For the past two months we have been hard at work on the theming update. It is the largest update we have done so far, including enhancements to the theme editor, the themes list and visual changes to nearly every page and block on the site. =)

Work is nearly finished on this update now though, the new theme editor itself is complete, and we are just working on updating some of the views to take advantage of it still. We expect to be able to push this live in about another 2 weeks, so in the meantime we wanted to give you another preview of some of the changes coming with the update.

In the first part of the preview, we talked a bit about the new theme editor tool, so here we wanted to show how some of the views for the site will be changed to take advantage of the new options in the theme editor.

To start with here is a few before and after shots of some blocks, using the enmity site and its theme as an example.

Calendar Blocks:
Tables now have two highlights available to them in the theme editor; in the calendar the highlights are used to show "today" and "other month" cells in different colors. Table headers also have their own color options now, and the tables may be colored differently in the side blocks and in the main column.



Server Status Block:
The server status block has received some polish, and uses the "other text" highlight to show the server type and population



Shoutbox Block:
The shoutbox block makes use of the "other text" highlight for the time and "Shout as:" label, which is a subtle change; we hope all the subtle changes add up to a much more polished look and feel for the site




Members List Page:
Along with the blocks we have a before and after for one of our pages, the members list, to give you an idea of how some of the pages are being updated:


*click for full-size image


*click for full-size image

The new members list shows quite a few small UI improvements we have made, members are grouped up by rank in the members list, the top links (Accounts Characters Map) are displayed more like tabs, and the "Other Text" highlight color is in use for labels for some of the members information.


Themes List Page:
And finally, we have a before and after of the new themes list page for www.mmoguildsites.com:


*click for full-size image


*click for full-size image

The themes list page is receiving quite a bit of polish and some new features. The UI has been cleaned up, with searching being moved to the side block, sorting made easier through links and un-necessary content removed. We have also added Tags for themes, which makes finding themes easier and helps you to describe your created themes so others can find them. The top section of www.mmoguildsites.com is receiving a small make-over also, with an improved look and some more information about yourself when you are logged in.

That's about all the information we have to share for this preview, we are working hard and hoping to have this live in about two weeks =) This theming update has slowed down updates to the site recently, but once this is live we will be back to our more frequent updates and new features =)