GHOP Plone skins overview

Plone has very few skins available from the community, when compared to just about anything. The skin incompatibilities that appeared between Plone versions 2.0/2.1/3.0 further deepen this problem. As a result of the 2007 Plone - GHOP there are some skins placed in the collective, but they're not visible anywhere (they're not published in the PSC, only some of them are available as eggs in PyPI, to get a glimpse of them you need to install them). These skins are placed under the plonetheme namespace, along with other skins, unrelated to GHOP.

To make them a bit more visible (and to serve as a personal reminder for their design), I'm showcasing them here. In reviewing them I've used Plone 3.1 (the trunk of the ploneout package).  After each skin was installed and snapshotted, I've uninstalled it and installed the next one.

Click on each thumbnail to get to the full image.

Andreas 01

Andreas01 - anonymous view  Andreas01 - editor view

One of the nicer skin, it stands out through its center align design, different sized columns and its simplicity. I can see myself using this skin as a base for a skin customization.

BlueBlog


BlueBlog - anonymous  BlueBlog - editor

This skin, as its name implies, is better suited for a blog, through its tall, thin design. Not a programmers blog though, and that's too bad, as it's a good skin.

Essay


Essay - anonymous  Essay - editor

Nice skin, I especially like the portlet design. Somewhat simple, though. If I'd customize this skin, I'd make it wider (maybe make it whole page instead of center-centred)

Green Community


GreenCommunity - anonymous  GreenCommunity - editor

A non-conformist skin, but still good looking. From what I have seen watching the PyPI, it's still under active development. There are some problems with it, though: the login portlet at the top is not fully visible, the "editor" version is missing some bits of the full skin. Still, it could be used for blog-ish type of sites, after some customizations.

Grok

Grok - anonymous  Grok - editor

This skin is very similar (might be the same) to the one used for the Grok project website. Probably not a GHOP skin. Although it seems like a very simple customization of default Plone, there are many issues with it that would mean that it would require heavy work to make it publishable for a real website.

Napoli

This is an almost empty skin, no point in showing it here

Pizza


Pizza - anonymous  Pizza - editor

Not a GHOP skin, this skin was created in a sprint. I believe its aim is to be one of the official supported skin. It is somewhat similar to NuPlone. Still needs work, though.

Plone2Kiss

Another empty skin

Python

Python - anonymous  Python - editor

Very similar to the current python.org skin. It feels rough and unfinished, but otherwise a nice, clean skin.

Relic

Relic - anonymous  Relic - editor

Ugly, amateurish skin. Needs a lot of work to get it into something usable. Probably you're better looking for something else.

Sonia

Sonia - anonymous  Sonia - editor

Not a GHOP, it just sits in the Collective svn repository. Promising, but would need a lot of customizations to make it work.

Conclusion: the problem remains: there are very few community-produced plone skins, and the ones available are usually low quality. We, the community, have got to do something about this.

Note: I have no affiliation to any of the GHOP students, mentors or the Plone - GHOP project.

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