Anime Your test site sucks

[†††]

Because people are thirsty for those search engine hits.

I'm sure it will be worthy alienating your existing userbase trying to chase a new audience. Where did I see that before...?

 

[Roguey]

Nope, 1600x1200 was already a thing around 2000, let alone 2002. That's what I used to run. 1280x1024 was also a popular resolution.

Most people weren't using those resolutions and sites weren't designed with them in mind. Icewind Dale II in 2002 was the first and only IE game to officially support 800x600, up from 640x480, and Temple of Elemental Evil from 2003 was very obviously designed for a resolution no greater than 800x600.

Edit: Web site statistics:

 

[Norfleet]

I DON'T LIKE CHANGE OR NEW THINGS. I'm OLD! I'm OLD and I HAVE A LONG BEARD! Leave the site alone!

 

[Absinthe]

Nope, 1600x1200 was already a thing around 2000, let alone 2002. That's what I used to run. 1280x1024 was also a popular resolution.

Most people weren't using those resolutions and sites weren't designed with them in mind. Icewind Dale II in 2002 was the first and only IE game to officially support 800x600, up from 640x480, and Temple of Elemental Evil from 2003 was very obviously designed for a resolution no greater than 800x600.

Bioware engines have always had a talent for moving slowly on tech, and when you're dealing with 2D isometric pixel art the idea of supporting higher resolutions is "hahaha fuck that shit" because it means drawing extra higher res version sets of fucking everything. If you had a high res monitor it could run the low res mode fine anyway because CRTs unlike LCDs and plasma displays were actually properly capable of supporting multiple resolutions. Meanwhile Quake 3 Arena came out in 1999 and supported 1600x1200 and even 2048x1536.

 

[Roguey]

Bioware engines have always had a talent for moving slowly on tech, and when you're dealing with 2D isometric pixel art the idea of supporting higher resolutions is "hahaha fuck that shit" because it means drawing extra higher res version sets of fucking everything. Meanwhile Quake 3 Arena came out in 1999 and supported 1600x1200 and even 2048x1536.

"Yeah sure you can go this high" doesn't mean that people did. Also I edited my post with graphs containing the resolutions most people actually used back then.

 

[Skinwalker]

Please implement the same color palette as the current site. My eyes were bleeding after 1 minute of browsing nuDex.

 

[Reever]

Pretty sure you can just have the option for different font sizes.

 

[Azalin]

Nope, 1600x1200 was already a thing around 2000, let alone 2002. That's what I used to run. 1280x1024 was also a popular resolution.

Most people weren't using those resolutions and sites weren't designed with them in mind. Icewind Dale II in 2002 was the first and only IE game to officially support 800x600, up from 640x480, and Temple of Elemental Evil from 2003 was very obviously designed for a resolution no greater than 800x600.

If I remember correctly the launcher for BG2 had the option to choose various resolution,even higher than 1024x768

Found a screenshot too,it officially supported 640x480 and 800x600,you could go over that but at your own risk

 

[Absinthe]

Bioware engines have always had a talent for moving slowly on tech, and when you're dealing with 2D isometric pixel art the idea of supporting higher resolutions is "hahaha fuck that shit" because it means drawing extra higher res version sets of fucking everything. Meanwhile Quake 3 Arena came out in 1999 and supported 1600x1200 and even 2048x1536.

"Yeah sure you can go this high" doesn't mean that people did. Also I edited my post with graphs containing the resolutions most people actually used back then.

Yeah, monitor reuse was and still is huge. 1024x768 and 800x600 were very popular resolutions those days, although you were also still dealing with people on 56k connections back then, even though they should really have upgraded to a DSL or better. Also a lot of pages just expanded to full width anyway. Also, those statistics are just counting w3schools's own statistics of its own users back then, which it cautions is not necessarily a representative sample of anything outside their own userbase, and pretending it accounts for the general internet, which is precisely not how you're supposed to do statistics. Basically all those numbers are worthless. Meanwhile according to this site, 18% of internet surfers were already above 1024x768 as of 2002. Who knows how accurate these guys are either, but at least they seem to have tried to get an actually representative sample of general internet browsing usage.

