What the hell happened to the front page?

[Voss]

Bright colors...
hurting...

 

[Spazmo]

Yeah, we're gonna fire Rex if he doesn't toss in some themes with darker colours. Right now, Rex is hammering out some technical problems with certain browsers not showing bits of artwork here and there. Once that works, we'll get him to make a bunch of different themes.

 

[Volourn]

I agree. The other one looked much nicer. I was shell shcoked when I saw this page,a nd that don't happen often. Then again, that *could* be the intended effect.

 

[Sammael]

I thoroughly dislike the new site design, regardless of color. Then again, I spend most of my time here at the forums, so it's not as if I care that much.

 

[Sol Invictus]

It's a work in progress you stupid sacks of shit.

 

[Sammael]

It's a work in progress you stupid sacks of shit.

If you didn't want feedback, you shouldn't have uploaded it yet.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Hey numbnuts, I'm working on other schemes as well. The two that are up, nice as they are, even though you dislike them, aren't the only two.

 

[Volourn]

Ok, ok, we get it. Criticism is not welcomed. I'll shut my mouth on the subject.

 

[Briosafreak]

It's a work in progress you stupid sacks of shit.

If you didn't want feedback, you shouldn't have uploaded it yet.

I agree, we have three new layouts for NMA and until we don`t feel everything is fixed we aren`t going to show them to everyone, but treating the as beta material, asking for suggestions and help to fix whatever is wrong.

The same way i praised the last time you`ve changed the layout, this time i have to say it`s not good, still needs much work and new colours...

 

[Elwro]

I don't want to suggest that someone's work was worthless, but for me the previous design was ideal and didn't need any changes.

EDIT: I like the die in the corner though.

 

[Sol Invictus]

The previous design was far from ideal. It was difficult to read first off, and the sidebars left much to be desired.

And you folks need to realize that all of this asking for new colors busines isn't going to make me bring you new colors any faster than I already am so kindly keep the volume of whining down to a minimum.

Just saying "the colors suck" or "i don't like it" doesn't help me figure out what you dislike. Help me help you by giving me constructive criticism on the subject instead of just telling me flat out that 'it sucks' or 'the old design was better'. You'll notice that I've changed the way the borders look and that should be an addition to the way the site looks.

Update: I am bringing back the original color scheme for the site but it isn't because you cheeseheads can't stop bugging me about it - it's because I'm not done yet and just leaving the site on my hard drive annoyed me to no limit for some idiosyncratic reason or another. Count on the same color scheme I use on the Circle of Eight as one of the choices as well.

 

[Deathy]

Next time though, could you keep the old designs availible (and default), while you are working on new designs?

It is slightly horrible to see some crazy assed new design every other month. You could at least give us time to give feedback on your new designs before you go and make it so that everyone must see them. Your idea of a good design might differ from everyone else. I've seen you pull some /very/ bad designs out of your ass before.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Those really bad designs never made it up, though, did they?

And I didn't design the forum.

I can't contact everybody to see what they think about the new design, either. I did contact people (in the channel), just not the people here.

You can also thank me for not putting up a graphic intensive design with ridiculous amounts of chrome a la IGN.

 

[Mistress]

I have to say, I'm really not into the pastel shades....they just don't say "RPGCodex" to me. I can understand the desire to stay away from the usual black design or overloadedness....but pastels? It would also be nice to have the forums and main pages following a similar colour scheme.

 

[Sol Invictus]

There we go. Some actual criticism. I understand your doubts towards pastel colors and rest assured, I am in the process of making darker schemes. The nice thing about the new design is that the visuals are almost entirely CSS based so editing them is a dream. What I disliked about the old designed was how difficult it was to edit anything.

 

[Sammael]

OK, if it's feedback you want, it's feedback you'll get.

First of all, colors don't bother me as much as the actual design. Colors are easy to change via styles, design isn't.

The logo is fine. The drop-down menu below it, however, isn't. The letters are too small, and I find it odd that the menu items use a different font than the top-level menu titles. I also don't see why you made the whole navigation bar an image and used the absolutely obsolete image map.

There are too many different types of fonts present (I counted five or six, different sizes notwithstanding). Pick two kinds, one for titles and one for text, and stick with it. Also, and this is personal preference, I hate the font used for section titles ("latest news," "choose theme" and such).

The "choose theme" box is too prominent. It shouldn't have the same level of importance as "latest news" and "highlights."

What happened to text padding for dates in the "latest news" box?

You should account for the banner somehow. If you can change its position, I'd suggest putting it to the right of the logo instead of above the main news box. If not, I'd lower the "latest news" and "highlights" boxes so that their top is in line with the top of the main news box.

The font used for the "codex" definition is illegible. If you don't put the banner to the right of the site logo, move the codex definition there, and increase the font.

