XOOPS Announces First THEME CONTEST 2008

Now is your opportunity to take mouse and keyboard in hand and create the new XOOPS look.

1. Contest Timeline

• Participants will have until 15 February 2008, 23:59 GMT to submit their theme entries. Entries shall be made via a post to the XOOPS.org forum using the title “first theme contest - theme name”. The post shall include a brief description, some screen shots (5 maximum), a link to download the theme, and should include a link to a demo site. Links (download, images, demo) must remain available until publication of contest results
• No entries will be allowed after 23:59 GMT on 15 February, and the forum topic will be locked. The Contest Judge(s) will review the themes and produce a list of those which satisfy the technical requirements of the contest
• Finalists will be announced in a XOOPS.org news article at 23:59 GMT on 22 February 2008
• A poll will be setup to allow community members to vote on the top 3 themes to be included in future official XOOPS releases. A demonstration site will be available during the voting period. Community members will have exactly two weeks, until 23:59 GMT on 6 March 2008, to vote for their preference
• 3 Contest winners will be announced in an article on the Xoops.org website along with an interview of each designer (or design team)

2. Contest Judges

Composed of 6 members (3 from Xoops Team and 3 from technically recognized volunteers), they will be responsible for validating the theme entries against the contest rules and technical requirements. They also have the responsibility of maintaining the demonstration website during the community voting period.

3. Contest Prizes

The opportunity to see their design published and used by thousands of people.

4. Contest Rules and Requirements

• High quality themes only
• Theme packages must be zip format and naming "xoops2_thm_themename_versionnumber"
• Themes must be an original work of the designer(s) (e.g.: adaptation of free web templates or themes from other CMS is prohibited)
• The theme must be new and never before released
• All themes files must be licensed under the GNU/GPL version 2
• All images must be copyright free for use by the general public
• If selected, distribution rights shall be fully transferred to the XOOPS Project
• The theme must make use of all the features and flexibility of Xoops
• Themes must run natively in Xoops 2.0.18 (hacking of core files prohibited)
• Themes must be optimized for the Xoops 2.0.18 with modules (for example: news, smartsection, mylinks, mydownloads, myalbum, cbb, xoopsmembers, contact)
• Themes should not fail when displaying demonstration site sample content
• Themes must use one of the theme templates: Morphogenesis, xdt_standard or css100_morpho
• Themes may include a custom template set (template overriding)
• Themes must be valid XHTML 1.0 (transitional or strict) and valid CSS 1/2/3
• Themes should display and function similarly in all major browsers (Internet Explorer 6+, FireFox 2+, Safari, and Opera 9+)
• Relative (flexible) width themes are preferred; Fixed width themes shall be 790 pixels maximum
• AJAX Frameworks which may be used: Mootools, Jquery, Prototype and Xajax
• Contest Judges and Xoops Team members (core, modules, design and documentation) are not eligible to enter the Contest.

5. Contest Help & Features

Remember that XOOPS is used for private, professional, and Intranet sites as well as others.
Currently, graphic elements of the Web include color gradations, hatched backgrounds, medium-sized fonts and your dream. A website enhances its aesthetic aspects with a clear, organised and attractive interface. The tendency of web colors is towards translucent or gray metal, but other colors also seen.
Limit the use of the Javascript.
Xoops Team members and volunteers are available to assist participants via the Xoops forums.