Forum Design (banners, themes)

Topics about or relating to the forum itself and how it's run.
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Allan
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Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by Allan » 19 Jul 2012 10:55

The "Look & Feel" of the forums is actually quite flexible. Some people have said that they're not happy with the recent change in theme when the board was upgraded. Two things are apparent: there's no banner, and the general colors & layout leave something to be desired.

Personally I think the current theme is a significant step up from the old one, but I do think that there is room for improvement. This is just the stock theme that every phpBB3 install uses, and it is very changeable. Check out the phpBB Styles directory. The "Styles Demo for phpBB" link is good for strolling through the options. There are a lot of them. Suggest your favorite? Perhaps a separate thread could be created for a vote on the top 3-4 themes?

There's currently no graphical banner. I think all of the old ones were terrible, and I think we should accept submissions and vote for a single winner. It's possible to do a rotating banner like before, but I'm not sure if I would recommend this unless we get some seriously good options. In my opinion, we're better off getting one solid one and sticking with it.

Thoughts?

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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by C-Fan » 19 Jul 2012 11:06

I don't care if we have a single banner, or rotating banners, but I definitely want something that's new and looks sharper.

As for forum styles, I like Aktif.

I think regardless of what style we go with, it will take users a couple days to get used to the layout, and then I'm sure it'll be just like before.

For now, the two most pressing concerns I have with the new forums are

1. Embedding videos
2. Making it harder for spambots to get on the site.

Overall though, I think this is going to be a huge improvement. Thank you for doing this Allan!

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Allan
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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by Allan » 19 Jul 2012 11:26

C-Fan wrote:I don't care if we have a single banner, or rotating banners, but I definitely want something that's new and looks sharper.

As for forum styles, I like Aktif.
Aktif? Ugh. I think that one's terribly garrish :) Then again, I think they're almost all garrish. But if we used Aktif, I'd likely have to stop visiting the forums ;)

I like "Afterburner" and "Modestus." One thing to consider with these styles is that the more graphically heavy ones will load slower ...

Another thing to note is that I think the forums support user-chosen styles. So, I can install several, and each user can choose which of the options they want to use. All we'd have to actually decide on is the default style that gets shown to not-logged-in users. I'll do a bit of investigation on this and we'll see what happens.

C-Fan wrote:I think regardless of what style we go with, it will take users a couple days to get used to the layout, and then I'm sure it'll be just like before.
Agreed.
C-Fan wrote: For now, the two most pressing concerns I have with the new forums are

1. Embedding videos
2. Making it harder for spambots to get on the site.
I'm working on the embedded videos thing. I really, really wish I had known about the parsing of the bbcodes before I ran the conversion, but it's too late now. The script that's supposed to go through and convert all the existing tags keeps crashing and doesn't give me any indication about how long it's going to take (but I've already spent several hours babysitting it). It sucks. But eventually I think it will work. Posting new videos will just work as it did before, so it's only not working in videos in posts older than yesterday ...

As for the spam bots, since I turned on the "Q&A" captcha plugin, there's not been a single spammer come through. Before, with the default plugin enabled, I was getting several submissions come through every 10 minutes or so. So far, there haven't been any in over an hour. If this works and we go a few days without anything getting through, then perhaps I'll turn the "user activated" registration option back on and stop acting as a bottle neck.


C-Fan wrote:Overall though, I think this is going to be a huge improvement. Thank you for doing this Allan!
You're welcome :)

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Allan
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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by Allan » 19 Jul 2012 12:19

You should now be able to go to your user control panel and, under board preferences, change the theme. I've included aktif for Ken and another option. I've not yet customized each one, so the generic "phpbb" logo will still show. Once we settle on, say, 2-3 options, I can go through and tweak each one slightly so it's got a proper logo. If you want to see a particular theme as an option, speak up.

But before we do that, we should decide on the default theme, and have a banner to use for that theme. If we get a good enough banner, the current theme might just do quite well, though I have to say that I'm really not a fan of its animated indictors.

I might give the banner a try myself. I'm not a graphic designer, but ...

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Allan
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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by Allan » 19 Jul 2012 14:09

I had the idea that these banners that we've been talking about could serve a greater purpose than just adding some graphic "pop." They could be advertisements or news (upcoming events etc). I think that these bits should only be specifically dedicated to footbag, and they should run for free. I would also like them to be non-profit in nature, but if someone wants to tackle the complicated issue of commercial ads, have at it. I'd rather not be involved at that point, but this isn't my show. I would do my best to facilitate whatever the community decides, but I don't want to handle any money and the politics that go with that.

To facilitate the process of choosing what goes up, I think a new forum should be created, and each thread would be an application for a specific advertiser/idea/news/event. Got a graphic you want to see up there? Post about it. We can make up the rules as we go along. We could run polls or have an editor (or group of editors.) It doesn't have to be complicated.

