Topic: Forum upgrade

[Darth Mandarb]

Updates so far:

• Updated the over-all forum width to 95% (was 90%)
• Updated the number displays to x,xxx.xx
• Updated avatars to 120x120
• Updated breadcrumb to be links now

Important note; your current avatars will be automatically resized to 120x120 (though the header avatar display will remain at 60x60 for space considerations).  You'll need to update accordingly if you no longer like how it looks!  You can also just take the existing image and add the spacing around it to make the file 120x120 (but keeping the image 60x60 as you're used to it).  Or take advantage of the FREEDOM that double-size grants you

[monkey_05_06]

Thanks for getting the breadcrumbs fixed. I also noticed the Facebook and Twitter buttons have been implemented. Let the social networking begin! Oh...and ONE of the smileys has been replaced? Interesting...

[TomatoesInTheHead]

Important note; your current avatars will be automatically resized to 120x120 (though the header avatar display will remain at 60x60 for space considerations).  You'll need to update accordingly if you no longer like how it looks!  You can also just take the existing image and add the spacing around it to make the file 120x120 (but keeping the image 60x60 as you're used to it).  Or take advantage of the FREEDOM that double-size grants you

Why is that? :/ It's a probably a relatively good thing that you can use avatars bigger than 120x120 and they get scaled down to fit (though most often they don't look good that way), but I never liked that avatars smaller than the allowed size got upscaled. Wouldn't it be better to not resize the avatars unless they're too big, or to never resize them and just not allow any avatars bigger than 120x120?

[Atelier]

[Peder Johnsen+]

Why is that? :/ It's a probably a relatively good thing that you can use avatars bigger than 120x120 and they get scaled down to fit (though most often they don't look good that way), but I never liked that avatars smaller than the allowed size got upscaled. Wouldn't it be better to not resize the avatars unless they're too big, or to never resize them and just not allow any avatars bigger than 120x120?

This can be achieved by using CSS using the max-height and max-width options.

[Tabata]

We have some really diligent members doing a real good job! Such a lot of new things are to be explored!
Also repairs and changings have been done already after the new forum went online. Very impressing!

Thank you for spending such a lot of time in this to make it cosy and comfortable!
                     

... But mostly I miss all the little Rogers. 

So do I      - I cant help it 
I simply love the facial expressions of Roger 

But I am also eager for using the lovely small big blue cups soon and all the other things that are still in progress and to be implemented or installed ...

[Darth Mandarb]

As will be obvious from the rest of my post:

• Updated the quote CSS
• Updated the news section/area to better separate it

Why is that? :/ It's a probably a relatively good thing that you can use avatars bigger than 120x120 and they get scaled down to fit (though most often they don't look good that way), but I never liked that avatars smaller than the allowed size got upscaled. Wouldn't it be better to not resize the avatars unless they're too big, or to never resize them and just not allow any avatars bigger than 120x120?

This is, sadly, something the forum software does automatically (seems an oversight to me).  I have been toying around with...

This can be achieved by using CSS using the max-height and max-width options.

... for awhile but there are so many places where the avatars are displayed and, to be honest, the CSS that comes with the software is a mess!  One big problem with the max- attributes is that there are some older versions of browsers that don't support these attributes and anybody viewing the forums [with those older browsers) might end up seeing some HUGE avatars!

However I'm not too sure about the gradient behind the board titles, and at the bottom. I find it looks better if it's just a uniform colour. Or maybe make them a bit lighter? The colour seems quite harsh compared to the rest of the forum colours which are softer. The text in the posts/topics column seems a bit crowded.

We really went 'round and 'round with this (well I did) ... in the end we decided this "fit" better.  I really like the contrast personally (and think it looks great) but if the forum consensus is that it should change it can be updated.

The collapsing issue I noticed during testing and no matter what I've tried it just doesn't seem to want to align itself properly... I'm thinking it might be some kind of internal bug in the software.  I just couldn't track that sucker down!  It only does it on initial collapse; once you navigate/refresh it aligns properly (and stays aligned properly) so I considered it low priority

The padding issue on the "mark all as read" button is fixed/updated.  The other one will take a little more doing... but I'm on it

[Bulbapuck]

It's looking really good, I'm impressed how fast it was done! Good job guys

[Ryan Timothy]

You had asked what people meant by it being "bloated". Here's some of the things I'd like to point out on the index alone (home).

Here's where a lot of padding is located. It's quite useless and I'd rather see more of the forum vertically than have all of this padding everywhere.
Click to enlarge

Here's a quick adjustment of the AGS Games section only. How it could be improved to better fit on everyone's screens without scrolling a ton.
Click to enlarge

That's one thing I've always noticed about your websites is that you add a lot of padding around everything. I'm not saying I don't like your websites, I definitely do. I just know you could tone down on the padding quite a bit. I might have gone to the extreme, but I wouldn't add much more than 2 pixels on each of these boards.

If you want, I could also show an edit from within a thread as well. I also don't like the new large avatars, mainly because there is a TON of useless space whenever you have someone like AGA with all his:
Adventure Game Aficionado
Mittician
Administrator
Member

Then his Post count. Then his quote. Then where he's willing to help people. Then his social connections. All of which take up their own row.
Like this post: http://www.bigbluecup.com/yabb/index.php?topic=45853.msg615529#msg615529

With the current Voting system and such, and all that padding, I can only see the top line in Domino's next post. I don't believe my resolution is overly small for a laptop either, being 1600x900.

