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.)

Comments

it sucks

[Ender Ryan]

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. ;-(

Why bother. Seriously.

[Bowie J. Poag]

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,

I for one

[SomeOtherGuy]

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.

The rating schema would have been great...

[DocSnyder]

A lot of theme creators were motivated to make really good themes, and many of the themes-org-since-last-autumn submissions were actually very artful and usable.

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.

Re:other themes sites

[jacoplane]

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.

VA has done pretty damn well..

[coupland]

> 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.

A poll and a spot on the frontpage...

[not_cub]

... Wow, this must be really important news for nerds.

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

E17 is coming, watch out Microsoft & Apple

[HanzoSan]

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)