I'm not sure what exactly is the problem here. Maybe it's Litestep, maybe it's the themes people make.
For no less than 90% of the themes I try to install, they do not work properly. Either I get error messages, or I get notification that certain components are missing, and I have the option to download them. But when I click download, I get a red X at each of the components, and I'm stuck with having to go back to the default theme.
So what gives? Are the theme makers working with their heads in their asses? Providing themes with dependencies on other files that aren't included in the theme? Is litestep in need of some improvement with the component download feature? I just don't see how anyone can stand such ridiculous inefficiency. Litestep kicks ass.. if you get it working correctly. But how many actually get it working correctly?
Are there really only about 3 themes that can be installed and used with LS 3.0.1 ?
themes work perfect if the themer name the download dll's right, so most of the errors are themer mistakes.
another error could be, that you let not litestep into the internet from your firewall, so it could not download *g*
a whole modules list can be found here with the right names:
http://www.shellfront.org/modules/
thanks... i was able to get some themes working using those modules. the automatic download feature could use a revamp IMO. it worked for some files, but not others, for a friend of mine. my firewall may have been blocking the downloads, but I wasn't asked if I would want to let LS connect to the net... so I don't think that's it. Unless LS uses explorer or generic host processes to download the files, because those are the only 2 programs I have blocked from accessing the net.
Again, thanks for the module link.
I have 85+ workings OTS2 themes with LS 3.0.1.... so i wont say that....
there are 2 common mistakes themers make: name wrongly the former core modules in nlm, and use otsmayorversion intead of ots majorversion
well, ostmayorversion was only done by teschio, as far as I know. and, since he doesn't naturally speak english, we can't really blame the guy. :P of course, he COULD have done some testing, but I'm not going into that.
Guardfather said: "I'm not sure what exactly is the problem here. Maybe it's Litestep, maybe it's the themes people make."
It's the themes people make. ;)
deuce: yesterday icrack was released and it has both mistakes, names wrongly shortcut and popup, and says otsmayorversion.
c'mon people, what's with the mayor?? it's MAJOR :P
i understand that english is not the main language for many of us and it could easily be misspelled, but wtf? don't people test their themes before uploading them??
icrack worked just fine for me.
Themers aren't perfect, LiteStep isn't perfect. How can anybody expect the two to work flawlessly in combination?
Mr_goat, you may have extracted it to the themes dir, and have already the former core modules in your modules dir, if you had used the lstheme installer it would have given you an error, and if you didnt have popup and shortcut already downloaded, you wouldnt be able to download them.
west (from westep?), themers should etst their themes by removing all the modules they used from the common modules dir and try to install themes with lstheme installer, that's where the installer is heading.
Oh yeah i never use that lsz stuff. Most of em dont work.:-), i guess thats what this conversation is about :)
I've never really had any problems with OTS2 themes. I do have a few themes that wouldn't install, but i think thats the "mayor bug" I have also run into the incorrectly named dll's but nothing that a simple theme edit, or rtclick on the module and browse to the dll didn't fix. Alot of the incorrectly named dll's i already had downloaded from other themes. One thing that might help is making it more obvious that you can browse to existing dll from the netload download window. To credit OTS2 I've had about a 90% sucess rate with OTS2 themes where as I had maybe 40% sucess rate pre OTS.
/begin rant
It's always been my experience that if you don't pay for a product or service to expect bugs, it's part of the deal. No-one pays for litestep (wooo!) so get over it. Fix the problem yourself by unzipping the file to the themes dir, or renaming the dll files. Themers are only sharing what they've made for themselves, if it doesn't work, make it work, stick with austerity (or simplicity cuz niether of them have any problems IMO) or tough boogies on you.
/end rant
That shouldn't stop you for asking for a better product. If that were true, products wouldn't go anywhere ;)
No, but it's not the program that's at fault, it the free gimmes provided after the program's installed. Austerity, the basic theme hs NO issues as far as i've been able to find, it's as clean as a whistle, if the theme's are not up to a user's demands, I expect a user would theme their own theme, and develop the theme so it is up to their standards or leave ls on the default theme, where they're not going to run into issues.
My thoughts on this are that if somebody says their theme is OTS2 compliant, then it should be. An OTS2 compliant theme will install and work perfectly. (Barring any bizarre OS/module/software incompatibilities of course.)
I don't mind if a themer wants to release buggy and broken themes, or doesn't want to adhere to the OTS spec. :P If they're happy doing that, fine. But they should not label such themes as being OTS2 compliant.
I have the same problem here, nothing works except for austerity.
I agree with omar here, if it's labeled as such, it should work.
I'd like a list of easy to install and use themes if there is one around here, thanks!
themes from myself, tnl, phar0e, mojomonkee, suzrael, tronn, (and a few others) will 99.99999% of the time work straight off the mark, with no need to get your hands dirty in a text editor.
of course, we're all far too busy/lazy to convert themes to OTS2 (except for phar0e), so .. yes.
well, as far as I know, my theme (shades of grey) works fine with ots2 ls builds.
I was considering creating a LS Group
to test all themes prior to release and
give our input if it is a true valid OTS2 theme.
If it is a working theme strictly based on OTS2
than we can give it a certification from our group.
This way new users will know what are quality released themes and which are not.
We could build a site and review new releases like shell shocked as they come to us.
We could supply a banner link to certify testing for OTS2.
Just my thoughts and I would love to see this become reality.
or just use this
http://forums.loose-screws.com/viewforum.php?f=21 to post betas of yourthemes ans get feedback.
I hate the fact that not all ots2 themes don't work perfictly but I don't expect it either.
I just hope that when the theme is released it's close enough to perfict so I can fix it. I've tried some themes and they just won't work right or not at all.
I havn't learned how to make my own yet so trying to fix minor errors is my training lessons.