I used some free time this weekend (actually almost all my free time) to create a custom theme for BlogEngine.NET. I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the themes available, though some are nice, most are a bit bland, also they tend to be a bit out of date and don’t support the new sidebar widgets.

My first attempt began with the Implied CSS template from from freecsstemplates.org and began adapting it as a brand new blogengine.net theme. This was harder than I thought it would, editing CSS can be tricky, but I was successful in the end and managed to create this masterpiece (I am hoping that preview link works). It is pretty awesome, but it is also very dark. High-contrast templates like that can be a strain on the eyes and after a few hours working on it I was painfully aware of this fact. I decided to try another look even after spending hours making it. I will post the theme to the blogengine.net themes page and provide it back to the community so hopefully my work won’t be a total waste.

I decided to try something simple instead. I used the default and very simple blogengine standard theme and began to make small adjustments and improvements. I added one of my own photos, and with a little editing in GIMP to made it into what I think is an awesome site banner. I next added a coloured menu and sidebar header background which I took from another CSS template design. Finally I changed the fonts and colors until I was satisfied. I am very pleased with the results but I would love to get people’s feedback on the two templates I did.

I also finally moved my site from GoDaddy to WebHost4Life. I found WebHost’s control panel easier to deal with (though it still isn’t amazing), they offer a better deal which includes a static IP address and much more responsive adding of IIS sites and databases (I once waited 4 hours just to add another database with GoDaddy…). Overall I cannot recommend GoDaddy for anything. I also am now using www.lucisferre.net which I registered recently. I am thinking of dropping the .org domain as I am not really much of an ‘org’.

Chris

Update: I noticed the Implied theme isn’t looking right. It doesn’t fit the longer tagline I have and shifts the menu down. It is something I will fix before I upload the theme to the site.