Modern Responsive design examples

I've seen it discussed on here, but nobody has ever shown an example. Can Jamroom look like any of these example templates, and if so, has anyone done it?

https://www.template.net/web-templates/htmlcss-templates/free-responsive-html-templates/

I'm looking for a flat, modern, responsive style for my import of my Ning network to Jamroom. Can someone link or confirm that these styles are being used in Jamroom?
updated by @hypnoscott: 07/10/15 02:21:43AM

Q: Could any of those styles be made into a jamroom skin?
A: Yes

Q: Do any of those skins already understand what to do with what Jamroom outputs?
A: No

Those skins know what to do with the static content they put there, but they have no system in place to deal with the dynamic content jamroom outputs (the stuff input by your users). Those skins do not know how to format the admin control panel. They don't have any structure for users profiles, or dealing with modules.

So they are lacking a lot.

To get them to work, you'd have to add in the facilities to allow the aspects of jamroom you wanted to use to work.

You could just put them up as-is into a skin and they would work just like they work there, then start bringing in just the bits that you want to bring in. That would be another way to do it.

It depends on if you want to build them into a full working jamroom skin or just a partially working jamroom skin.

--edit--
If you just wanted to use one of them for the front-end, then this module:

"Alternative Admin Skin"
https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/networkmarket/55/alternate-admin-skin

Could be use to use a skin that already knows how to format the ACP and Profiles in those sections and just use that skin for the front-end. (another option.)
updated by @michael: 06/04/15 06:33:30PM

I've been toying with the idea of making a couple of business orientated profile layouts modeled of canvas homepages for some time but have never got round to it. The biggest headache I forsee is the slider.

However, turning one of these themes into a jamroom skin will be alot of work, and any time I have thought about doing it, the number of sales I estimate always put me off.

This is the main thing keeping me from moving over, which I badly want to do.

Jamroom seems to have a great set of tools, excellent customer service, and a future I can trust. But I haven't seen a site that doesn't look dated and visually unattractive, and my users care about that (so I care about that).


The best sites I've been able to find look years old even if they are brand new. I'm doing homework on buddypress and services like that (which are worse) only because of aesthetics and end user experience. I can't be the only person with this hesitation, especially since so many Ning users were excited about the new design center they were rolling out.

I'd pay good money to move the second I saw a skin/theme/design that excited me, and anyone up to the challenge can feel free to contact me.

The issue I think your going to face is the skins are all very specific so how do they handle a system that allows integration from any angle.

ie: How does this skin:
http://themeforest.net/item/marine-responsive-multipurpose-html5-template/full_screen_preview/9968298

work with the Site Builder system. Its hard to imagine. So if it was built it would probably be a skin that is done for a single site rather than for everyone.

You could setup the templates to allow for any of the modules, like the audio module, by constructing a template for it, but then the other modules would need to have custom templates too.

The footer is simple enough, that could work on any skin.

Its just the 'what goes in those placeholder boxes on an active site?' which make it start to get tricky.

I have some work done on a skin and the way I handle placeholder boxes, is to make them part of the skin settings, but this can get messy too.

But please bare in mind there are some wonderful WP and HTML themes out there but once you get into buddypress, although they are better than JR's, they still lack the diversity of the WP themes. Since JR, Buddypress, PhpFox etc are networks users expect information to be presented in a certain way, and this puts certian constraints on how you design your skin. Each page will typical have to be 2 or 3 columns, with blocks and lists.

What makes some of the themes above so nice is the no padding between elements, which allows the colours, pics etc all to flow seamless together. You could do that sort of thing to your homepage rather easy but your inner pages will have to follow a predictable path for users.

Each JR module gives you a simple full width list, with a search box at the top as default, if you want anything more, then you have to really work hard to achieve it. The problem with off the shelf skins is, short of including 5 templates for every page to show variation, there will be no way to cater for more than 10 or 15 sites. This in turn then has a direct effect on how much work a designer can put into a skin and still make it at least breakeven never mind profitable.

I don't know what the solution, but JR already gives you the tools to do a ksin like those mentioned, you're just gonna need a very good understanding off the system and css.

And just to add to that most of those themes will be constructed by a tool similar to sitebuilder on the WP side and take alot of work also to configure pages correctly. The advantage those tools have over sitebuilder currently is you can override the default css on a widget and page basis. Sitebuilder doesnt yet allow you to do this as the team wanted to make things as simple as possible, but given the demands for more modern skins maybe it's time to do this.

Could you outline that a bit more Gary, I'm not getting what your after. Which CSS class are you wanting to add/change?

My first thoughts jump to:
"altering a module's template"
https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/documentation/development/1051/altering-a-modules-template

or
MODULE: "Template Injection"
https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/networkmarket/8/template-injection

Not sure if they address the issue or not though.

On a per page basis you can choose to

show/hide the site header
show/hide the page header
Set the padding and margins of the page
Set the padding and margins of columns and rows
Set background of the page

On a per widget basis you can control
The padding and margins of the widget/container
The background of the widget/container

I already provide custom templates for my site, my point with this above was to meet a wide range of use cases you'd have to include multiple templates for each page to show different layouts.

Gotcha, thanks. What your after is a thing similar to Site Builder but for site design. I know we need that too.

Site Builder works with content, but need something similar for Design.

I think it would all be better in site builder otherwise there would be too much switching around.

The templates remind me of Ning 2.0-which has forced me to experiment with stuff like bootstrap...currently I am building ( actually rebuilding) one of my sites which is not a social member based network) on a Slate skin...I have a few challenges left but I am really happy with the results so far.
I am doing it this way because I like the idea of having a CMS that allows me to host my own music/videos etc on my site
I have installed at least 8 other platforms on my server to test and kept coming back to jamroom because of the increased functionality- although more difficult to work in

On a site that is NOT dependent on member participation and interaction, and member-added content, (like a store site or musician band site) the sky is the limit in terms of design. But once you have thousands of members all looking for familiar paths to navigate and add their OWN content, the design has to accommodate that in 'some' way so they don't wind up frustrated and leaving.

That's kind of why there are some ning 3.0 users who are perfectly happy with that platform. Some of them have sites where the site owner is pretty much the only person adding content (other than comments like "hey, cool!" from their site members). They themselves often say they have no need for videos, chat, events, music. In those cases they too would have the freedom to create a site design that isnt dependent on members interacting socially, tweaking their own profile pages, finding their way around the many features and adding content.


--
...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

@ michael and/or Gary,

so what you are saying is it's more of a one-off css edit than it is a theme thats flexible for multiple users? I'm interested.

how much would it cost to make it look similar to one of those theme forest templates you linked to, and who does that kind of work on JR?

My design skills are comparable those of a painting elephant (not very good). If you have a skin that is MPL or MIT license then I can get it started and we can open source it for community development if you like.

No real recommendations of anyone actively looking to take on more Jamroom skin development work that I know of sorry. If anyone IS, please let me know as we quite often have need of skin designers/developers to send work too.

We get a few emails from outsourcing companies for asking for work but none have yet to show any knowledge of jamroom.