Six frameworks, compared side by side on the same task. The task is to make a template like this one, notice the moving carousel of three slides. Looks to me like these competitors all do the same thing. Link to page where you can try all the samples
So, a template is kind of like dropping colors and borders and fonts into XF? That makes sense. (And saves a lot of work!) I loved those Owl Carousels. And those templates did look remarkably similar-- at least until I got my hands on them.
I don't understand what you mean. I should have been more careful using the word, "templates," here, given all that I have made of that term. The guys who made these six templates call them templates, but these are not the kind of templates I have been making such a big deal about. The strategic templates I am had been talking about previously, and which I want to keep in focus as what I usually mean by "templates," have a lot more going on, more pages, more style elements, I like to see javascripts included for animation. The templates these guys made are reverse-engineered copies of one of the examples that bootstrap provides when you download it. To see all the bootstrap templates, you can go to this link. The one they reverse-engineered using the other frameworks is the one called carousel I think it is fair to say all those examples templates, as the words is commonly used, but compare those to Orchid, miniport, or the templates here or here (scroll down to see templates). Many of those templates use Bootstrap or a spinoff of bootstrap they have made for themselves, based on the structures pioneered by bootstrap. Meanwhile, XF templates are an animal I never have seen anywhere else. A great question for the XF HQ forum would be, "Hi, I am trying to understand templates in XF and I am not understanding. I thought templates where like what you see in Theme Forest (link) or HTML5Up (link). When I look at XF tempkates, they are nothing like those other "templates." I can understand that XF templates are a different kind of template than those other templates. Is there another example of the type of templates XF uses in another system or an article on XF-type templates I could read to get caught up? I was thinking how much I would like to see you posting that question, because I think you will get a better response, but once I typed it here, I went ahead and posted it. So, with all that said, is a template is kind of like dropping colors and borders and fonts into XF? I don't know. Did I ever tell you about the time I impersonated a woman to get more of a respone in a forum? It worked great, until I was caught. Oh man, the guys were pissed. They felt betrayed. However I am sure from that experience that a female persona will get a better response on a forum where most of the participants are men.
I got a response already from one of the xf developers, who wrote: My response: xf templates are not templates. They are a construct unique to xf. I am going to guess that they were named templates early in their development, way ahead of creating what they have now.
That was a helpful response at XenForo, even though it quickly went over my current level of comprehension. I understand now that XF templates do much more than the style templates for the CSS frameworks. My interaction with the XF templates was to use them for the styling, but they go much deeper than that.
That's funny. I'm thinking that part of the reason the response was so great was because the guys were probably happy to interact with a woman who could converse at their level. When they found out you were a guy, not only did were they disappointed about that, but their hope that a few women were finally venturing into this field was crushed once again. I haven't been able to spend as much time in the XF forum as I would like, but they seem very helpful and considerate from what I've seen. My question at Code School, meanwhile, has received no response yet. Maybe they want me to be a more active member before they start answering my questions ...
