Mixit themes and themes from The Style Contest

[chasethestars]

We just released Mixit, which is really the same as Expressive except for one thing - while Expressive is ported-over Vox themes, Mixit has themes that are specific to LJ, that will only be available on LJ. We chose the name Mixit because it will be a mix of various layouts (some will be cute, some will be dark, some will be clean, etc. etc

Comments

[encyclops]

I like Expressive fine, except that I can't figure out how to put the content on the left without digging into the CSS. It looks like Mixit has this option out front in a much more straightforward way. Could Expressive have the same option? Or does it have that option in a place I haven't found yet?

I'd actually love to ditch the leftnav column entirely if I could. I like a slim clean journal but would love to use the Expressive styles for it.

"Nevermore" is MUCH "cuter" than any of the styles in Expressive, by the way.

[ex_uniquewo]

That's funny because Mixit's Nevermore is Expressive's Poe - till they fix it anyway. ^_^ But you're right. I think it's more original too.

[encyclops]

I took another look and you're right, there it was in the previews!

I guess what I'm saying is that most the Vox themes look really clean and "designed," even if they feature butterflies and kitties and robots, whereas the torn paper thing looks more like a "cute" effect. Not making any judgments on whether "cute" is bad or not (I'm down with the cute).

[ex_uniquewo]

*nods* Wait till you see the other two made by Piximix. Cute indeed. :)

[foxfirefey]

That's funny because Mixit's Nevermore is Expressive's Poe

Buh? It is? Am becoming so very, very confused as every single reason I can come up with for Mixit and Expressive existing at the same time is being eradicated.

[ex_uniquewo]

Let's put it that way: Poe, Butterflies, Camo, Food, Modernist, Ocean, Running and Trees went live 2 weeks ago as new Expressive themes. Hence the issue.

I think that, at some point, there was talk about making Expressive be partly available to Basic users. That didn't happen but Mixit - a duplicate of Expressive - was created instead. Theoretically, Mixit isn't Expressive because 1) it's available to all users 2) it's not Vox on LJ.

Mixit and the new Expressive themes - Endless Summer, Fleur, Landscape and Manga - went live about 1 week ago. And I guess the PTB have forgotten to take Poe off the list of Expressive themes. Or seeing as some users were already using Poe as an Expressive theme, they may have decided to leave it there. *shrug*
This is confusing because there is confusion.

[foxfirefey]

Oooooh okay, I think you helped my brain from combusting.

[chasethestars]

Poe was created, and put into Expressive on the test server to make sure the layout displayed correctly, etc. It wasn't planned to go out with the Expressive themes that went out two weeks ago, but it slipped through (it just really wanted to be used!).

When Poe was being created, the idea always was that Expressive was for Vox themes and that LJ specific themes using the same structure would be called something else (Mixit). (Poe was created before Mixit was, which is why it was under Expressive for testing)

Poe was renamed to Nevermore (for a reason completely unrelated to it being released in Expressive), and that's why there's Nevermore in Mixit, and Poe in Expressive (which will be removed). So this brings us back to where we started: Expressive = from Vox, Mixit = LJ only. Now to get people to stop calling it Poe. (or to rename it back to Poe, but by then there will be people saying Nevermore..)

uniquewonders, in this case, account levels are set per theme, not to the layout. New themes that will be added to Expressive in the future

[ex_uniquewo]

"New themes that will be added to Expressive in the future could be availble to all users, and themes that will be added to Mixit could be restricted to Plus or Paid."

Cool! And thanks for the explanation. :)

[ex_uniquewo]

BTW, s2mixit or s2expressive? Same question for Style Contest and s2bloggish.

[chasethestars]

this is what I told someone in lj_releases, but if someone wants to create another community and manage it, they're more than welcome to. There's pros and cons to having more than one community for each layout(s). For example, if there's just one community, everyone will know which one to go to, but if there's more than one, each one would have less requests to help with (though there'd likely be repeats, but even with just one, there's still repeats).

btw, thanks for explainittome. It's really helpful :)

[ex_uniquewo]

Makes sense. The biggest concern is Mixit users finding s2expressive, imo.

Hee! Thank you! Glad you think so.

[chasethestars]

hm. s2mixit with a "go to s2expressive" redirect message? Then if it ever needs to be used, the comm has already been created!

[ex_uniquewo]

Very good idea, me thinks.

[chasethestars]

The same option is in Expressive, in the same place. (Custom Options > Presentation > Layout Type)

[encyclops]

I have Expressive selected right now and I don't see an option for Layout Type on my Presentation tab. It looks very different from Mixit's.