I'm Not Pretty

iPixelPierre

So, not to kick a dead horse, yank anyone's nuts or make someone have an aneurysm.

Is it just me or do other people find the "forums" quite bland?
I was browsing all the add-ons and themes for this framework, and now the site makes me think of Win3.1 :(

/endRant

Tuism

Functionally, I don't think this here matters much to be "pretty". I actually prefer it like this, when that "less than 3" became an actual heart it threw me for confuzzled quite a bit.

Some of the menu and indexing could do with some lifting, but nothing major, really (IMHO)

However, if you're talking about add-ons for function, I see we've already started with badges and things.

Anything else in particular?

Karuji

Considering I've been around for a while: it's come a long way. It will get better in time.

Though I don't really see what we would need in terms of plugins and such. If you could be more specific it would be great.

Nitrogen

Windows 3.1? Huh, are we seeing the same forums? Are you talking about the mobile view or something?

If you think it's bad now, you should have seen it before I redid it!

It was a major effort to get to something that (mostly) everyone was happy about... Buuut if I had to change one thing, it would be the grey background - it's a bit too light.

dammit

If you can give an example of a better looking forum, please do :) Forums do tend to look a bit - off putting. It's piles and piles of text and posts until you get involved and then it's people and projects.

AlphaSheep

Compared to those generic blue phpBB forums you see absolutely everywhere, I think this one is beautiful... Nice and simple.

hermantulleken

I must also say, I like the minimalism. I particularly like that there are basically no distractions - just content and a bit of graphical cues for extra info. It's one site that I enjoy using because what I want to do is so clearly all I can do. Moreover, the blandness makes user-posted content so much the cooler. It's a bit like the starkness of an art museum; it's the stuff inside that makes it pretty. Just my 2c.

iPixelPierre

It's just me then :)

Perhaps a Tutorials/Resources section could have up voting system?
And minimal signatures for us?

dammit

Please no signatures :( These get out of hand quickly and distract from the importance content that is in the actual post.

Fengol

veto signatures. They just get abused. If you go to your profile, under your avatar pic is an open Edit My Profile where you can rant about yourself. I've got on my list a task to make the About <User> tab more prominent.

Gazza_N

+1 on the current minimalist slimline design, and +1 on the no-sigs policy. I'm interested in what people say, not some flashing wibbling ultragif that dwarfs and distracts from their post.

Chippit

Agreed. I'm fond of the minimalism, and the focus on post content over flash. My biggest criticism of the current layout is that I find the contrast on the thread-count of the colour-coded categories to the right to be lacking, making the (admittedly not really all that important) number there very difficult to read. Except it being there means my eyes want to read it!

That, and I hate emoticons. Could we at least get an option to turn them off on a per-account basis? I mean, I'm not going to go on a rampage or anything if I can't, but I find them very distracting (in a similar way to how the heart looked worse than the text less-than-three, I think). My 2c.

Tuism

Signatures are evil. Shunnn.

As for emoticons, I don't mind them myself, but I guess... What, if we made them monochrome they'd fit the rest of the site better than the blue they are now? :P

The only real comment I would add is to perhaps make some use of the space under them rainbow numbers :)

Fengol

Unfortunately I cannot remove the emoticons or make them optional because they're part of the BBCode plugin. I can look eventually at updating the plugin to make them optional but I would prefer an easier route as @Tuism suggested and make new emoticons that are grey-scale and more suited to the site.

tbulford

+1 for simple easy to use as apposed to pretty and damn confusing. The pretty is in the screen shots after all :p

Boysano

well at least different color schemes, this white stuff hurts my eyes ...hmm looking if option already exists, cause I'm lazy, and easier to post question than search.

Yeah nog sigs plz.

I wont mind some kinda achievements or badges...which will make me contribute more I hope...meta game. :) WHoo big word meta-game, which I learnt here.

I use this forums as my main education these days.

Tuism

True. A darker colour scheme could be more comfortable.

Karuji

Join the dark side: we have cookies.

dislekcia

Um. If there is some sort of move towards a darker thing, can we make those interchangeable themes please?

I certainly don't want a dark theme and much prefer this lightness. I don't need to feel like I'm hacking the matrix to read a forum.

Tuism

From a representation point of view, I think MGSA should be white. From a comfort point of view, I do like a darker background. If anything, it should be default white with member having the option to turn it darker as a personal preference or something.

Nitrogen

I would *really* like a user switchable theme selection thingy. That way we can have multiple themes (light, dark, iPixelPierre's Techicolor Dreamcoat™) etc.

I'm also of the dark/low contrast persuasion! I'll definitely style a dark version of the current theme if we can get the user theme switching right.