 

[Roguey]

Yeah, monitor reuse was and still is huge. 1024x768 and 800x600 were very popular resolutions those days, although you were also still dealing with people on 56k connections back then, even though they should really have upgraded to a DSL or better. Also a lot of pages just expanded to full width anyway. Also, those statistics are just counting w3schools's own statistics of its own users back then, which it cautions is not necessarily a representative sample of anything outside their own userbase, and pretending it accounts for the entire internet. Meanwhile according to this site, 18% of internet surfers were already above 1024x768 as of 2002.

Right well here's some more definitive proof:

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/wanted-codex-website-re-design.28531

We're not going to set any visual requirements. Just that it should have the content that's currently on the page and it should look good. Oh, except that it has to fit 1024 x 768 resolution too.

Even in 2008 Codex was intended for 1024x768.

 

[Humbaba]

Besides all that, even the other source supports Pieroguey's claim

The finding has important implications for web site designers because most web sites are designed for a screen resolution of 800 x 600 pixels.

 

[Absinthe]

Right well here's some more definitive proof:

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/wanted-codex-website-re-design.28531

We're not going to set any visual requirements. Just that it should have the content that's currently on the page and it should look good. Oh, except that it has to fit 1024 x 768 resolution too.

Even in 2008 Codex was intended for 1024x768.

No, that's treating 1024x768 as a bare minimum the site should display properly on. A lot of websites had layouts that would work fine on higher resolutions by design, but they had to make sure it wouldn't break on a certain lowest common denominator for usability purposes. Hell I made a website in early 2000 where basically anyone with a resolution under 1024x768 could get bent.

Besides all that, even the other source supports Pieroguey's claim

The finding has important implications for web site designers because most web sites are designed for a screen resolution of 800 x 600 pixels.

Maybe so, but you forgot something: Gaming websites gave fewer fucks about that sort of thing. If you were a gamer, it was expected you had a better display than people who were just using old PCs to run Word 97, read e-mail, and maybe visit the occasional website (but usually not too often because low-end users were using their phone lines to connect to the internet which could get a bit expensive and would tie up your phone line). Gamers were probably the biggest group you could expect to have higher-end computers with better displays than the average internet user. Gaming websites were also generally more interested in looking good than just being low-end friendly.

 

[Roguey]

No, that's treating 1024x768 as a bare minimum the site should display properly on. A lot of websites had layouts that would work fine on higher resolutions by design, but they had to make sure it wouldn't break on a certain lowest common denominator for usability purposes. Hell I made a website in early 2000 where basically anyone with a resolution under 1024x768 could get bent.

Well the font size certainly wasn't chosen with the intent of looking right only for the minority of high resolution-using browsers. Back in the early 00s it looked just like any other forum (here are the Black Isle boards not looking out of place compared to 2002 Codex) and now it doesn't because its font is stuck in 2002 while every other actively maintained site adjusted (e.g. the Obsidian forums which are now pretty dead activity-wise, but at least they don't get warnings from Google).

 

[Absinthe]

Well the font size certainly wasn't chosen with the intent of looking right only for the minority of high resolution-using browsers. Back in the early 00s it looked just like any other forum (here are the Black Isle boards not looking out of place compared to 2002 Codex) and now it doesn't because its font is stuck in 2002 while every other actively maintained site adjusted (e.g. the Obsidian forums which are now pretty dead activity-wise, but at least they don't get warnings from Google).

Obsidian forums look like they went with that Web 3.0 mobile-friendly vertical, wasteful layout and destroyed their usercount. Anyway, you're right that 13px font wasn't chosen for the exclusive appreciation of higher resolution users, but the idea that for the longest time it was really just a font seen through the eyes of 1024x768 users is off. Fact is, a lot of us were looking at websites using higher screen resolutions than that.

 

[prengle]

How about you zoom out?

Top examples: sites with fonts for people with normal vision
Second from the bottom: a site made for ants with ant vision
Bottom image: a site made for slightly bigger ants; regular-sized ants react with hostility, claim it's too large

ok let's go down the list then:

• sa uses a font size of 15px, is gay and bad
  
• kf uses 1.1rem/roughly 17px, the biggest out of any example here, although the serif font josh is using looks pretty shitty at a smaller size
• nu-reddit uses 14px, the same as the codex redesign. the old one uses "x-small" and looks better. why would you ever use the reddit redesign as a positive example
  
• twitter: 15px, has a shitty mobile layout which is exactly the same on desktop. again, how is this a good example
  
