First Impressions/Issues Theme-It

1/31/2010 9:23 pm | #1 thewebteam297175Beta Tester

Thanks for the trial. I am new to Theme-It. Here are my comments / issues so far...

- I viewed the online manual/help pages, which gave me an overview but I though sparse in detail. I got a 404 when using the back/forward arrows. (maybe it's not all written yet?)

- As I tend to use SSI alot I loaded one up (.shtml extensions). My <HEAD> tag includes a SSI call to common scripts and style sheets. So Theme-It never picked that up and so was un-usable. I guess it doesn't work with Server Side Includes (even though Dreamweaver does)

- Once I'd loaded a normal HTML page with a <LINK> call to style sheet I could see the Theme-it interface better and it started working/listing colours)

- The color suggestion "form" input box is too small to read the #color number in full.

- Choosing the color swatch bow (left of form field) I got the ALERT "Please specify a base color" TWICE after clicking OK. I don't think I should have an alert at all as I was selecting a color.

- Worse still. I noticed if you don't select a color and the text cursor is in the color field then it's a loop ALERT and even clicking cancel to get out of Theme-it causes the same alert. So I cannot continue until a base #color is reported in the color field. This happens on a my SSI .shtml files (not a HTML file with LINK styles sheet).

- I am finding all the scroll bars in Theme-it unresponsive, slow and jerky

... still testing it

1/31/2010 10:04 pm | #2 thewebteam297175Beta Tester

More issues - Disappointed !

- I loaded up a html file with no styling at all and Theme-it didn't change anything (it needs styles pre-defined. I guess because there were no colors to manage?

That left me perplexed as I expected it to theme the page (the product title suggested that to me).

- For the limited functionality I didn't find it that intuitive. E.G Using the Color Suggestion Tool led me to think that this would automatically feed into the Theme suggestions but it didn't.

- Using the Up/Down arrows for new suggestions I liked but it wasn't obvious to me how it got those suggestions ?

- And the preview image is too small to see the subtle changes in style. So I was left guessing until after about 20 minutes I discovered by accident you can click the preview to see it rendered in teh browser. You may wanna make this more obvious ?

- Finally, after FINISH I saved the file. Closed the document - Reloaded up - and tried to to use Theme-It again but got a JavaScript error line 661 wa_themeit.js > imageURL "has no properties"

After 30 minutes or so using Theme-It. I am (sorry) not impressed and it's a product I wouldn't buy. I am a hand-coder and get by using Dreamweaver and FireFox's web developer tool bar for trying CSS things out so this product is not aimed at me. I was generally disappointed Sorry !

I am using Windows XP SP3 with DW CS4.

2/01/2010 7:21 am | #3 Ray BorduinWebAssist

We appreciate the feedback. Theme it is definitely designed for the new user that isn't as comfortable with hand coding.

The concept is to take a color-centric and image-centric approach to making changes since we find many new users say they just want to change a color or an image and can't figure out where in the page or .css to find and make that change.

Even though it may not work on all pages at first, we will be able to update our solutions and product output to work very well with theme it for customization. There will be plenty of room to add features and improve this v1 product.

We definitely appreciate the suggestions and first impressions and will try to work out some of the issues you have described.

Did this help? Tips are appreciated...

2/01/2010 11:42 am | #4 Dani Chankhour

Originally Said By: thewebteam297175

- As I tend to use SSI alot I loaded one up (.shtml extensions). My <HEAD> tag includes a SSI call to common scripts and style sheets. So Theme-It never picked that up and so was un-usable. I guess it doesn't work with Server Side Includes (even though Dreamweaver does)

Could you please give me a an example of how you included your .shtml files. Current theme-it looks for server side include (php, asp and coldfusion), but it does not looks for html includes. But we could definitely update it to read .shtml includes.

2/15/2010 12:39 am | #5 thewebteam297175Beta Tester

Originally Said By: Dani Chankhour

Could you please give me a an example of how you included your .shtml files. ....

Hi I use the following to SSI include files



I always have a folder SSI which contains common code for things like the META data, header, menu, footer, counter code. I give my SSI files the extension .ssi to distinguish them from other types of static HTML.

If I build a site that needs dynamic features I tend to use PHP include calls.

2/15/2010 5:54 pm | #6 Dani Chankhour

Thanks.
The latest beta build for Theme-It should work with .shtml includes, but I'm not really sure about .ssi, but if Dreamweaver renders the includes, then Theme-It should be able to pick it up as well.

Are your includes working with the latest build of Theme-It?

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First Impressions/Issues Theme-It

1/31/2010 9:23 pm | #1 thewebteam297175Beta Tester