Hi DNN friends!

I'd like to start a discussion around creating DNN themes in a modern front-end dev environment, and see what recommendations you all have. 

A few years ago, I attended the DNN Summit and was introduced to nvQuickTheme, and along with it, a whole lot of setup of a theme development environment. Not having much JS dev background, I was a bit bewildered by node, npm, gulp, yarn, etc. All of my DNN theme work thus far had simply been in modifying the ascx layout files and CSS of existing themes (or converting HTML themes) to get what I needed. 

After much studying, I think I'm finally getting my head around the concepts of using NPM to manage JS and library dependencies and to transpile SCSS, etc. However, I'm having a hard time deciding on the best way forward for what I do. 

I've gone through the video tutorials provided with the nvQuickTheme git documentation (very clear - thanks David P!), and successfully set up a dev environment through that using gulp as the task runner. I've also downloaded the Bootstrap 4 Instant theme package from 2sxc, and attempted to work through the setup of that environment following the instructions on the website docs. However, I'm getting all kinds of errors from webpack. Maybe I need to start over again, and perhaps the documentation is just a bit out of date there. I'm really intrigued with bringing the 2sxc modules into whichever themes I end up developing. 

Part of the confusion is deciding gulp vs. webpack vs. npm alone running build scripts? 

I also know that some of you develop themes as full Visual Studio in a similar fashion to DNN modules using templates. 

I'm not so interested in building theme packages for distribution, rather looking more at one-off projects for clients. My typical procedure has been to identify an HTML template that I can purchase which is already nicely designed with responsive menus, mega menus, etc., then convert that into a customized DNN theme. I really like the nvQuickTheme as a starting point, but am a bit lost in bringing all the "eye candy" and more advanced presentation components and their shortcodes into that framework. 

I've used professionally developed themes from Mandeeps and DNNGo in the past - but I don't always need or want the integrated style wizards and page builders that they now come with.

Can anyone share what their favorite workflow or combination of tools is for DNN theming? Thanks in advance for your feedback and advice!

David