upgraded forum...

[studio32]

Nobody freak out about the brown borders...just testing. If you have a good idea for that color, let met know.

The brown top is not bad, allthough I think the red is better..

but more important I think a big lesson is that you shouldn't make all the colors dark...

Give the top a dark color and the other parts a light tint which fits...

edit: and I think the a good thing to do is, make the background of the messages white and the letters black..
now you have the surrounding spaces white and the background of the messages blue...

Isn't there a light brown/red tint which fits with the kind of red you had before the brown one

[nathan]

Well I haven't changed the color of the top graphic...it's still the same shade of red. The category borders are the only brown parts right now, and I just did that to find the right properties to change in the CSS. I agree we shouldn't have everything too dark. I'll tweak some more when I have time...

[MattKingUSA]

It's shaping up very well.

[nathan]

Yeah I think it will be good when finished. I really appreciate all the feedback from MattKingUSA & Studio32!

[thorgal]

hey Nathan, nice revamp

a little suggestion : the default phpBB3 theme tends to use more CPU than necessary due to the animated icons (used for unread messages, etc). A user can change the default theme when logged in (so long as other themes are available) but a visitor without account will be plagued by this, especially when visiting the site from a small form factor PC. I personally have such a small PC, based on the mini-ITX format and a VIA C7 proc for low power usage. With the default theme, the processor runs at 100% because of Xorg processes. I already notified another admin of a forum where I used to chat a lot and the change to a static theme was really welcome But you can of course decide if this is relevant or not.

[studio32]

Comment on red top and brown forum: Till now I liked the red top with grey/ silver for the other part the best. I do like the red color of the front now very much. I think we should (as far I can see now) take that as our base...

Now we have to find a light color which fits the best with it. If you use brown, it should have some red in it and it shouln't be to brown... I think the brown now, it to much brown...

Suggestions: a bit brown with red in it...
white/ silver with a rose tint....


EDIT: the messages are not very easy to read in my opinion.. I think (and I'm repeating myself) a (alsmost) white background and black letters are the best here...now the surrounding is white and the messages blue. If you change that with each other, things will be improved I think... (allthough blue in not nice if you put it where white is now..... maybe make the parts which is white now more silver? Or put a line around the messages?)

One big distraction are the red and rose colors of 'quote' 'post reply' '!' etc. and also for example the name of the admin... Red is too much distracting/ not efficient... better to have a neutral color for it! (but it is possible that this is a less problem, if you have the background of the message white....)

Also the difference between the signature and the message is not very clear....

[nathan]

hey Nathan, nice revamp .

Thanks! We'll still be trying to polish it up over the course of the next several days.

...the default phpBB3 theme tends to use more CPU than necessary due to the animated icons (used for unread messages, etc). A user can change the default theme when logged in (so long as other themes are available) but a visitor without account will be plagued by this, especially when visiting the site from a small form factor PC. I personally have such a small PC, based on the mini-ITX format and a VIA C7 proc for low power usage. With the default theme, the processor runs at 100% because of Xorg processes.

Thank you making me aware of this. I do believe those animations are animated gifs, so I think I can just edit them in the GIMP to turn that off, or I will upload an alternate set of icons. It annoys me too, actually, and there's really no reason for it. This is now at the top of my todo list for the forum since it has to do with basic functionality.

[nathan]

Suggestions: a bit brown with red in it...
white/ silver with a rose tint....


EDIT: the messages are not very easy to read in my opinion.. I think (and I'm repeating myself) a (alsmost) white background and black letters are the best here...now the surrounding is white and the messages blue. If you change that with each other, things will be improved I think... (allthough blue in not nice if you put it where white is now..... maybe make the parts which is white now more silver? Or put a line around the messages?)

One big distraction are the red and rose colors of 'quote' 'post reply' '!' etc. and also for example the name of the admin... Red is too much distracting/ not efficient... better to have a neutral color for it! (but it is possible that this is a less problem, if you have the background of the message white....)

Also the difference between the signature and the message is not very clear....

Thanks for the good ideas! I will be playing with shade of brown, etc, and I will also be tweaking the post colors, and we'll see what we come up with!

I'm going to be taking a short break from tweaking colors today to focus on some core usability issues (the animated gifs, members only forum, etc.)

[studio32]

@Nathan: I'm so happy we are lost that blue font Thanks for taking our comments serious.

[nathan]

Toasted the animated gifs...if you see any more of the buggers after refreshing, make sure to let me know.

[studio32]

mmhh I still think the red on the forum is to red and that it is better to have just the font/top/logo red and the other parts a lighter color.

I think I do like the red top with the other parts silver (like we had it for a while) the most. But maybe we can try some more light tints and see how it looks.

[nathan]

Thanks for the suggestion, I will test it out some more.