
Show HN: Find a Bootstrap theme for your next project - bharani_m
http://bootstrapcarnival.com
======
bharani_m
I've been working with Bootstrap for a couple of months now and I have noticed
that it is pretty difficult to filter through all the free and premium
templates available for Bootstrap. You usually have to wade through fancy
cover images and screenshots.

I have created Bootstrap Carnival to make theme discovery a bit easier. It
instantly shows you the demos of over 1000+ premium Bootstrap themes from
multiple marketplaces (WrapBootstrap, Creative Market and Themeforest).

Let me know what you think about it.

~~~
ryanmim
I like it, quite useful to be able to quickly preview the themes without
having to wade through the description pages.

One thing that would make it much better (at least for me) would be the
ability to filter by marketplace. Creative Market is by far my favorite
because of their license terms (much better than Themeforest or
WrapBootstrap).

~~~
bharani_m
Thanks. Glad that you like it.

> Creative Market is by far my favorite because of their license terms

Yes, I love how easy it is to set up a shop with Creative Market. I hate the
exclusive product/author terms in ThemeForest and WrapBootstrap.

You can search for "Creative Market" to find themes from that marketplace.

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jonathanleane
Sorry to hijack, but I literally just launched something very similar:

[http://www.themebeacon.com/](http://www.themebeacon.com/)

I even posted about it to HN the other day
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7888745](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7888745))
but it seemed to vanish in about 30 seconds...

Now that I've got that shameless plug out of the way...

I really like the way you have executed on this - particularly the way you
show each theme's description while you load the demo page in the background.
Are you just pulling themes from ThemeForest at the moment? And may I ask how
you're seeding your database? Are you grabbing RSS feeds, or have you built
scrapers to go out and grab data from the various description pages?

EDIT: PS, can't get your blog link to work for some reason? I'm in Chrome...

~~~
bharani_m
> Sorry to hijack, but I literally just launched something very similar:

ThemeBeacon looks really cool. Love the landing page design.

> I really like the way you have executed on this - particularly the way you
> show each theme's description while you load the demo page in the
> background. Are you just pulling themes from ThemeForest at the moment? And
> may I ask how you're seeding your database? Are you grabbing RSS feeds, or
> have you built scrapers to go out and grab data from the various description
> pages?

I've written scrappers that run as background processes every night to fetch
data from all the marketplaces (Themeforest, WrapBootstrap and Creative
Market).

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wffurr
Visited with an iPad. Everything got tiny, and then Chrome crashed.

~~~
bharani_m
Thanks for the heads up. I'll fix the bug shortly.

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Bahamut
The sidebar takes up too much space on a mobile view - it would be worthwhile
to rethink how to display the information for mobile browsers.

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piratebroadcast
I want to kick you in the fucking nuts for autoloading the demo and not giving
me the option to read about it first. You have text there but then you cover
it up. Have a separate "Launch Demo" button, seriously.

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jqm
Nice site. Will use.

One tip... am on Firefox 20 using Linux.

I arrowed through a few themes, but after checking a demo am having trouble
backing out into the main menu. It keeps sending me back into the same demo
when I "back button" out.

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general_failure
[http://bootstrapcarnival.com/search?q=](http://bootstrapcarnival.com/search?q=)
shows empty :)

is there a way to search for free themes?

looks awesome!

~~~
bharani_m
>
> [http://bootstrapcarnival.com/search?q=](http://bootstrapcarnival.com/search?q=)
> shows empty :)

Ah. Thanks for pointing it out. Will fix it.

> is there a way to search for free themes?

I've added a few free templates and I'll be adding more soon. The only problem
is that free templates are all over the place. I need to manually sort through
them to find the right demo/download links and to avoid duplication. I'll add
a specific tab for free themes once there are around 10 free themes.

~~~
johnchristopher
That could suck up a lot of your time. Are you planning to semi-automate the
process by letting people submit themes ?

~~~
bharani_m
Thanks for the suggestion but I think I'll have to come up with nice a way to
tackle spam/duplicate entries before I let people submit themes. I am adding
it to my TODO list.

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amrit_b
Good stuff! I had something similar in mind, but you already made it. Thanks!

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grimtrigger
Nice!

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rootuid
this is an advert, wtf!

~~~
bdcravens
Many "Show HN"s are, and that's okay. It's a thing the OP made, which is
relevant to HN, which happens to have commercial applicability. It's not like
spamming affiliate links.

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wyck
No offence since this is not directly related to bootstrap, but the default
example theme is a good example of a style that seems to be gaining popularity
and is completely garbage.

Websites (generally) are meant to be read and optimized for digesting data in
a meaningful way, they are not an exercise in animation and moving everything
into a confusing mess of eyeball soup.

Web designers, would you build a doorway on a house that constantly moves...?

Please stop building web sites where everything animates into place, it's a
horrible trend.

~~~
andrewliebchen
You realize a website is fundamentally different than the front door of a
house?

~~~
wyck
That's a silly thing to say, really.

I will elaborate on my point in case you missed it, form should follow
function, this principle applies to architecture just as much as a website.

The case with the current trend of animating everything into place reminds me
of "Ornament and Crime" which is another architectural idea that can be
equally applied to a website.

To be blunt, it simply means stop animating/decorating shit into place for
effect, it is meaningless and a disservice to real design.

~~~
andrewliebchen
The analogy is silly. Of course you wouldn't design a door that "constantly
moves" but you might design a door that slowly revealed itself as you moved
through an architectural experience. And besides, a website is not a door.

Certainly, there is good animation and bad animation. Animation for
animation's sake in web design is bad. Animation that helps a user manage
attention, removes unnecessary affordance until it's needed, delights its
user, underscores contextual importance, and/or communicates system action can
be good.

It's funny that you bring up Loos, because I think he might agree with me
here:

>My architecture is not conceived by drawings, but by spaces. I do not draw
plans, facades or sections… For me, the ground floor, first floor do not
exist… There are only interconnected continual spaces, rooms, halls, terraces…
Each space needs a different height… These spaces are connected so that ascent
and descent are not only unnoticeable, but at the same time functional

Says Loos himself.

