AI-generated summary
This thread discusses preferred user themes on Discourse. kairo162 and NateDhaliwal both favor the Foundation theme, with Nate also using Meta Branded on desktop and avoiding Horizon due to UI preferences. nickdb describes building a custom theme based on the new blocks API to ensure a consistent experience across mobile and desktop, highlighting features like automatic view refreshing.
satonotdead shares a preference for the Meta Branded style and mentions launching a custom “Horizon” theme that blends retro, comic-style brutalist elements, while noting a future plan to create an ultra-lightweight classic view. merefield suggests that “Theme” is the more idiomatic term than “interface” for these visual changes, a point agreed upon by Lilly, who edited the topic title accordingly.
Built our own based on the new blocks api. Going live tomorrow. Being able to create a consistent experience across mobile and desktop surfaces was important. The latest view automatically refreshing for new posts and translations is just more seamless.
Use cases vary but, for ours, a clean and intuitive theme can only be achieved by customisation.
Arguably the “interface” doesn’t change much between instances. I think it might be better to use the idiomatic word “Theme”.
That said there are a few “apps” and other interfaces that go well beyond theming.
eg > termcourse: read & post on Discourse instances from the terminal
I like the Meta Branded style, I noted that we share some of their overall design (headings in Inter, violet palette as the primary color) from before they implemented it.
In the forum I’m about to re-launch we use a custom Horizon, and we are about to launch our branded version as well, with a fusion of retro/old-school and comic-style brutalist elements. Subtle, along with the unification of several components that we will integrate into our main theme.
I also like Foundation, but I got used to modern interfaces, and I no longer feel comfortable with such simple styles. I am also thinking about keeping a classic view with categories like forums used to be, ultra-lightweight and almost without images. For now, it’s on the backlog; everything is moving very fast, and priorities have to be set.
I use Foundation usually, like on mobile here on Meta (but use Meta Branded on desktop). I don’t reslly lile the UI for Horizon, so I’d tend towards the forum’s default theme (something custom) or Foundation.
agreed. edited title.