All box borders look funky, but that could be an Opera thing. Still, it is possible to make a site look absolutely identical on both Opera and IE without using any additional code, but the styles have to be planned very carefully.

Finally, there are too many different colors in either theme. For future themes, I suggest sticking to three different colors at most. It looks much cleaner.

 

[Sol Invictus]

OK, if it's feedback you want, it's feedback you'll get.

First of all, colors don't bother me as much as the actual design. Colors are easy to change via styles, design isn't.

The logo is fine. The drop-down menu below it, however, isn't. The letters are too small, and I find it odd that the menu items use a different font than the top-level menu titles. I also don't see why you made the whole navigation bar an image and used the absolutely obsolete image map.

I'll try to do something with the fonts in the menu - that's easy to fix as I'll just use images. As for image maps being obsolete, they aren't. It certainly works a lot better than the old cluttered navigation interface I used to have.

There are too many different types of fonts present (I counted five or six, different sizes notwithstanding). Pick two kinds, one for titles and one for text, and stick with it. Also, and this is personal preference, I hate the font used for section titles ("latest news," "choose theme" and such).

Working on that at the moment. I'm trying to figure out where Calis hid the fonts for the boxes as they seem to be different than the rest of the site.

I'll replace the graphics for the section titles.

The "choose theme" box is too prominent. It shouldn't have the same level of importance as "latest news" and "highlights."

I'm getting rid of the box in favor of a regular text selection.

What happened to text padding for dates in the "latest news" box?

What? You mean the space before each date? It seems the graphic got deleted when I uploaded earlier. I'll fix that.

You should account for the banner somehow. If you can change its position, I'd suggest putting it to the right of the logo instead of above the main news box. If not, I'd lower the "latest news" and "highlights" boxes so that their top is in line with the top of the main news box.

Yeah, I hate that banner even if it keeps us online. The site looks better without it so I'll try to figure out somewhere else to put it. Perhaps in a table on its own so it looks like it's a part of the site.

The font used for the "codex" definition is illegible. If you don't put the banner to the right of the site logo, move the codex definition there, and increase the font.

Hell, I might just add another 'level' below the navigation menu with the definition and the ad there. I'll see what Ican come up with.

All box borders look funky, but that could be an Opera thing. Still, it is possible to make a site look absolutely identical on both Opera and IE without using any additional code, but the styles have to be planned very carefully.

Funky, how? Take a screenshot please. They look identical in Mozilla and IE for me. Could be a code bug.

Finally, there are too many different colors in either theme. For future themes, I suggest sticking to three different colors at most. It looks much cleaner.

Uh-huh

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

There we go. Some actual criticism. I understand your doubts towards pastel colors and rest assured, I am in the process of making darker schemes. The nice thing about the new design is that the visuals are almost entirely CSS based so editing them is a dream. What I disliked about the old designed was how difficult it was to edit anything.

Cool. Darker schemes rule. I usually come straight to the forums anyway, and you didn't change that at all. Are you planning on getting more schemes into the forum? I don't really like alot of the ones that were there.

 

[Sol Invictus]

If I can. one of the things I hate about PHPBB is how difficult it is to change the graphics.

 

[Visceris]

I think the site looks pretty good for a work in progress. I am sure it will be good once it is done. The Font sixze needs to be tad larger which has been stated. When I load up the page with Netscape I get the old color scheme but no page header.

Keep up the good work Exitium. :D

 

[Spazmo]

You use Netscape? Jebus, I didn't think you sucked that much.

And, uh, I think it's okay, just darker themes, please.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

You use Netscape? Jebus, I didn't think you sucked that much.

And, uh, I think it's okay, just darker themes, please.

The new Nutscrape isn't that bad. Besides, I have to use it because Internut Exploder keeps messing up on my system for some odd ass reason. I have been considering one of the third party browsers, but all the ones I have found require IE to work and, well, I'm kinda leary about that since IE is giving me hell all the time.

 

[Spazmo]

MOZILLA!

It's fairly straightforwards, you know.

 

[Visceris]

Actually Spaz-boy I use both IE and Netscape.

 

[Mistress]

There we go. Some actual criticism. I understand your doubts towards pastel colors and rest assured, I am in the process of making darker schemes. The nice thing about the new design is that the visuals are almost entirely CSS based so editing them is a dream. What I disliked about the old designed was how difficult it was to edit anything.

Yeah I can appreciate that - cool I like Trident a little better this morning. The News/Content/Forum/IRC/Links/Staff navigation links could use a slightly bolder font maybe - make them stand out a bit more, and as Sammael said (I think......it's early) the drop down box fonts could do with being similar - it looks a little disjointed.

I like the Codex definition down the side

The only other main thing I might say is the headings of the boxes - like "latest news", could do with again, being a touch bolder in my opinion - just to stand out a little more.