I think it is dead. I used to visit it regularly but I dont think they have updated the site for months
It wouldn't surprise me if it was dead, and frankly I wouldn't miss it - even though I don't design Web sites (I just develop them). It was a great idea, don't get me wrong, but the implementation just wasn't up to snuff, especially with a lot of the designs just being copycats of each other - where's the spice of life if everything looks like it came from a cookie-cutter? Hopefully they're just rebuilding the site with the aim of correcting the problems with the site while also preventing new ones from cropping up. The site (and the concept) has a lot of untapped potential, and could really use a push to get that potential tapped into something tangible.
i released a few template ans was hoping to get some exposure... but looks like its dead here are some templates if you like : http://www.askgraphics.com/freetemplates/category/website-templates/
I never trusted or liked it in the first place - because not only does it have that dirty hippy naive 'open source' tag slapped on it, the designs there while sometimes pretty enough were total CRAP under the hood. Hell, the layout of the website itself is broken on large font machines, hangs the load dialog in some browsers because of missing files, and is 152k in 38 files for a site that shouldn't even need a third that. Seriously, WTF type of website needs 41k of CSS in four files?!? Oh wait, I know, the type of website that doesn't see anything wrong with THIS: <ul style="padding: 0; width: 100%; overflow: hidden; list-style: none; margin: 0; border: 0px; border-spacing: 0px;"> <li style="display: inline; width: 100%; clear: none; padding: 0; margin: 0; float: left;"><span style="margin: 0; color: #000000; display: block; font-size: 12px; width: 100%; padding: 3px;"> <a style="font-size: 12px; color: #74a8f5;" href="http://www.templatesbox.com">Website Templates</a> </span></li> <li style="display: inline; width: 100%; clear: none; padding: 0; margin: 0; float: left;"><span style="margin: 0; color: #000000; display: block; font-size: 12px; width: 100%; padding: 3px;"> <a style="font-size: 12px; color: #74a8f5;" href="http://www.weboptimiser.com/">Search Engine Marketing</a> </span></li> <li style="display: inline; width: 100%; clear: none; padding: 0; margin: 0; float: left;"><span style="margin: 0; color: #000000; display: block; font-size: 12px; width: 100%; padding: 3px;"> <a style="font-size: 12px; color: #74a8f5;" href="http://www.boxedart.com">Website Templates</a> </span></li> <li style="display: inline; width: 100%; clear: none; padding: 0; margin: 0; float: left;"><span style="margin: 0; color: #000000; display: block; font-size: 12px; width: 100%; padding: 3px;"> <a style="font-size: 12px; color: #74a8f5;" href="http://www.xemion.com">Web Designers Directory</a> </span></li> <li style="display: inline; width: 100%; clear: none; padding: 0; margin: 0; float: left;"><span style="margin: 0; color: #000000; display: block; font-size: 12px; width: 100%; padding: 3px;"> <a style="font-size: 12px; color: #74a8f5;" href="http://www.top10webhosting.com">* Host Best * $4.95</a> </span></li> </ul> Code (markup): /FAIL/ at intarweb. When the site itself is crap, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the designs posted to it. Stick a fork in it.
I think the site's dying... no new submissions for over a few months now... But still it's got hundreds of good CSS styles..
Sorry, but I would not call most of the code over at OSWD "good" - I've seen their HTML and CSS and to be honest, it leaves much to be desired.
used to browse and collect their layouts for my own learning, and it helped me. I hope they continue.
wow amazing site. I didn't know this site been in web design business for over 4 years lols.. are they off now? dead?
AND an excellent example of what I'm talking about - 152k of images doing a job that could likely be handled by 15k or less, multiple H1 tags, extra wrapper around the menu for no good reason, Extra wrapper around the first header for no good reason, article sections NOT grouped by wrappers, generic name for the CSS with no media type, css looks like it was formatted by a crack addict, 12px fixed font size on the body, inconsistant condensing of properties, mixing an EM font declaration with a px line-height, no :active or :focus states, there is no such thing as 180.5px, those bottom columns rank right up there on being a mish-mash of inconsistant redundant CSS, the margins and padding on the footer are wider than the container, and the CSS is 4.9k doing the job of what should probably be about three and a half. Designers - pishua.
Yeah I agree, many of them are not handled well, but that's because not everyone is a good CSS/XHTML coder... I'm not that good myself but I've come to understand that too much space is being used up for no good reason.