themes, what would you want

[slee]

if you could choose one feature to have in a theme what would you have?

For me it would be automatic thumbnails to be generated for the news with an option to have it on or off.

what would anyone else like to have?

[sarahG]

Valid, semantic code. It's one thing, just a big thing ;) There are plenty of great themes and designs out there but very few are coded well. Most browser issues wouldn't be issues with valid code.

[narendra.s.v]

a more attractive design but use text the most! ;)

[athlon24]

a well-commented source code. That helps me to know where I can place some codes that I picked up some where. :D

And also, i need a theme that I can easily put my banner ads.

And I don't want small fonts.

[Rarst]

If we are talking abotu freebies - lifetime support from designer. Not real for free but I can dream, right? :)

[Kevin]

* Well commented
* Well coded
* Attractive Design
* Great support from Designer
* Easy to customize
* Competitive/Fair price (free is good also! ;) )

:)

[slee]

anything particular you would want to custimise?

[sarahG]

I think most people customise the sidebar the most.

Perhaps an ideal situation would be 2 versions of a theme. One is basic with the design and coding in place, the second is the same but pimped up with the essential addons eg. social bookmarks at the bottom of posts, additional plugins in the sidebar (which you could include with the download in case people don't have them).

Also add in CSS classes ready for potential requirements, perhaps automatically add in an author highlight, alternate comment backgrounds. Some people may want the lightweight version but if you can offer both then others can just take off what they don't want rather than fiddling to add what they do want.

[athlon24]

yeah, sarahG is right, sidebar is the first one that is usually tweaked and in my case, after the sidebar, I also try to put something on the single post file. I may add ads and some text below the post and bookmark buttons.

[Indyan]

I like 3 coloumn themes. I chose the theme I am using because it made good utilization of screen space, and had nice spots for displaying advertisement.
I always use themes with white background for the content area.