PS. The post was written so long time ago. Now I’m happy we can simply use Twitter Bootstrap and get working application/site design in seconds.
Unlike desktop applications which rarely use “skins”, web applications look ugly and unprofessional w/o a design template. However, building unique design for each project sometimes is just not affordable, especially for back-end, admin and other data analysis and management applications. At the other hand, if you look for free or commercial design templates available, you’ll find nothing but website templates which doesn’t have elements like cascading menus, dialog, grid, form elements and others usually required for an application user interface.
Sad but true, except this little thing: Admintasia 2.1. Powered with jQuery and jQuery IU it has all the elements you need to build rich professional user interfaces.
Despite what the name says, it’s not intended for admin areas only but suits great for any kind of rich GUI application. This is likely the only design template of its kind available.
Take a look at some of screenshots:
I started with Admintasia 1.0 then upgraded to Admintasia 2.1. You can get a professional license just for $99.
Now I’m going to build an application skeleton by intrating it with Zend Framework and adding some usual things like login, email template engine and event logging.
Let me know if you’re interested.