What's in a Theme?

Atlas Quest, as most of you reading this blog probably know, cycles through various themes. There's the main, default theme, with the road map across the banner at the top of each page. (Just in case you were wondering, that section is in Ohio, the southwestern section if I remember correctly, but the map I copied it from was actually paper from a craft store and it's not entirely accurate, which I'm assuming is for copyright reasons.)

The current theme is an underwater theme that I simply call "Ocean." I didn't have a holiday in mind when I created it, but based on the chatter from the message boards, it seems to be quite a popular one! Which is cool, because it's one of my favorite themes as well. I was just giddy about it when I finished.

Then I got to wondering.... what ARE the most popular themes on Atlas Quest? So I did a quick search of the Atlas Quest database and picked out some interesting numbers based on what members have set their preferences to.

And the winner is... the default blue theme, with 131 members selecting that as the theme to see.

Admittedly, those are probably votes for "I hate themes and stop showing them to me!" Which is fine--that's why you have the option after all. =)

A total of 59 different themes are being used by members on Atlas Quest, and here are the top ten most popular ones:

Pirates: 93
Old World: 92
Summer: 89
Zodiac: 76
Solar Eclipse: 59
Ocean: 46
Mother's Day: 36
School: 33
Lunar Eclipse: 32
Books: 28

The thing that surprises me most about the ocean theme is that it's not even a choice on the theme preferences page (as of yet!) You all had to type in that link into the space for the CSS URL manually. I know a lot of you prefer the one-click buttons that most other themes have. I suspect once I get the Next Big Update done (with the ocean theme explicitly supported), even more people will pick it. And when the ocean theme runs its course and the next theme goes up, a lot of people will want the ocean theme to come back. I think those ocean counts are going to go up quite a bit within the next week or so.

The most popular non-AQ theme is http://www.geocities.com/pugnasties/SillyWalk.css -- not sure if it has an "official" name or not, though. Nine people are using that theme.

Just behind it, I noticed was the "no buttons" theme that hides the emotion buttons on the message boards. Eight people have chosen not to see buttons.

Also interesting, I think, I've found six people who chose to link to locations on Atlas Quest that are not valid CSS links. If you do that, you'll just see the default theme--not harm done--but it's odd that people would point their themes to boxes and other invalid locations. Perhaps I'll fix that for you folks someday, but I'm lazy so I probably won't. =)

Sorry, wassa, only two people kept your WassaQuest theme up, and I bet at least one of them is you. ;o)

Hope you enjoyed this backroom tour of themes. If you have a favorite theme, remember you can see them at any time by adjusting your preferences. Click on the Preferences link under the My Page menubar option, then choose Themes as the the page to update.

And if you're waiting for the ocean theme to be included in the official AQ list of themes--the Next Big Update, it will be there. *nodding*