Forum Layout

[Spock]

Since the other thread got locked and I couldn't find another topic of this sort I thought I'd just start it.

I'm sitting about 2 meters from my 30" monitor, I have to zoom to compfortably read at that distance and my resolution. The line spacing of the forum seems fairly large, information is mostly spread vertically. When I zoom in to the point where the subforum list lines up with the right end of my monitor I can see only very few threads. This makes navigating the forums more complex for me because I can simply see less information at once with the same font size. I would much prefer if the boxes representing subforums would align with the right end of my browser, scaling with zoom and the recent topics would go elsewere.

Also the palette option to the left of the forum distracts my vision. And maybe category headlines with more contrast would be desirable too.

I say this without having tested any different themes, but I usually browse the forums as guest.

[edit]Also line spacings and thus layout of posts appear different in the editor then they do in the post. It would be helpful if they didn't. Generally the font size seems small compared to the geometry of less important things in the forum (like avatars etc.)

Edited March 9, 2014 by z929669

[z929669]

Right now, we have a dark theme on the wiki and forums, and that has been the norm for over two years now. That is the default, period. The default is not suddenly going to be the polar opposite.

 

If s4n wants to design a light (not white) theme for both wiki and forum, then I welcome that. It should be an inverse though with identical design in all things but color. I am not against light themes. I am strongly against bright themes. And most light themes are far too bright, since they kill you with white (why??). As I said, I look at that crap all day, and certainly don't want to punish my eyes and my mind doing the same on my free time. Bethesda sites are dark, Nexus is dark ... STEP is dark, and our sites have always been far more mellow on the eyes than those others. Ideally, we will have a consistent dark-ish theme for forums and wiki and an alternate light-sh theme for both. Dark-ish should have lighter text on darker background, and light-ish should have darker text on lighter background. Both can be mellow and relaxing on the eyes if done correctly. I personally find the former 'cozier' for some reason.

 

... oh, and those 40% are mostly gamers

 

@phazer, we have the bluish thing going, because that is the STEP norm; however, the current forums have much less blue than the previous. We are actually closer to the wiki now more than ever. And I am not sure what you mean about 'blue text'. There is no blue text on the site but for a very few headings here and there.

[yuser]

But light theme there is already, it's just disabled. And it is per user setting, so hardcore gamers can enjoy with (default) dark theme. Only those who don't like light grey text on dark grey background will switch to light theme.

[phazer11]

Ok it's not "blue" then. On the site it looks pretty darn blue, but it could just be bleed through. I opened up a screenshot in Photoshop and that tells me it's 184R/184G/184B which means that it's technically a grey and therefore I guess why my eyes were telling me it was an almost powder blue.

 

I would also express in interest in having the thread titles as something more like a link in the "Nav tree" instead of some gaudy kind of icon thing that eats up space as it is now.

S.T.E.P. → Blacksmith → Forum → Forum Layout

[z929669]

I updated the announcement to reflect the revamped interim skin, which will likely continue to be tweaked slightly over the next few days. Some poor unfortunates are likely stuck with some really awful color from the swatch drawer that was recently disabled. Just delete your Klar cookie to get the default blue, which is what the current theme is built around.

 

Regarding the post text, I do see what you mean, and this is probably because the text is a bit too subdued. It should be brightened up just a bit, so I'll take care of that.

 

Regarding the wasted space up top, I made some changes earlier and reclamied about a third by removing all the extra line spacing and padding. Getting rid of the divs in a way that looks good will require some doing, and I am not sure it is worth it. The total vertical header space is only about 10-15% larger than previously at this point. It could be improved, but ... meh.

 

I am much more interested in fixing the image handling. The Highslide plugin that s4n build on the other site was light years ahead of what we are using on IPB by default. I am also working on making the input area of this damned editor more appealing. Right now it is much too dark and the text is much too bright. Also, code blocks and other formatting within the editor don't properly reflect the actual outcome. That is also bothersome, IMO.

[CJ2311]

Just wanted to say good job on the changes to the theme, Zed :)

[z929669]

Thank you, sir .... inevitably what happens is that I get near the end of my finishing touches on a skin or look/feel revamp, and s4n then presents a new skin done properly from scratch. I think that my hacks prod him into action, due to his controlling nature and abilities that exceed my own :P

[stoppingby4now]

Indeed, great job on updating the skin to make it more bearable.

[z929669]

After much toil, I have finally finished my first draft of the interim forum skin. The only things I have not tackled are the thread icons and the editor background and WYSIWYG looks in the editor, which are NOT ideal at all. The editor is much more difficult to work with, and I defer to s4n to help out with that if he is so inclined. The look and the behavior both need a lot of work ... I re-skinned the editor wrapper and interface, but it is the content window that is dynamically connected to js, which I am not messing with. I like the editor functionality, but I really hate that the entry is aboslutely nothing like the translation onto the forums.

 

Regarding the thread icons: I may yet get to that, but not now

 

 

[CJ2311]

You missed one little thing that's been bothering my OCD these last days:

In the header, the line where there's buttons for New content, STEP wiki, STEP forums and STEP members, whenever you hover on one of these, the whole page goes 1 or 2 pixels down :|

 

Second edit: Here's the stylish override that I currently use for the forum p:

@-moz-document domain("forum.step-project.com") {    div#ipbwrapper {        margin: 0px auto;        width: 90%;        min-width: 960px;    }        .col_n_icon, .col_c_icon img {        box-shadow: 0px 1px 3px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) inset, 0px 0px 0px 1px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.05), 0px 1px 0px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.1);        padding: 5px 8px 4px;    }        .col_f_icon, #community_app_menu > li.active > a, #community_app_menu > li > a:hover, #community_app_menu > li > a.menu_active {        border-bottom-color: #A0CAF4;        margin-bottom: -1px;    }}

Edited March 7, 2014 by CJ2311

[z929669]

I hadn't even notice that :/

 

Post that CSS if you know it, otherwise I'll try to address it. (EDIT: it looks like that may be dynamically applied ... not sure how to fix)

 

I'll use your CSS tomorrow ... gotta go to bed

[CJ2311]

I posted it in another edit while you were typing your reply D:

[z929669]

Got it ... how do you apply that? We should have you helping us out with the new skins!

[CJ2311]

I don't remember how to apply them from the admin side, and I don't have an IPB license laying around to test it myself :p

[Octopuss]

I think the skin has slightly changed. I no longer feel like crying and headslamming into a wall (too much) when trying to look at it.

Not bad!

[Spock]

Thank you Z, browsing the forums feels better now. I don't have a direct comparison, maybe I just got more used to it.

I think it would help if the line breaks of subforums and forum descriptions would happen further to the right. It might also help to somehow make the visual difference between forum name and subforums/descriptions more distinct, especially if the field is highlighted. Or ditch the highlight alltogether, the way it is now I have an easier time getting an overview while scrolling down when my mouse is not highlighting the forum blocks.

[Edit] The last paragraph is solved for me by minimizing the recent topics box. Sorry, for not having tried that first.

Another suggestion would be to make the avatar area smaller. I think it takes too much space compared to the text (I really like simplistic tool layouts). The two bars at the top, one with the wiki/forums/members buttons and the lower one with login and user info could be merged imho.

For me the recent topics list is mostly useless because the forum is too active to have a comprehensive list. I don't know how many users actually use it, could it be set to closed as default?

Edited March 7, 2014 by Spock