org, and even VA Software deserve an honest "thank-you". Sappy I know, but well-earned.
You know, when your masters at VA tell you to get some eyeballs on another of their sites, you might want to communicate and decide who is going to do it, rather than all rushing off to plaster it all over slashdot.
not_cub
q='echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"';s=\';b=\\;echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"
Also, for people running Windows (gotta play warcraft3!)
Dude, Warcraft 3 is going to be one of Transgaming's flagship games. Their library of compatible games just keeps growing, and with the recent release of a DirectX8.1 implementation it just keeps getting better and better.
E17 is improving drastically.
I think you all should check out a few of these pictures
http://desktopian.org/e17/screenshots/
Theres an example of themes. I'm Glad Themes.org is back, now we have a place to show off our linux desktops and help kill the whole "Linux is hard to use" myth.
Its hard to configure, but its easy to install and use, it DOES have a GUI, and the GUI is better than XP (even if its alittle bit slower due to xfree)
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
What I don't get is why OSDN decided to cuts its *volunteer* staff. First, developing for themes.org was a pain as it was. They had a VPN and wouldn't give access to new comers, even though I feel I'm a part of the community enough to be trusted. But if that wasn't enough, they decided to cut their *volunteer* staff. Which included developers and maintainers. They might start asking for volunteers again, but a lot of the staff I talked to were a little bit bitter and I doubt they will be rejoining. So Chris (who seemed like a nice guy the couple times I talked to him) decided to develop it on his own, which took months even though it seems he's just using the freshmeat code.
I think one of the mistakes was getting a company to set the deadlines. There was an occassion "No later than this" date, but since it was all volunteer, people wouldn't make long decisions on whether to go out a saturday or develop all night for nothing. So I guess the choices were "Cut the staff", "Pay the staff", or "Stop letting the company make the deadlines". I guess they chose 1 and 3.
I didn't spend much time on the project, but kept an ear out on things, and never got an explaination for this. So I would like to know, why the staff was cut?
Now, I'm not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth, but is the sarcasm really necessary? It is common practice for journalists to acknowledge up front any potential conflicts of interest, just so that the reader is on the right page. Slashdot readers were right to point this out, and whining about it is frankly not appropriate. You do claim to be real journalists every now and again, so let's stop acting like we're in kindergarten, hm?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Nice, I guess I haven't been paying attention have I. Anyway, here is the correct link to wincustomize. But hopefully soon there will be no need to run windows anymore.
I remember when looking at the old themes.org that I would look at a lot of themes, but have to download each one individually. It was such a pain that I just gave up on the site. Not that I don't want to see the credits of who created the theme and the description, and seek out just the right theme, but it became tedious to implement them. It would have been great to check out all the themes, then download them all in one go.
Why doesn't someone just package up all these themes and add them to a distribution? I think it would make Linux really popular with people if there was LOTS of customization you could do to your computer out-of-the box. I mean, really put EVERY theme in, and EVERY screen saver and EVERY splash screen. Or maybe every one that passed a simple published QA process.
Rather nice of Chris DiBona to neglect the people who busted their ass behind the scenes for most of Themes.org's useable lifespan (1998-2000) in his recent "history of Themes.org" article.
What about the guys who were administering wm.t.o, bb.t.o. e.t.o, kde.t.o, and other subsites? Did these sites run themselves, Chris?
For the record, I used to be one of the site maintainers during t.o's heyday. In the year and a half I contributed, DiBona was never involved in any aspect of development process, did none of the planning, none of the maintenance, none of the administration, and none of the backend coding. DiBona had nothing to do with t.o's success back then, so don't let him try and take credit for other people's work. (Gee, that sounds familliar, doesnt it?) There were alot of people who poured enormous amounts of time and energy into that project who never recieved even a passing acknowledgement from anyone at VA. In short, VA turned their back on them.
Be sure to add that lovely pattern neglect to your "history", Chris.
Bowie J. Poag
I took a look at a few dozen themes, including the "most popular". My god there are some no talent people putting this crap together! Someone please take away their theme editors before they repeat their crimes!
Here's a very simple formula you must learn:
programmer/geek != artistic talent
Just so you don't think I am all negative. There were a few very nicely done themes, but the majority are utter crap or a clone with the basic colour changed.
In one word: Bull!
I for one don't always use themes to make things 'candy'. They are my primary way to customize my desktop to make what I want to do. If I find that I use some functionality of WM, I add it as a button to toolbar, If I find something annoying, I remove it. If I find that my eyes become restless with colors, I change them to less annoying.
So repeat after me: Themeing is not only eyecandy, and programmer/geek can design WAY more functional theme than any s.c. artist.
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
Topic::Desktop Environment::Theme Resources
d =9 73
:)
http://themes.freshmeat.net/browse/973/?topic_i
This is because someone actually wrote in to suggest/request this, instead of simply complaining about it on Slashdot.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.