Weird all around

Hi there,
Shame that you’re left with a bad experience without considering opening a support ticket first. Maybe your issue could have been easily resolved. Also you would have give the developer the chance to improve the theme into which he already has put a lot of effort.

As I am not the theme developer, I can’t fill in why the theme appears as it does, but note that the theme is built with Gutenberg in mind. Gutenberg is basically about offering a new publishing experience and still in development. But then again I am not the developer so I can’t say if this is an issue or a design choice. Myself, I would have put in a few extra lines of CSS to fit my needs. But that’s me and doesn’t necessarily have to be you of course.

And just to add. Their other themes look rather nice on their site. But. In order to download a free theme you need to provide an email address, to which they are supposed to send you a link. Which – tada! – never arrives.

Be sure to check your spam folder. I just tested it myself and it works fine for me.

These are the people who expect you to buy something from them. Just saying.

Rich is a well known guy within the WordPress community and gives back to the WP community on a regular basis. Although not everybody can or will contribute I personally think people who do deserve a little more credit than this.

Hi @jaaaarne ??,

I’m sorry you’re not feeling the theme. As Bianca mentioned, please open a support ticket and I’ll gladly look into any issues you’re experiencing with the theme. It’s likely the issue is that you did not install Gutenberg with the theme, as the theme suggests, which may cause layout issues.

Gutenberg is still fresh and actively in development. We’re all learning the best way to build Gutenberg WordPress themes and I’m sure the themes, as well at Gutenberg itself, will very well evolve many times over before Gutenberg lands in WordPress 5.0.

Also, as Bianca stated, please check your spam inbox for downloads as they sometimes end up there. I love WordPress and I enjoy contributing to the community — and to the forward-thinking folks like yourself who’re interested in Gutenberg.

Cheers!

The first support topic concerning this issue has appeared a week ago and didn’t get any response from the dev. Believe me, I looked there right after the WP demo and before installing it for a test run to see whether it would reproduce.

And it’s great that Rich gives back to the community. Seriously. Although he still chose not to make his other 3 free themes available in the official repository, and wants to harvest emails instead. That’s his right as the author, of course, but that’s never a good sign.

The fact that emails do not even come through to at least end up in spam likely means that he has his mailing script (or whatever it is that he uses to send the highly confidential links) set incorrectly. Not a good sign, either. Especially for a potential customer, who might want to first try and then buy, but the first thing they run into are technical issues. Because, well, some mail servers might allow incorrect headers, and other won’t, and how would you know which one the potential customer uses.

And the fact that the only theme he chose to make publicly available via WP repository was not sufficiently tested and/or checked, while simultaneously not having a working demo on the developer’s site (it’s the only theme without a demo, by the way) is also not a good sign.

So, yes. Adding several lines of CSS is not an issue. But this kind of attitude is. I don’t know who this person is and how many lines of code he has contributed to the Core (?). All I can say, though, that as a potential customer I get a definite feeling that this developer just does not care.

@ Rich Tabor

Thank you for your response. Like I said in my initial review, I’ve installed it on my test site together with everything it told me to install. All 3 plugins, including Gutenberg. I wanted to see if I would be able to reproduce what I saw on the WP demo and what people on the support forum were writing about.

As for the email, it simply never went through. Didn’t even reach the spam folder. In my experience [with Exchange servers] it likely means incorrect headers, especially for the automatically generated emails. I have also seen this happen with WordPress notifications to Gmail addresses on some hosting providers. Some servers will accept such mail, some will reject. You never know which it will be. So you might want to look into the email headers your script (?) generates.

@jaaaarne

Are you serious???

I think it’s the best theme ever put on the repository.

Incredible navigation system, night mode, neat typography, customisable login screen, …

Moreover, the theme works perfectly without installing CoBlocks and Gutenberg plugins.

I find your comment particularly unfair and your criticism unfounded.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by kinokino.

@kinokino

I find your comment offensive and your opinions irrelevant.

If it works for you, then fine. But somehow I don’t see thousands of happy users writing ecstatic reviews of this quite average theme. “Incredible navigation system” that cannot be seen, neat typography which will only work for Latin based alphabet etc.

Although I see that the theme did get updated a couple of weeks after my initial review. Now it’s the traditional 1/3 of a widescreen. *sigh*

@jaaaarne

what’s offensive is that kind of childish, disrespectful comment about a respected author.

this theme works perfectly.

the absence of positive comments does not prejudge the quality of a theme.

the essence of a community is the notion of sharing and helping.

a free theme does not imply personalized support, immediate answers or guaranteed updates.

Ah, sorry, I forgot to fall down on my knees before the Respected Author. My bad. When writing my personal opinion about an average – and broken at that time! – theme, I simply forgot that some devs are more equal than others and should not be held to the same standards. I didn’t keep in mind that I’m not allowed to express my opinion about stuff made by the Respected Author, and should hush and never speak unless spoken to.

Got it now. Will write it down so I never forget again. Sorry for wasting your time. Please go enjoy the lovely night mode button.

@jaaaarne

you have the right to express an opinion.

Did you look at the style sheet? I don’t think so.

.entry-header,
.entry-footer {
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
max-width: 760px; ——–> It’s a kind of magic
padding-left: 20px;
padding-right: 20px;
}

.entry-content > *:not(.alignwide):not(.alignfull):not(.alignleft):not(.alignright) {
max-width: 760px; ——–> It’s a kind of magic
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
padding-left: 20px;
padding-right: 20px;
}

don’t forget to smile.

Thank you for your kind permission to express my opinion. Now it’s so much easier to breath, I think I might faint.

Although the reason why you think I should spend time customizing a broken average theme is beyond me. Delete it, write a review and move on. I’ll repeat it once again: if a developer doesn’t care enough to sufficiently test before committing, it’s not my problem and I’m not obligated to spare his feelings just because. He offers broken product, I call it by its name.

But seriously. I’ve spent 10 years here. I’ve built dozens of sites. I’ve heavily customized dozens of themes, when I liked them enough to invest time. I’ve tried lots of themes from this repository, and I’ve written lots of reviews – both good and bad, depending on what a theme deserved.

But never have I ever seen such a raging fanclub in the comments. You’re making Rich the Respected Author look bad. He made an impression of a decent person, and I think he might be ashamed of you at the moment.

@jaaaarne

my opinion only engages me.

I maintain that your reaction is completely disproportionate.

if you don’t like this theme, don’t use it.

if the quality of the theme is bad, try to do better.

end of conversation.

What are you, ten? Try reading the review and the subsequent conversation first. I don’t like the theme and I don’t use it. I think it’s average and was initially presented broken. I’ve seen others do much better. And – attention! – I said so right from the beginning. Along with other shortcomings. Nothing was invented.

It’s you who for some reason is trying to offend me, discard my opinion because it doesn’t match yours, basically prohibiting me from expressing my point of view in my review, and trying hard to humiliate me by poking CSS at me.

You like it? You use it. You don’t get to order others around. You don’t get to try and shut down other opinions which happen not to match yours.

Now that’s the true end of conversation.
Cheers, fanboi.