CUNY Academic Commons

Adding a few watchers for feedback on theme review and possible new themes.

Thanks for this Boone! I will take some time to lok through this to make suggestions.

One thing: I think the "enabled" column is not correct? I am getting the same result - "0" - for every theme.

Thanks Boone!

Based on the numbers here, I would propose removing (from activation) any theme that is on less than 20 sites:

Less than 20 activations: ++
WPFolio
Expositio Theme
P2
Platform
Sensitive
Bluemist
WP-Creativix
Kickstart
Wallbase

Ivanhoe, Twenty Twenty Two, and WhenIWasBad are exceptions since they are for special projects or more recent additions

If we want to remove more themes there are 4 more themes with less than 50 activations.

Less than 50 activations: ++

dante
minimatica
onetone
infinity

If you or people you support use these themes -- let me know! We should discuss if it is worth it to keep these enabled.

How do the suggested themes to add look to everyone? Are there others we should add?

I think the proposed new themes look great Laurie, thanks for pulling them together! It would be great to be able to experiment with them on the commons.

I wanted to put in a vote/request for Generatepress as well:
https://wordpress.org/themes/generatepress/

It's a free, lightweight theme that I've used elsewhere before, and I've been impressed with its features and the team behind it. It's also integrated with the free Generateblocks plugin, which is a flexible, lightweight block library:

https://generateblocks.com/

I know this might seem contradictory to what I've said before about avoiding page builders and any theme tied to them, but I think there's an important distinction between block libraries and page builders which tend to be a lot clunkier. The Generate family strikes a nice balance between available features and performance, in my opinion, while expanding on the new Wordpress blocks interface.

Thoughts appreciated, if anyone else has experience with this theme and plugin or has any others we should consider!

So updating the themes lists here for review:

To ADD

Adventure Journal: https://wordpress.org/themes/the-adventure-journal/

Neve https://wordpress.org/themes/neve/

Ashe: https://wordpress.org/themes/ashe/

Bravada: https://wordpress.org/themes/bravada/

Puskar: https://wordpress.org/themes/puskar/

Airi: https://wordpress.org/themes/airi/

Aeonium: https://wordpress.org/themes/aeonium/

Polite Minimal: https://wordpress.org/themes/polite-minimal/

Any other themes we should consider?

I am also intrigued by the new themes that offer Full Site Editing possibilities. I find it more confusing but I could see how this method of editing would make sense for newer users. I was looking at the themes below, but I am wondering if Scott or others might have suggestions for a good FSE theme to add to start introducing the FSE capabilities to faculty, students, etc.

I can see these two themes being really fun for a course or student portfolios...

https://wordpress.org/themes/raft/

https://wordpress.org/themes/illustric/

To DISABLE

OneTone
Infinity
WikiWP
Luna
WPFolio
Expositio Theme
P2
Platform
Sensitive
Bluemist
WP-Creativix
Kickstart
Wallbase

More info can be found in this theme review sheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t0799f4CjhY-pRl9o-G9sPazB9GoKYetEuTwZ03oVW8/edit?usp=sharing

I've network-disabled the themes on Laurie's list.

I installed both Raft and Illustric locally and tried them out. (These are FSE themes.) Raft really encourages you to install the Otter Blocks plugin, which has some nice blocks. (You don't have to use Raft to use Otter Blocks.) Raft has some nice block patterns, although they are a little hard to find. I think the Otter plugin makes differentiates it from Twenty Twenty two.

I didn't much care for Illustric theme. It provided some pretty standard blocks and no new patterns that I could find. I could not find the advertised "curated collection of free illustrations created by indie designers" and that was disappointing. Maybe that's something they plan to release in the future.

I would vote to install Raft and the Otter Blocks plugin, but not Illustric.

Can we move forward on this and add these themes:

Raft: https://wordpress.org/themes/raft/
+otter block plugin:https://wordpress.org/plugins/otter-blocks/

Adventure Journal: https://wordpress.org/themes/the-adventure-journal/

Neve https://wordpress.org/themes/neve/

Ashe: https://wordpress.org/themes/ashe/

Bravada: https://wordpress.org/themes/bravada/

Puskar: https://wordpress.org/themes/puskar/

Airi: https://wordpress.org/themes/airi/

Aeonium: https://wordpress.org/themes/aeonium/

Polite Minimal: https://wordpress.org/themes/polite-minimal/

Thanks Boone!

I'll circle back and check out the parent themes to see if they offer the same functionality and design. If not I may suggest a few more themes to offer on the Commons.

I think it would be ideal to get back to rough 50-60 theme in order to offer a variety of options. But if other think this is too many, we can scale back. (we had ~60 before this theme review)

Thanks, Laurie. To be clear, the issue with child themes is that, for technical reasons, they won't work unless we also have the parent theme on the system. We do not necessarily have to have the parent theme available for activation, but it still adds to the general maintenance overhead of the site. If it turns out that the parent theme is good for general use, it increases the benefit of adding the two themes.

I think it would be ideal to get back to rough 50-60 theme in order to offer a variety of options. But if other think this is too many, we can scale back. (we had ~60 before this theme review)

IMO a target number should only be used as a very rough heuristic. We should not add themes that are similar to existing offerings just to make our offerings seem deeper - this is a false sense of variety. I personally would be OK with adding themes only if they seem great and/or fill a functional or aesthetic gap in our current offerings.