neptronix said:
There's probably no such thing. You need an intermediate to advanced level of knowledge of CSS, Javascript, and HTML in order to even start working on these modern themes. They are very complex. I do web development for a living and some of the CSS styling threw ME for a loop.
Then I'm probably screwed.
But I have found that I can learn to hack stuff I don't want out of something without necessarily knowing a lot about the something in question, though it frequently breaks things at first, and I have to keep going back to figure out what I last did that didn't create the problem. I don't necessarily have to learn how to write the code itself, just a bit about what some things do, which I can sometimes do simply by experimentation. (I learned a lot about hacking the Windows registry this way, and with XP was eventually able to slim a system down to be as responsive as it would've been if it were Win98 or better, so that it didnt' require multiple massively-expensive computers just to do the CPU/RAM-intensive realtime manipulation of music and 2d/3d art stuff that I was doing then (still do the music now).
So...I'm still willing to try to fix it on my own, if I can set up a test bed to do it. I guess the first thing I'll have to learn is how to setup a PHPBB board and do mods to it. Or actually, the first thing is probably what kind of server it has to run on, so I can build up a minimal computer to do that here, out of the various computer junk I have. Then I can do whatever I need to to copies of the theme until it does what I want and doesnt' do what I don't want.
What you see with the default theme is a result of me spending a few days ironing out flaws in PHPBB 3.2's default theme. Out of the box, things look horrible. Sounds like it needs more massaging.
I'm not sure "massaging" is a sufficiently eloquent term, but yeah.
Do me a favor and hunt down a theme you can tolerate on phpbb's site and let me know what your selection is. I will install one theme just for you, rather than spend days of my own time tweaking the main theme..
https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/style/prosilver/demo/3.2#
https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewforum.php?f=581
I'll see if there are any that actually function usefully, but if they are all mobile-adapted, then none of them are really going to work right simply because of the zoom functionality (which I realized is what is causing the main problem I have of all screen elements resizing instead of just the fonts). Probably will take me at least a few days to go thru them, depending on how many they have.
FWIW, I don't expect any of the main themes to be "fixed"
just for me (and any of the few others that have similar problems to me), but I'm hoping that if I can hack up a theme to do what's necessary that it can be installed as a choice for anyone that has problems with the mobile-"enhanced" themes.
As an aside, I really don't understand why so many developers of so many types of technology think that forcing unnecessary "features" (that often break functionality necessary to existing users) on existing users is a good idea. When there are options, like with PHPBB and it's board styles, to keep an "old" version of functionality around, I'd've expected the developers to do just that--let the old stuff still work, or at least to keep a theme around that emulated that, without the problems that stem from specific new functionality. Unfortunately, in pretty much almost everything I've ever worked with, it's not how they do things, even when it wouldn't cost extra development time to do it that way (based on conversations with various developers during beta testing of different types of products).
I've heard a few complaints about font size by now.. I believe it may be possible to bump it up a hair in many areas. This is a job for me next week.
Personally, I'll need a lot more than a hair (as will other visually-challenged readers). I'd have to compare the default size to the size I use, but I think I'm using a size at least twice as tall/wide as the default. I forget how many zoom levels that is, maybe 5 levels? But in my case I *only* want the text of posts/pms, etc, and the titles of threads in a list, etc., to be resized, *not* any of the board's elements or text. Basically, just the user-input-data, not the board-generated stuff.
As for your other complaints.. there is no way to get this system to work exactly like the old one. The responsive themes which shift things around to fit mobile, ipads, and desktop will mean that the look will be a bit different no matter what.
The "responsive themes" is a big part of the problem, unfortunately. I know it can't be made to do exactly what the other did...but if it could be made to *not* do what the new one does would go a ways to help.
Really, I'm posting these issues in hopes, not expectations, that there might be an existing fix out there that's easy for me, or you, or someone, to do. Not that you'll have to work for hours, days, or weeks to make just a handful of users happy out of a couple of thousand.
If I don't say something, then you can't even know there's a problem to fix.
(Side note: most of those "40000" members are either long gone, never even came back to read or post, or were just spammers--I bet that if you removed all zero-post members that haven't visited the board more recently than a year ago (in case there's some that might still come back), it'd cut the number of "members" in half, at least--probably even further.)