• 4chan: 10pt which translates to 13px aka the current codex's font size, looks fine
• old codex: 13 px, looks objectively superior. the lighter blue background on every other post might make those posts slightly harder to read
  
• new codex: 14px, font is slightly harder to read, line spacing looks odd and the pale-blue-on-dark-bluish-gray makes certain parts of the ui harder to make out

conclusion: rougey and du are both rapidly aging goons who can't read anything online anymore unless it's in 72px comic sans. i'm blind and i can read smaller fonts just fine if i wear my fucking glasses. please just magnify the goddamn pages for yourselves so the rest of us don't have to suffer

I

the new design, I never thought you could use webdesign to induce this much butthurt

if someone moves something on my desk by a centimeter, no matter how insignificant, i will simply throw the entire fucking desk at them in return. an eye for an eye

 

[Modron]

In nushoutbox make it so if someone creates their own room they can't join the main room.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I thought we were past cringe late 90s / early 00s forum layouts. The Codex is gonna look like one of those places where hambeasts would share their Sephiroth fanfic and get into fights over whose husband he was.

 

[Rincewind]

Roguey is right about the screen size vs font size trends over time. All you people who can read the current codex at 100% zoom on a 24" 1080p screen from a normal viewing distance (about arms length), well, good for you, but eventually you'll turn 30, 40, etc. and your eyesight will deteriorate too.

I'm using 110% magnification by default as fonts tend to be small on most websites, but for the codex I'm using 133% right now so it's comfortable, *and* I'm wearing glasses. At 100%, no way I'm able to read it without significant eyestrain.

This font size would've been fine for a 21" monitor at 1024x768 or something, that's about it.

My criticism is only about the overall design, I welcome font size changes, that's long overdue. In any case, it's not a big deal as you can just adjust your browser's zoom control, so I'm perfectly happy with the current design too.

 

[Rincewind]

For the record, this is a forum I'm 100% happy with. The design is minimalistic, functional, to the point, it doesn't try to ape current design trends (no rounded edges), and the font size is just perfect at 100% resolution. Yet it looks modern enough.

https://www.amigalove.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=41

By the way, the owner of this website is a designer, probably that has something to do with it.

 

[Rincewind]

• old codex: 13 px, looks objectively superior. the lighter blue background on every other post might make those posts slightly harder to read

• new codex: 14px, font is slightly harder to read, line spacing looks odd and the pale-blue-on-dark-bluish-gray makes certain parts of the ui harder to make out

Actually, I think the new one should default to 16px, as is the recommended *minimum* standard. The AmigaLove website I linked above uses 1.6em, which translates to 16px, and is just perfect. I wouldn't mind 17px either, but 15px is getting a bit too small for me.

However, I see no reason why there couldn't be a "small" or "extra small" option if that's what some people like.

 

[Roguey]

For the record, this is a forum I'm 100% happy with. The design is minimalistic, functional, to the point, it doesn't try to ape current design trends (no rounded edges), and the font size is just perfect at 100% resolution. Yet it looks modern enough.

https://www.amigalove.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=41

By the way, the owner of this website is a designer, probably that has something to do with it.

Looks all right except for the circular avatars, that's a modern thing I don't like.

 

[Rincewind]

Looks all right except for the circular avatars, that's a modern thing I don't like.

I don't mind it, but for the codex keeping the current square avatars would be better. Another thing is that while I don't mind the black-on-white text, at least a dark option would be nice.

I think it would be best to keep the current colour scheme for the new site as the default, but also provide a "light" option.

 

[Alienman]

For the record, this is a forum I'm 100% happy with. The design is minimalistic, functional, to the point, it doesn't try to ape current design trends (no rounded edges), and the font size is just perfect at 100% resolution. Yet it looks modern enough.

https://www.amigalove.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=41

By the way, the owner of this website is a designer, probably that has something to do with it.

It's still so damn big, though. It's also way too white and sterile for me. And are all of you half blind or something? I'm nearing my 40s, eyesight have deteriorated a bit, yet, I have no problem at all reading the site. Actually, Codex is one of the few remaining sites that don't have text that cover half the screen just for a few sentences, and it looks good to boot.

 

[Wunderbar]

I don't understand people who complain about font being too small. This isn't a small font issue, it's an issue of having too much wasted vertical space.

 

[SerratedBiz]

Don't change the Codex, I don't like change.