Aerial theme makes HTML visible

I'm puzzled by the behaviour of Grav with some themes, such as Aerial. The site has had Grav installed with no further customisation. With the default Quark theme, the usual starter page displays as expected. But with Aerial installed and activated, the source HTML is displayed, with only a small amount of actual text. See https://grav-andrews.bsr.cloud/

Alpha does much the same.

I note from https://getgrav.org/downloads/themes that Aerial (and Alpha) are quite old. Are they not compatible with current Grav? Or is there something wrong with my server setup?

When adding themes within Grav, they are all shown in alphabetical order, with no indication of date. If some don't work with current Grav, shouldn't they be withdrawn?

@counterpoint, When a theme is causing issues on the latest version of Grav, you could lookup the Upgrading to Grav 1.7 documentation.

See section "Most Common Issues" point 1.

If some don’t work with current Grav, shouldn’t they be withdrawn?

When issues cannot be fixed by configuration settings, then I agree the theme should be removed, or at least be marked as incompatible with Grav 1.7.

By the way, the link to your site is broken....

@counterpoint, Just too many issues with Aerial. Run from it!

OK, makes sense. But it is the very first template offered to anyone who simply installs a fresh copy of Grav and then looks to see what templates might be added. And there are no warnings given, it isn't even apparent that it is old. Although perhaps the fact that the demo doesn't work might discourage its use.

@counterpoint, I've notified the Grav team before (#3338, #3353) about issues with old and probably abandoned themes.

I've tested that 77 out of 112 themes are not compatible with Grav 1.7 without fixing the autoescape issues. I've also make some suggestions to warn users upfront about possible issues.
Also consider that of the 112 themes, 36 are build by the Grav team and I assume these themes are all made compatible with Grav 1.7

Unfortunately, the team seems not to be willing to address this unpleasant user experience.

Maybe if more people create an issue at the repo and voice their concern things might chance. Yes, this is a suggestion you might consider...

You seem to have done the right thing! I'd really like to have a simple way to create web sites, at minimum cost, but am still struggling to find it. Grav has appeal, but isn't very approachable. I'll aim to add something to the issues.

@pamtbaau:
I’ve tested that 77 out of 112 themes are not compatible with Grav 1.7 without fixing the autoescape issues. I’ve also make some suggestions to warn users upfront about possible issues.

Thanks for this. I was thinking to go through and do the same. Do you have a list of the ones that do work? If not, it might be worth trying to compile one to share here.

@pamtbaau:
Unfortunately, the team seems not to be willing to address this unpleasant user experience.

Yes, it's a shame. Seems odd there is no "compatible with" tag to give some indication. It looks very impressive seeing all the possible themes available till you find the majority are broken.

Maybe a relatively small point, but it seems that the ability to remove themes is part of theme functionality - and the old ones that don't work lack it! If the Grav admin functions can install themes, why can't it remove them?

@counterpoint:
I’d really like to have a simple way to create web sites, at minimum cost, but am still struggling to find it.

For me the simplest option is a static html site, but Grav looks like the next best thing to go a little beyond that. I'm actually not too concerned about the theme availability as I tend to find a basic one I like and modify it to suit. I'm more interested in the range of plugins and that is looking good for me so far.

Actually I have just found there is an easy way to check for theme compatibility with Grav 1.7. Go to the list of themes and click on one to display the details panel. At the bottom there is a button with "view changelog". Click on that and see when it was last revised. Themes that are still useful should have something like this:

@ozfiddler:
Do you have a list of the ones that do work?

You can be pretty sure that all theme made by "Team Grav" are still maintained and hence compatible.

Pure HTML has a lot of limitations. 25 years ago, I wrote what would now be called a blog in HTML. But it is tedious work and results are primitive for most people. I was very pleased when viable CMS emerged - but they have now become over complicated.

@counterpoint:
Maybe a relatively small point, but it seems that the ability to remove themes is part of theme functionality

Adding/removing a theme is not part of the functionality of the theme itself.

Note, a theme that is currently "Active" cannot be removed.

@pamtbaau:
You can be pretty sure that all theme made by “Team Grav” are still maintained and hence compatible.

Yes, good one. That's obviously the best option. I just realised you can select them from the drop-down option and there are 27 of them, so that's plenty to keep me busy. 👍

I have added my 2c to your issue.