As you all probably know, this site is focused around WordPress, and more specifically, WordPress themes. Believe it or not, but there are a lot of other themeable (is that a word?) CMS and blogging platforms out there besides WordPress out there.
Most of these platforms don’t have nearly the amount of themes available that WordPress has. Here’s a short list of some other pieces of software I had in mind that are lacking in the theme department:
- Habari – http://www.habariproject.org/
- Chyrp – http://chyrp.net/
- Drupal – http://drupal.org/
Do you use any of these systems? Would you be interested in themes being ported over to these systems? Have you even heard of them? Let me know in the comments.
I’ve been using Drupal for about 10% of my work, WordPress for most of the rest. I like it, but some would argue that it’s not as object-oriented as it should be, and for me the biggest drawback is the complicated backend that I would hand to the client. There are at least 17 WYSIWYG editors for it’s backend and none of them are any good – I’ve tried them all!
Nonetheless, I also think it’s easier to theme for Drupal than for WordPress using the smarty engine. My two cents.
@Brandon: I’ve dabbled in Drupal. I keep hearing good things about it so may look more deeply into it, especially if people are looking for more Drupal themes. Thanks for the comment.
I am now using both WordPress and Habari and I am planning to bring the designs of my sites in-line by producing a theme and using variations of it over different platforms and blog types.
It is going to be interesting, to say the least.
Hey Andrew, thanks for stopping by. That does sound interesting indeed. Reading your blog posts over at WP Fun really opened my eyes to Habari.
It’s true. We are lacking in themes at Habari. Somebody should do something! I see a theme competition in our future; one I would be willing to put up $$ for.
And it’s weird because Habari’s got one of the best licenses for themers to release their works under. I’ve had some questions recently about those other platforms, in terms of how their GPL-ness affects designers wallets.
I was using Drupal for sometime, later I realized that its a good choice for complicated CMS. For just a blog,it’s too much.
I tried out the demos to both Chyrp & Habari. I just think that WordPress is still the King/Queen of blogging.
No,I have never used one of these.Up to now I have used only wordpress and Blogger,I have heard about Z-blog,movabletype before but I have never used them. Wordpress is really very popular in world,right?
I’ve been using Drupal for several years, and it’s a great platform for sites that need more interaction than just comments on a blog post. I use it for teaching. However, it’s not easy to theme, in my experience. There are two many css files attached to a even a simple site, because some css is built into the core. Trying to sort out what’s making a particular element style a certain way can be frustrating.
There are not a lot of really attractive Drupal themes that I have seen, at least not themes that are css driven rather than using tables for positioning.
Short answer: yes, I would love to see some of your themes ported for use with Drupal.
Thanks for the comments everyone. The reason why I made this post is because I wanted to gauge interest in themes for other software. I know WordPress is the reigning champ for blogging, but what about those other lesser-known systems that don’t have enough good themes available?
@Owen: I actually read that article. Habari just needs more exposure, among themers in particular.
@Mayooresan: You’re right, for just a simple blog – Drupal probably is too bloated. Something like WordPress, Habari, or Chyrp may be a better choice.
@Aguair: Yes, it may be the king/queen for now, but for how long will it last?
@Clarky: WordPress is very popular, arguably the most popular software (.org) and hosting service (.com) for blogs out there.
@Dan Butcher: When I looked into Drupal theming I did notice a number of stylesheets attached to each theme. Thanks for your feedback.
Wordpress FTW.
But i wouldnt mind designing some Drupal or Harbari themes hehe
Whats you take on it, are you more for it or not leland ?
I also think that WordPress is the best blogging system. Even if it is the mosy popular, I think it is for a reason.
And hey, I wouldn’t mind designing a Habari, Chryp or Drupal theme
Also, Drupal is pretty popular, isn’t it?
Anyone familiar with the evolution of WordPress knows that the reason it became dominant had nothing to do with out-performing its rivals. It was almost entirely due to Six Apart changing their license and everyone who was in blogging suddenly looking for a non-commercial blog product.
The only software worth mentioning at the time was WordPress, and it didn’t even have but the most rudimentary of theme and plugin capabilities at the time.
I’m not saying WordPress is not capable software. I will say that I believe it’s the market leader for a reason other than offering the best blogging solution. If everyone who thinks it’s “best” would take off the blinders and try the other software out there, I think they’d see there is real competition going on at a feature and capability level that perhaps they didn’t expect.
And yes, Drupal is popular. Drupalcon 08 in Boston (at which I was present) drew over 800 attendees. That’s more than I’ve ever seen or heard of at a WordPress conference.
@Anto: I’m a little undecided at the moment. That’s part of the reason I made this post. Just wanted to gauge interest to see if people were interested in themes for something other than WordPress for a change. It seems most are.
@Aguair: While I’ll agree it’s the most popular, I haven’t given the other alternatives a fair chance to comment on if it’s the “best” or not. Drupal is popular too, but like Dan Butcher said above – there aren’t that many good Drupal themes available.
@Owen: Thanks for reminding us of that. That is the major reason why WordPress got so popular in the first place.
I use both Drupal and Wordpress. I would really like to see more themes ported to Drupal.
I’ve actually ported a few wordpress themes over to Habari for use, and customized a few Habari ones as well. It’s super easy to create/modify themes for Habari. The theme collection in general has been growing more lately with new additions.
Can you let me know some examples of your ported Habari themes? I’d love to see them!