The theme doesn't make any sense at all. It seems like just a teaser to lure people into ordering their 'full site' installation service. The theme doesn't even come with a README.txt file that tells you how to install it. Demo content does NOT come with the theme download. They claim it is only available if you order 'full site'.

Comments

betarobot’s picture

betarobot commented

The theme is not yet ready for novice users (still in beta as you see), but drupal expert will easily pick up the setup by looking at page source. Documentation will be included with next beta releases.

Biolife is a sub-theme of http://drupal.org/project/noodle as it stated at Biolife project page. So you have to install Noodle theme first.

It is not in drupal.org practice to provide a demo setup with theme download. If you know other examples, please let me know. Say http://drupal.org/project/acquia_prosper will look nowhere near http://drupal.org/node/718956 or http://acquiaprosper.fusiondrupalthemes.com/ after installation.

P.S: The tone of your message was a bit upsetting. Your assumption that we push 'full site setup' sale for this theme is very odd. There is no mention at theme page that we provide any demo content or full site setup (payed or free) with Biolife at all. So... hm.

merakli’s picture

merakli commented

I tried to install this theme and ended up with a mess. I have been using Drupal, themes since version 5 and I install at least a new site every month. It may well be my own shortcoming. However, almost all useful themes provide a detailed installation and instruction info.
See the project page for the theme you mentioned above for instructions: http://drupal.org/project/acquia_prosper
Many of them will also either provide the demo content as part of installation or provide means/ways to create the demo content and how to customize it. I also didn't see any mention of biolife being targeted for 'Drupal experts'. The full site setup is mentioned on support/FAQ on the theme site:
http://nood.org/support/faq
http://nood.org/support/faq/does-theme-i-purchase-come-sample-content

"Sample images you can see in Theme demo. They are not supplied with the Theme, and available with Full Site Setup only."

Is full site setup provided with Biolife free? If so I couldn't find it. Please feel free provide the link for free full site setup for Biolife and that part will be my bad.

betarobot’s picture

betarobot commented
Assigned: Unassigned » betarobot

With Biolife we do not plan to provide full site setup or sample content for free or otherwise. But as I mentioned there will be documentation available.

Many of them will also either provide the demo content as part of installation or provide means/ways to create the demo content and how to customize it.

Working with Drupal since version 2 I have not seen full site setups or demo content available for themes at drupal.org at all. Could be great if you can provide some examples. Might help to make Biolife better.

I tried to install this theme and ended up with a mess.

Would be great if you can make a screenshots of 'mess' you mentioned. Maybe it is a bug of a kind which should be fixed.

I also didn't see any mention of biolife being targeted for 'Drupal experts'.

Biolife is not targeted for experts per se but while in BETA (and as with any BETA) it may take some extra effort to work with theme.

P.S: Biolife is free and GPL theme and provided AS IS. So I still I do not understand why would you mix in the FAQ piece which belong to commercial themes (did you notice keyword 'purchased'?).

merakli’s picture

merakli commented

Almost every distro / 'installation profile' comes with theme(s) and the theme page will either provide instructions on how to integrate to an existing / production site or will advise to download the installatio profile for new site installations. The others will proide link to instructions etc. I don't need to stress this. It's all there.

So basically you are saying: Because it's beta and because it's free, we will not provide support, we are not telling you how to use it on an existing site or even how to get started with it. I understand that.

Sorry I didn't have a screen shot and don't have time to recreate the problem. I will try to give it another chance once you have some help, instructions provided with the download.

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

@merakli: this is a theme, not a distro or install profile. Themes are all installed the same way so it's not unreasonable for a theme, especially one in beta, to not have specific instructions on how to install a theme.

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented
Priority: Critical » Normal

@betarobot: Hope I'm not intruding. Just stumbled on this and thought maybe a 3rd party might help. :)

Also, support requests aren't critical...

betarobot’s picture

betarobot commented

@Michelle thanks! Actually I appreciate your intrusion. Sometimes "nothing's works" threads consume more time then fixing exactly *this* issue.

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

No problem. It's a nice looking theme. I just tried installing it on my dev site and it's nice and clean. I don't have much content so it doesn't look like the demo site but I wasn't really expecting it to. :)

Michelle

betarobot’s picture

betarobot commented

Nice. Taking away a bit of steam, @merakli actually made me think to provide a better generalized CSS (via adding a class in views) so you can make your setup looking about the way it is in demo. Will include it in docs indeed.

That's what betas are for!

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

Sounds good!

betarobot’s picture

betarobot commented
Status: Active » Closed (fixed)

Just added documentation. Hope it will help.

betarobot’s picture

betarobot commented

@merakli, full site setup is now available at https://github.com/betarobot/noodle-biolife-fullsite

Apology accepted ;)

betarobot’s picture

betarobot commented
Issue summary: View changes