New forum look

[anomie]

Nice work!!

1,000 times better than the drab original.

[anomie]

Just two issues I noticed:

1. Smilies in posts not working. If you see smilies after this sentence, though, you fixed them.
2. To the left of the 'subject' area of every post, there is some text that reads Default. Is that necessary?

Thanks.

[Carpetsmoker]

ehm .... What are you talking about?

[18Googol2]

anomie deserves to get shot because of revealing confidential information haha

[kienjakenobi]

This is a total mix up.

There is no confidential information. If anyone revealed that there is confidential information, it is you 18Googol2, though I know you did not mean to.

Here is what actually happened:

I was tinkering around with the styles here on DaemonForums. There were a couple of minutes when I accidentally made the "Curves" theme the default. I quickly fixed that, but it appears one of the few people who was online at the time managed to get a screenshot before I fixed the matter.

Originally Posted by anomie

1. Smilies in posts not working. If you see smilies after this sentence, though, you fixed them.
2. To the left of the 'subject' area of every post, there is some text that reads Default. Is that necessary?

There is a very good reason this style was not meant to be seen by anyone.

At any rate, I am sorry for this whole matter. I was originally going to post an apology, but I decided that would create more ruckus than it would appease anyone.

[Carpetsmoker]

Right, well, this whole theme thing is just a huge bikeshed painting event IMO....

[ephemera]

Carpetsmoker,

> Right, well, this whole theme thing is just a huge bikeshed painting event IMO....

this forum _is_ a bikeshed (not a nuclear reactor) and we want it to look good.
since not everybody can agree on whats 'good' you could give us a choice of themes and as always some choice is better than no choice.
as the admin you obviously have other responsibilities and the forum colour theme may not be your top priority but please don't dismiss this as a non-issue.

[Carpetsmoker]

The problem is that I made some (minor) changes to the default style, I also made a new style for the upcoming guide wiki (To better integrate the two), and more changes are in the planning, so two styles means twice the amount of work, three styles means three times the amount of work etc.

In addition, none of the custom styles have any serious advantage over the default one, some people may slightly prefer the background color or whatever, but things like usability and accessibility are infinitely more important, Although the current style is far from perfect in those respects, the other styles are even worse.

As I have said before, I will look into this, but I don't think it is very important, so it's lingering somewhere at the bottom of the todo list.

[anomie]

In terms of priorities, it makes sense: get DNS, stability issues, etc. sorted out. Forum look and feel should be at the bottom of that list.

But maybe at some point in the future you would consider revisiting this, and perhaps even allowing members to vote on the style. (Is it not possible to make the selected style the one and only style so that it's the only one you'll have to maintain?)

If nothing else, this discussion highlights how different users value different features in software. Without speaking for ephemera too much, I think he and I pretty much feel the same way about this default style: it makes me feel like snoring. I'll try not to complain about it too much more in the future, and hopefully something pretty will come along at a later date.

@kienjakenobi: I didn't realize you were testing. It was fun for the few minutes that it lasted.

@18Googol2: In Texas we don't talk lightly about anyone getting shot.

[18Googol2]

Originally Posted by anomie

In terms of priorities, it makes sense: get DNS, stability issues, etc. sorted out. Forum look and feel should be at the bottom of that list.

I would like to add to the top priority tasks, availibility (uptime) and responsiveness (speed).

@18Googol2: In Texas we don't talk lightly about anyone getting shot.

Sorry anomie. Im glad nothing happened to you :P

[BSDfan666]

Am I the only person who thinks the current default theme is "smexy"?

Apologies, I couldn't fix a more descriptive word in my vocabulary..

[kienjakenobi]

We will have an alternate style. There will not be tons of options, but I am working on having another style.

Originally Posted by Carpetsmoker

I also made a new style for the upcoming guide wiki (To better integrate the two), and more changes are in the planning, so two styles means twice the amount of work

The style you created for the wiki is a substyle of the vBulletin default. That means the changes you make to one should also affect the DaemonForums substyle you created. That alone should not create double the work.

[JMJ_coder]

Hello,

I got a look at the other look (I guess I had good timing). I'm glad it wasn't permanent, as I didn't like it as much as the theme we currently use.

[Carpetsmoker]

I also like the default style, it's nice, simple, and clear ...

anomie, you understand me, and I will look at this in the future.

[ephemera]

admin's, moderator's,

just writing in to enquire about the status of forum colour schemes/ theme.
any progress?
even after 2+ months i still think it looks very drab ... and whatsmore the current theme reminds me of unix.com.

[Carpetsmoker]

My opinion/view:

The templates (i.e. HTML) stay the same, I did make some minor aesthetic/functional changes, but nothing big ... It simply would be a pain to upgrade every time, because with each upgrades some templates change and you wold have to merge the changes .... It would suck.

BUT

You can easily change the colors with CSS, in fact, richardpl already made a black/dark colorscheme for those who prefer it ... I'm not sure if he's finished, but this will be enabled when it is.

Anyone who wants to create a new colorscheme, contact me, I will give you access to out "test forums" where you can play and change without messing anything up ... If someone creates a good/better colorscheme, then I have no problems making that one the default.

[TerryP]

Well, at lest the people and content here are both worth the drab (probably default/semi-default) forum theme.

[Carpetsmoker]

Only once person said he might take a look at making a different colorscheme.

Funny how people are always so vocal when asked for their opinion and so quiet when asked to invest time and fix it...

[TerryP]

An operating system kernel is pretty darn complex for most people.

The colour of a webpage is so simple everyone can understand about it, no wonder more people talk about the fancy colours then kernels >_>

[marcolino]

Originally Posted by TerryP

An operating system kernel is pretty darn complex for most people.

The colour of a webpage is so simple everyone can understand about it, no wonder more people talk about the fancy colours then kernels >_>

That's the bikeshed principle in action.