Themes Improvements

[jyim]

We are improving the themes framework for the upcoming release, and will be upgrading all of the existing Sugar themes (the themes that ship with the product) to the new framework.

Since the new framework should improve the performance of the application, and new themes will be much simpler to build, we are leaning toward not supporting themes that are on the soon-to-be-outdated) framework. At this time we prefer not to have a backwards compatibility mode for those themes created for releases prior to the upcoming release.

We'd like to find out how your organization is using themes in Sugar. How many of you are currently using custom themes? How many of you are currently using the Sugar (out-of-the-box) themes within the application?

[andopes]

Hi Jennifer

It is wonderful to know Themes will be improved!
I don't know if this is the right thread to discuss that, but let's go.
Will the improved themes skip some hardcoded html like the top right links?
Let me know if you developers will create a thread just to discuss this.

Best regards

[roblaus]

It really depends on how you define themes. I do not consider color schemes or nice pictures as too important (as long as I can tell the customer that there IS a way of changing them). What I do think is important is the placement of elements without coding. As an example: Some organisations would like to have a quick create element (of e.g. leads) no matter where they are in the application. Or they want to have a larger, proportional logo on the top right corner. Same with shortcuts.
I personally like most of the existing out of the box themes and even the bad ones (love...) are good for a few laughs during a presentation.
Most people I talk to consider email and calendar much more important than themes...

rgds

[SugarDev.net]

Our clients use both Sugar and SugarLite, not the rest.

[ArnaudP]

I completely agree with Roblaus (love themes for ggod laughs during demos..;-).
Some of our clients are using themes but mostly Sugar and SugarLite. If we say them that we will be able to build some new specific themes in an easier way they will be satisfied.
Regards

[justageek1985]

I'm using the out of the box themes for now..

[jyim]

Update: The New Themes Framework will be included in Sugar 5.5.

We will be posting more detailed information in the upcoming weeks about the new framework in the Sugar Developer Blog as well as within the Sugar 5.5 forums. A thread already exists for discussion on Themes in Sugar 5.5.

The Sugar 5.5 Community Preview does not yet have the new framework, but you will be able to review it within the upcoming Sugar 5.5 Beta release.