Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

phillryu · Jan 2, 2005, 11:16 PM

Dear fellow MacNNers,

About one year and a month ago, I began working with a talented artist and an equally talented web coder whom I had met on MacNN on a website dedicated to Macintosh GUI Customization. The result, of course, was MacThemes.net, which launched last January 1st with an awesome site design by Adam Betts, spiffy code by Jan Van Boghout, several theme and software reviews by me, and an interview with artist Bill Bart.

Over the last year, MacThemes.net has grown tremendously in all respects, including our review and Insider archive, staff, and of course number of visitors each day. This was largely due to the continued support by the original community that existed here, on MacNN. And I think I've managed to give back some of that support as well. I'd say MacTheme's biggest contribution has been the theme mockup contest and subsequent MacThemes Productions, which has had a hand in the releases of several of the quirkiest, slick, and complete themes to date.

There is no doubt that MacNN has been an integral part of the Mac GUI Customization community. It has been the premier place to talk about themes, and without it, I know that first, MacThemes wouldn't exist, and also that themeing wouldn't be as popular as it has become. Many great projects have come out of these forums, and I really appreciate what it has helped accomplish.

I realize what I'm about to say may seem out of place, but I hope you hear me out. It's my belief that we've outgrown this forum. There was once a time when themes were released in the MacNN software forums, and we clearly outgrew that, and MacNN gave us our own forum. We've come again to the point where I think we've outgrown one forum, and it's time we got several. But I didn't think this is something MacNN would do. So for the last month or so, Chris McElligott and I have been planning and working on forums dedicated totally to Macintosh GUI customization, with plenty of room to grew.

Introducing the MacThemes Forums.

Thanks are due to Adam Betts and Chris McElligott for their work on the design, Paul Armstrong for coding the forums, CocoaForge for offering hosting, JoE950 for his smiley set, Rick Patrick and Dan Goffin for various icon contributions, Jan Van Boghout for the pollbar and CSS tweaks, James Meister for volunteering to moderate, and Kevin Husted for volunteering to moderate the support forums. And of course there are others to thank for helping test the forums in the last few days.

As I have said, I owe everything to MacNN, and this place will remain my first destination for troubleshooting, MacWorld discussions, talk about games, and entertainment in the lounge. I'm sure many others would feel the same, and I doubt this will result in many users "stolen" from MacNN, which is, after all, a community that extends much beyond this particular subforum. But for GUI discussion, releases, and support, MacNN has become too limiting. It's remained the same as the community has grown, and as a result, this forum has become somewhat stagnant. As others have already noted, it's time for a change.

For people who are open for a change, you're welcome to register at the MT Forums, where several exciting things await. Happy 2005 everyone.

idle · Jan 2, 2005, 11:19 PM

nice work. may it grow and carry ripe fruits.

Pridef · Jan 2, 2005, 11:21 PM

Thanks for the invite Phill im glad to be part of the MT Forums now and thanks to all the designers and everyone who helped this come true.

Cheers!

JoE950 · Jan 2, 2005, 11:24 PM

I love this site ALREADY!

Good work everyone!

CarbonG4 · Jan 2, 2005, 11:32 PM

I'm really excited about this, this is a much needed transition for the GUI community and I hope everyone embraces it. We have been crammed into one board on MacNN for a long time now, and while we are all grateful MacNN gave us our own space -- allowing our community to grow rapidly -- we've simply outgrown it. MacThemes offers us a gorgeous board with very logical subforums to finally keep the theme mockups from the actual theme announcements and the general questions from the support threads w/o going over the top over-categorizing everything leaving you dizzy.

Kudos to Phill and all of the coders and artists who contributed their time to make this happen. It's been fun testing the new forum, you guys got off the ground extremely fast.

Peace
//Carbon

Mac Guru · Jan 2, 2005, 11:41 PM

Schweet, it's about time you opened it.

May it grow and prosper and take MacThemes.net into the great GUI Hall of Fame.

Ok that just sounded stupid.

Ji Eun · Jan 2, 2005, 11:49 PM

those boards look really great, but then so does the rest of macthemes. forums a bit lean perhaps.

Maflynn · Jan 3, 2005, 01:50 PM

Nice job, it looks nicer then that other new forums that was announced.

Mike

smeger · Jan 3, 2005, 08:20 PM

These are uberspiff. And I'm glad that you guys didn't go crazy on the number of forums that are present - I always think it's better to start small and then grow as needed.

chezpaul · Jan 4, 2005, 01:48 AM

Yeah, I like this one

dlanham · Jan 6, 2005, 08:35 PM

Great job on the new forums, it looks like it will be a really nice place to help the community continue to grow and draw in new talent.

congrats!

Caesar2099 · Jan 6, 2005, 08:50 PM

I think i can declare this my last post at Macnn. thank you macthemes!

u2zoo · Jan 6, 2005, 11:56 PM

Great work gang, the topic break down is great and a big improvement over what we have here MacNN.

The only thing that might be helpful in the future is a "lounge" for the non-gui stuff. Since like two years ago, I don't come to the MacNN forums for anything else but the GUI forum... I'd rather "hang" with folks on the MacThemes forums then. Nothing against MacNN ... but I don't have any bonds with people outside the GUI community here.

[edit] and I just found the poll for that! awesome.