Theme Administration UI

I float this as an idea having found the need to hack template code even to make simple changes very frustrating - which possibly puts off new xoops users altogether. One of the first things you do is pick a Theme for your site (xSwatch4 in my case). These are invariably Responsive 3 panel, 2 header, 2 footer designs because this meets most needs - you only need one or two. A Theme Administration UI, enabling editing of site name, logo, colour scheme etc. would get people up and running very quickly and encourage further use methinks.

The site name you can set already in the Admin Preferences:

so we wouldn't have to change it, since the them is pulling it from there, and when you change the theme, you don't have to change the site name.

But I agree for with the logo and color scheme! What else?

If somebody could make these changes and submit to GitHub, it would be a nice improvement!

What else ? Probably everything else which isn't in a Block (Login, User Menu, Main Menu etc.) - without understanding how feasible this is ! Some things are already configurable as you point out, and pulled by the theme, Sitename, Banners also - but part of the problem, as a new user, is that you aren't aware of this or understand the system conventions. So it's sort of 'all or nothing'.

Perhaps the difficulty with this is that it would need to be Theme specific, so an admin UI would be on a per theme basis - although not obligatory and perhaps only done for one. Initially I'd probably just do an admin panel for Xswatch4 and make this the default theme. So a new Xoops user would see this first and could be directed to the Theme Admin UI, immediately change the theme interactively, and be up and running within a few minutes.