Edit: I've noticed that once you click on these images above, it then makes the image full size in the post? Odd.

[Hudders]

All of the empty space you circled is because of the width of your browser window. It wouldn't work to put the Moderator information where you suggest because it would get messed up for people with smaller resolutions.

EDIT: The tweet button at the top of the page, (does everyone see that? Or just people who have entered their twitter username?) looks really out of place, and the "share" link next to it doesn't do anything.

[Ryan Timothy]

Obviously. But even with my edits, it's still roughly 350 pixels to spare in width, not including the 30 pixels on each side of the forum (which would be even smaller for someone with a smaller resolution, since the forum width is 95%). Then once you start going into that, things like the board description ends up taking multiple rows.

I don't quite know why the moderator 'needs' to be part of the main page, but it is nice to see it there so it can direct PM's and such in the right direction if someone didn't see it at the top of the board itself.

Edit: But if you really wanted, you could also change the right column to this instead of splitting up the column into two:
Last post: Today at 09:34:11 am  by moonkid
in Re: Purgatorio, built fo...

Then you could actually increase the thread title more.

[Esseb]

Oh no, Tweet and Facebook Share buttons, is there no escape?

Did we use to show post counts before? I thought we only showed post counts up to 10 posts or so, then hide them.

Edit: My avatar is now a spiffy 120x120, and I'm glad my Larry Vales smiley survived the move. It is my greatest accomplishment

[Esseb]

To get the coloured post indicators again use this CSS, works for both the New post link for threads and direct links to a specific post:

[code]
a#new + div.windowbg,
a#new + div.windowbg span.topslice,
a#new + div.windowbg span.topslice span,
a#new + div.windowbg span.botslice,
a#new + div.windowbg span.botslice span {
   background: lime !important;
}

a#new + div.windowbg2,
a#new + div.windowbg2 span.topslice,
a#new + div.windowbg2 span.topslice span,
a#new + div.windowbg2 span.botslice,
a#new + div.windowbg2 span.botslice span {
   background: pink !important;
}
[/code]

I'll leave the choice of colours to someone else.

Edit: Minor fix required due to insane markup. <span class="topslice"><span></span></span>? Good heavens.

[Darth Mandarb]

Ryan - valid points (and thanks for the screenshots).  Yes, I'm a "padding" guy !!  We are discussing it in the "moderators" forum but I'd also love to hear other people's opinions on the padding.

I, too, suggested just removing the moderators line from the board index page.  That was one of the things that was on there when we upgraded to the new version and I just didn't pull it off.  (Also discussing in the mod forum!).

Oh no, Tweet and Facebook Share buttons, is there no escape?

Did we use to show post counts before? I thought we only showed post counts up to 10 posts or so, then hide them.

Edit: My avatar is now a spiffy 120x120, and I'm glad my Larry Vales smiley survived the move. It is my greatest accomplishment

Personally I'd like to remove the tweet/facebook links... I don't much care for them! 

We didn't show post-count before.

Of course Larry stuck around!  I didn't want to get lynched by removing him

Speaking of the smileys:

• I have updated the set and added some of the animated ones as well
• I created a second row for Larry (and other non-blue-cup smileys) which will be added as we go.

And of course... there's the hidden ones too!!!!!1!!

[Victor6]

'fraid I'm with Ryan on this, it just feels empty for the sake of style rather than being functional. It's particularly noticeable on threads with short answers, which can leave you with 3.X 1 line posts to page once the giant avatars and member info are packed in. I've never understood the need for giant avatars, it's like the sig;- Once it gets larger than your average post, it's just a hassle.

Although, I suspect the new style looks awesome on tablet or phone, so it could be just the grumpy desktop\laptop monkeys.

[TomatoesInTheHead]

I also vote for removing some of the vertical padding and clutter to give the site more content in the same browser size.
Two other suggestions concerning what could be (re)moved apart from padding:
- On the board index site, the column "post/topic count" is rather useless, as I understand it's to show off the activity of the forums to people who see the forums for the first time and wonder if it's a real forum or just one of these dead forums floating around in the web since creating forums has become so easy. The column could be used instead to show the moderators, this would free vertical space as suggested without taking horizontal space. Probably again like the avatar scaling not so easy to do without diving deep into the SMF code :/
- The moderator/administrator rank "stars" () are pretty big with their 17x17 pixels per block, I think an unobstrusive 4x4 or 6x6 pixel block/dot/star would work better (and less than five of them would do, too). I'd also move them directly below (or better yet, behind) the user name, above the usergroup membership labels.

[Darth Mandarb]

We are addressing the padding issue... hang in there.

TomatoesInTheHead - I'm working on adjusting the side-bar (with the avatars, member info) as well.

[AGA]

The Twitter and Facebook links have been much debated.  We'll see how many people actually use them before we decide.

I removed the 'Member' title from my test version, and I'll do that again here as some point.  Post counts are also a bit pointless - aside from moderator / admin status (and Mittens and the occasional custom title of course), I don't think anything else is really relevant.  If someone really cares what a user's post count is, they can check the user's profile.

[Hudders]

It just looks weird:



And the "Share" link does nothing anyway.

[AGA]

Works for me in Firefox 12, IE 9, Opera 11, Safari 5 and Seamonkey 2.  It won't work if you have Facebook blocked for whatever reason though, given the images is actually hosted on the Facebook servers.