Zonefall
An original battle-royale gaming theme for SMF 2.1: a storm-lit hero header with a shrinking safe-zone ring, glowing board cards, player cards with levels and four colour variants.
Get the free theme: ZonefallFree SMF theme
Next
A clean, light SMF 2.1 theme set in the Lora serif, under a night-sky mountain header, with navy category bars and search built into the menu bar.
- Free download
- For SMF 2.1, tested on 2.1.7
- Version 2.0.0
- MIT licence
About Next
Next is a light theme for Simple Machines Forum 2.1 with a bookish feel. Text is set in the Lora serif, your boards sit on clean white panels with navy category bars, and the header is a starry night sky over mountain ridges.
The header holds your forum name and a compact user box for logging in, messages and alerts. Search lives at the right-hand end of the menu bar, and boards that have no posts yet don't show an empty last-post column.
This release is rebuilt on SMF 2.1.7's default theme. It ships its page template, a board index template and one stylesheet, and the Lora font is bundled, so nothing is loaded from Google or other outside services. The header and board icons are new artwork made for this version.
- Serif and light Lora throughout, on white panels with navy category bars.
- A tidy header Forum name, login and user menu sit together over a night-sky header; search is built into the menu bar.
- Fonts included Lora is bundled with the theme, so no visitor data goes to an outside font service.
- Follows SMF 2.1.7 Three files ship: the page template, a small board index change and one stylesheet.
Colours
#011a3c#26364a#ffffff#e9ebed#242323
Install it in a couple of minutes
You need admin access to your forum. Keep the .zip as it is: SMF installs it from the archive.
- Open Themes and Layout. In your forum go to Admin, then Configuration, then Themes and Layout, and open the Manage and Install tab.
- Install from the archive. Under the option to install a new theme from an archive, choose the Next .zip and upload it.
- Make it the default. Still on Manage and Install, set the overall forum default to Next and save.
The full guide, with troubleshooting
Need somewhere to host your SMF forum? Run it on Traxio hosting: your first month is free, then it’s £0.99 a month. The themes are free whether you host with us or not. Forum hosting
More free SMF themes
Dark Meridian
A tactical military gaming theme for SMF 2.1: a command-centre board index with a radar sweep and live stats, boards as mission cards, posts as operator cards and three colour variants.
Get the free theme: Dark Meridian
Smush
A near-black, low-key SMF 2.1 theme: quiet greys, thin dividers, outlined chat icons and a wide-spaced silver forum title.
Get the free theme: Smush