Forum Theme Issues - reporting and discussion

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Forum Theme Issues - reporting and discussion

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Postby pwhodges » Wed Dec 02, 2015 2:42 am

Yes, I know there are things in the theme that are unfinished; to be frank, the forum transfer went from testing to doing quicker than I expected, and I was caught out at a particularly busy time. Still, the theme is at least workable. Over the next couple of days I will add links to restore more of the functionality in the menu box, fix the double-spaced signatures, improve the horizontal spacing, and the like.

As things stand, there are four themes, with only the most trivial differences. The design is supposed to be responsive, adapting to smaller screens in sensible ways. The width is limited to a maximum of 1200 pixels, or 1920 pixels in the wide variants. There is (with an eye to not wasting NemZ's efforts going into the future) a pair of themes in which the banner you see varies randomly, changing if you refresh it - I'd like to give people the option in the end to select their preferred banner, but to do that sensibly needs some non-trivial extra work.

What I'd like is for people to note in this thread any problems that they find with the theme, whether functional or aesthetic. I will then attempt to fix the problems, improve the aesthetics, or persuade you that it is really better as it is. Obviously I have a test forum where I do the actual work, so you won't see work-in-progress until it's reached a sensible point.
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Re: Forum Theme Issues - reporting and discussion

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Postby pwhodges » Wed Dec 02, 2015 2:46 am

And just having made that post shows me that signatures are fine on some posts; hmm, need to think about that.
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Re: Forum Theme Issues - reporting and discussion

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Postby Reichu » Wed Dec 02, 2015 2:50 am

There's something about the current setup that strains my eyes, but without ability to compare old and new it's hard for me to say exactly what it is. One thing that did jump out at me is the absence of alternate light and dark shading with consecutive posts -- helped break up what is now a giant patch of off-white. I guess it's sort of there, but it's not as marked as it was before. (Signatures seem to be affected every other post, incidentally.)

Personal preference would also be to have URLs NOT be underlined in the bodies of our posts. Wasn't like that in the old style, and not like that anywhere else in the current style. The discrepancy is bothersome. :p

(Not necessarily style-related, but pertaining to conversion: Also noticing that the Japanese in my location is now a jumble of crap, and a special character in the Rebuild subforum description came out bad, too. I thought you guys had done extensive tests to keep this from happening?)
Last edited by Reichu on Wed Dec 02, 2015 2:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Forum Theme Issues - reporting and discussion

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Postby Monk Ed » Wed Dec 02, 2015 2:54 am

Having the names, boxes, and ranks below the avatars is throwing me off. Also...

View Original PostReichu wrote:There's something about the current setup that strains my eyes, but without ability to compare old and new it's hard for me to say exactly what it is.

I know! I'm having this problem too. Everything just seems too bright or something.
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Re: Forum Theme Issues - reporting and discussion

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Postby Dream » Wed Dec 02, 2015 3:08 am

On it being "too bright" it's most likely the saturation of colors and their combination/composition into the scheme/layout. The white-lightgrey-cyan scheme was extremely comfortable (if not exactly eye-catching) and so easy in the eyes it fades almost unnoticeably into the back of your mind to achieve it's functions unobstrusively, as good design does. If anyone happens to have a screencap of it (or the masters themselves) then it should be easy to get the codes with a color-picker tool and apply them to the forum. The graphical design elements, however, might be a bit more difficult to replicate.

Btw, sorry if it seemed like me or others were rushing you guys about the layout or anything of the sort.

And yeah, i'd recommend getting the name, boxes and ranks above the avatars again. It's a bit too weighted to the low end as it is now. Functionally i have seen no problems so far and everything seems to be working as it did before the transition, so that's pretty nice.
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Re: Forum Theme Issues - reporting and discussion

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Postby NemZ » Wed Dec 02, 2015 4:03 am

View Original PostReichu wrote:One thing that did jump out at me is the absence of alternate light and dark shading with consecutive posts


That's still there, actually. They alternate bluish off-white and brownish off-white.

But yes, everything does feel significantly brighter. Not sure if it actually is or if there's just more white space in the new layout though.
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Re: Forum Theme Issues - reporting and discussion

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Postby pwhodges » Wed Dec 02, 2015 4:32 am

I'm aware that age is not showing in the profile box; I'll add that when I move the name to the top shortly.

Unless anyone wants a discussion of whether age should be shown at all, that is. Most forums IME don't show it, but I'm easy on the matter.
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Postby Rosenakahara » Wed Dec 02, 2015 6:16 am

I'll agree its a bit too bright, I would also like to add however that on the non wide version the deep blue at the sides is kind off-putting for me, aside from that though I like it.
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Re: Forum Theme Issues - reporting and discussion

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Postby Monk Ed » Wed Dec 02, 2015 6:45 am

I'm playing around with name colors. Can anyone tell? :shifty: Not exactly theme-related in that it has nothing to do with the stylesheets, but it's spiritually related.
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Re: Forum Theme Issues - reporting and discussion

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Postby robersora » Wed Dec 02, 2015 6:55 am

View Original PostRosenakahara wrote:I'll agree its a bit too bright, I would also like to add however that on the non wide version the deep blue at the sides is kind off-putting for me, aside from that though I like it.


