sakm wrote: ↑Sun Jan 08, 2017 11:37 pm
Why cant the support team help or even update these styles and extensions or maybe all developers work together to have a massive database of updated styles and extensions rather than just leave the author to figure it out
Hi Stu,
As a style Author and former team member here, I wouldn't say it's the phpBB Team's responsibility to maintain contributors' styles and extensions. But I do acknowledge the issue you've raised with style/extension authors dropping support for their contributions, sustained not least of all by Arty (highest grossing style downloads of all time) abandoning his phpBB style development.
From a styling point of view, there are a couple of problems.
1) There is a really heavy reliance on using the prosilver framework. Style Authors know that their styles should support extensions (otherwise, nobody's going to use your style). In order for extensions to work, hooks are scattered throughout template files in many locations that inject code in a certain format. This makes it very (very!) difficult to create unique and interesting layouts as much of the core HTML needs to stay the same, and there is a limited amount that can be achieved with CSS overrides. The other problem is that the prosilver framework is nearly 10 years old, is built on ancient markup (definition lists / tables), and many responsive functions achieved through JavaScript instead of a pure CSS grid system. It takes an enormous amount of work to convert prosilver into anything like a modern framework, and many style authors just don't have the time to make it look good. This is why most of the free styles available for phpBB aren't that good.
2) The other major problem as I see it is around incentives. Given what I've mentioned above, there needs to be some end reward for creating and supporting a style. For some this is pride and that's enough, for others it's financial. I have a premium style, supported by several free styles, but in my experience here the phpBB Team have blocked nearly every attempt I've made to monetize my style development, by either: Asking me to remove certain credit lines from my free style(s), telling me to remove donate buttons, or removing links to my premium styles from the downloads page of my free styles. I am grateful that lately the team have been more relaxed around signature and credit line links in styles, however there is still some resistance around what I can put on the downloads page of free styles. Contributors use vast amounts of free time to create both free and premium contributions (that both ultimately play their part in retaining phpBB users), and it's crucial that the phpBB Team don't block contributors from being able to earn from their contributions in order for us to keep contributing to the phpBB project.