Hello ThemeFrame Admins and users,
I'm researching resources to find the best combination to teach an intro uni level "Web Design with WordPress" course. It would start with basic Photoshop or Fireworks for web page image customization, and then use either Dreamweaver to customize WP themes, or a theme design tool like ThemeFrame or PageLines. The students would be introduced to basic HTML and CSS concepts, and would likely create sites for, a.) a design portfolio with image galleries, b.) magazine/news site with integrated discussion forums, or c.) Facebook/BuddyPress type social blogging.

I have several related questions and would greatly appreciate the wisdom and experience of those here.

How would you compare ThemeFrame to Pagelines for this purpose?

Is ThemeFrame 'friendly' to integrating a variety of slideshow or image gallery plugins? Can you insert a Flash SWF slideshow file in a Div, or better to manage this with a gallery plugin (Zenphoto, ..)?

Is ThemeFrame 'friendly' to integrating a variety of forum plugins (Mingle, SimpleForum, bbPress, vBulletin)?

Is ThemeFrame 'friendly' to integrating the BuddyPress plugin and can you manage the BuddyPress layout and style in ThemeFrame so it matches the other site pages?

I've read on this forum that ThemeFrame cannot import and customize WP themes designed elsewhere. Is there a gallery of themes design with ThemeFrame that users can access to learn from, or to import and customize in TF?

My orientation to web design is visual (PS or FW plus Dreamweaver) and although I'm familiar with CSS/HTML, and can setup a WAMP local hosted server, I'm not skilled in the esoteric mysteries of PHP)) So the potential of ThemeFrame, or software like it, is encouraging.

I appreciate your patience with these questions and your assistance.

Thanks.

I will answer a bit of what you asked and maybe others can contribute as well.

First of all you can't compare Pagelines and Themeframe. Pagelines is a theme/theme framework whereas Themeframe is a theme creation tool just as Dreamweaver is a site or html template creation tool and not a template. With Themeframe you are creating the theme apart from the site and when it is complete you install on your site and activate it.

From a learning standpoint it would seem to me that Themeframe would be an excellent tool as you see the various CSS rules as you manipulate them.

As to how friendly Themeframe is with plugins and such. Well it creates a theme that should be as friendly as any other theme.

With regards to a gallery of themes designed with Themeframe some have started posting to a Themeframe showing off thread.