Hm~, I love them. It kinda soothes the pages greatly and calm anchors the otherwise so bustling look (kind of garish colours, clustered elements without space to breathe).
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Re: Forum Theme Issues - reporting and discussion

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Postby pwhodges » Wed Dec 02, 2015 7:40 am

Note that some theme elements have their width defined by % of the window size. This leads to the profile information to the left of a post being unnecessarily extended if you have a wide window (and the wide theme to allow the forum to expand to fill it).

Later I'll look at trying to improve the settings for wide usage (though it's something I hate, myself, as lines get too long to read comfortably). It's not trivial: I was able, for instance, to limit the expansion of the profile area, but the space was not then reassigned to the post area.

I'd welcome comments on how people would prefer to see wide windows used.

(BTW, there'll be no more changes today, as I'm going to London to a show shortly.)
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Re: Forum Theme Issues - reporting and discussion

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Postby A.T. Fish » Wed Dec 02, 2015 7:53 am

View Original Postpwhodges wrote:Note that some theme elements have their width defined by % of the window size. This leads to the profile information to the left of a post being unnecessarily extended if you have a wide window (and the wide theme to allow the forum to expand to fill it).

Later I'll look at trying to improve the settings for wide usage (though it's something I hate, myself, as lines get too long to read comfortably). It's not trivial: I was able, for instance, to limit the expansion of the profile area, but the space was not then reassigned to the post area.

I'd welcome comments on how people would prefer to see wide windows used.


I'm using the wide version now because it fills my screen completely, which makes it better to read stuff, that's something that didn't happen in the old version where I didn't use the wide version and still got a full screen of content (or maybe I'm remembering wrong?). Anyway, I noticed that the blue sidebars Rose noted above eat away at the space allocated for posts in the non-wide version, not sure if that's how it was before, but I felt that posts were a bit clustered there. Maybe this has to do with the horizontal spacing you mentioned, it's a bit uncomfortable to read posts right now.

Other than that though, things look great. Thank you for taking the time to improve the forum.

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Postby pwhodges » Wed Dec 02, 2015 7:59 am

Hmm; some people's undersized avatars aren't being expanded. I'll try to fix that tomorrow.
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Postby Reichu » Wed Dec 02, 2015 5:45 pm

The smilies available when composing a reply should only include ones of the non-animated variety. I created such a selection intentionally in the previous version for the very reason that the composition area should be free of clutter and distraction.
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Postby TehDonutKing » Wed Dec 02, 2015 8:25 pm

View Original PostNemZ wrote:That's still there, actually. They alternate bluish off-white and brownish off-white.

But yes, everything does feel significantly brighter. Not sure if it actually is or if there's just more white space in the new layout though.

It is there, yes, but the difference should be more pronounced. The design also hurts my eyes slightly as well, but i'm not sure why.

I almost accidentally reported this post trying to quote it, so perhaps those buttons should be farther apart.

Are suggestions allowed here, or should they be posted in the announcement thread, or should i or someone else make an additional thread for them?
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Re: Forum Theme Issues - reporting and discussion

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Postby pwhodges » Wed Dec 02, 2015 8:32 pm

Suggestions are fine, and will be considered.
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Postby ArgonLeviticusGospel » Wed Dec 02, 2015 9:05 pm

Is this a different forum engine?

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Postby Nuclear Lunchbox » Wed Dec 02, 2015 10:42 pm

When I check "last post" on the front page, it tells me who made the last post but not in what thread said post was made. Old forum did that.

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Re: Forum Theme Issues - reporting and discussion

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Postby Shamsiel-kun » Thu Dec 03, 2015 2:23 am

Call me old-fashioned, but could the "quote post" button on people's posts actually have, you know, the word "quote" on it?

It took me ages to figure out how to quote a post I wanted to reply to, yesterday.

Please pretty please? :glomp:

(or perhaps just an accessibility theme for idiots like me?)
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Re: Forum Theme Issues - reporting and discussion

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Postby pwhodges » Thu Dec 03, 2015 2:27 am

View Original PostArgonLeviticusGospel#819299 wrote:Is this a different forum engine?

It is phpBB v3.1 from 2015, as opposed to phpBB v2 from before 2004 (and hacked out of recognition).

I'll certainly consider buttons with text; it's a bad modern tendency to design software with the presumption that nothing ever needs explanation!
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