There would be some technical limits that I'd have some control over, but I think I'd set it up so that the ads could run in a set of, say, 3-5 at a time, where a different one would show on each page load (kind of like before, but each one actually means something). Or just one at a time for a specific time period ... ??

Does anyone else think that this is a good idea?

I've started it out with an example of what I mean with the WFC image and link to the World's site ...

edited for clarity

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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by F[uns]tylin' Eclectic » 19 Jul 2012 16:09

That is a cool idea. I already clicked on the link to the worlds site by accident and it was delightfully surprising that it linked me! I dig that idea, Allan.

Also, I checked out a lot of the layouts and my favorite is "Artodia Elegance Black" because number one, it reminds me of something Flipsider could have had on their site a while ago. When a new player looks that that background with a sweet banner advertising for Worlds or something, I can easily see them getting drawn in. Also, it reminds me of that black/green pair of Lavers that came out a little while ago :wink: But I think that color combination catches the eye and instead of some "bland blue and white" background, new players see vibrant, exciting green with black. Anyone else agree?
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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by Muffinman » 19 Jul 2012 17:14

I think the Modestus one looks good -- kinda like how Modified used to look.
I also thought Avalon looked okay. I think more plain is better. Lots of bold colours and bad design doesn't really look appropriate. I found it a bit cumbersome to browse the different styles available, though, so I didn't look at too many, but I didn't like most of them.

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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by jay7 » 20 Jul 2012 05:00

In terms of layout, I personally feel like the avatar/user information is nice to have on the left side of the screen. Every forum I've frequented, and randomly browsed through, seems to have it that way, as well as "the old modified". I just feel the immediate response of reading from the top left doesn't instantly let you recognize the poster with this setup.

Am I the only one with this feeling? I assume it wouldn't be a difficult change, but, I also don't have a clue.
Jay Boychuk

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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by C-Fan » 20 Jul 2012 06:35

I agree with Jay on the page orientation thing. It was jarring at first, and I thought I'd get used to it, but it still looks weird to me.

I also think Allan's idea to have banners that link to events is a great idea.

I think it's great that change is happening, and taking us in new directions. Definitely buying Allan a beer next time I see him (USO?) for his efforts.

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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by Allan » 20 Jul 2012 14:25

I flipped it. Better?

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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by Muffinman » 20 Jul 2012 16:23

That was the main thing bothering me too. It seems to still be on the right for me now, though. Like it hasn't changed for me since the BB-something-3 update.

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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by Zac Miley » 21 Jul 2012 15:09

This is rad, Allan.

As a halfway-designer-guy, though, I will have to say that the font chosen for 'modified.in' is absolutely horrendous.
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Allan
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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by Allan » 21 Jul 2012 17:26

Everybody's got an opinion ;) I spent about 5 minutes scrolling through http://google.com/webfonts. Pick one from there that you like better and suggest it?

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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by F[uns]tylin' Eclectic » 22 Jul 2012 13:05

One more opinion... I talked to my room mate, Ivan this week and we were talking about the modifications on modified. We both agreed that "Footblogs" should be up higher toward the top. I feel like "Videos" and "Footblogs" are the 2 sections that are posted in the most. Anyone second that?
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Allan
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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by Allan » 22 Jul 2012 13:15

I did just move footblogs up about 5-6 forums already, just a couple of days ago ... further?

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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by Muffinman » 22 Jul 2012 15:51

Yeah, I feel that if it were to be moved around the top 4 should be:
Getting Started
Trick Tips
General Footbag
Shred Symposium

Then:
Videos
Footblogs

Then:
everything else.
I think Online Comps could be moved down, especially since there hasn't been much activity in there, really, in years...
Well, I think this order is the best for how important or how frequently used the forums are (footblogs are definitely more popular, but those top four have really pertinent info for new visitors to the forums/new players), but I think previously they were kind of organized in groups that made sense together, which is also good. I'm not sure which is more important. Maybe if the groups of forums were more clearly defined or something. Like, and not just "Footbag Frenzy" and "Kickin It". Other forums I've visited have more categories/headings and it seems to make sense the way they're organized.

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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by Anz » 23 Jul 2012 06:06

I'm not sure if this is the right thread to ask this, but is there a possibility to have a mobile version for Modified?
"m.modified.in" where there wouldn't be any pictures. There's not a lot of data now, and mobile phones load the pages pretty quickly now, but it's annoying to read the posts with the profile pictures loading and taking up the space etc.
If it's not hard to do this, it'd be nice to have it.

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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by Allan » 23 Jul 2012 10:52

Anz wrote: is there a possibility to have a mobile version for Modified?
Yup! See the details:
http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=23093

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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by rjadamson » 25 Jul 2012 00:10

Am I the only one who doesn't mind the default theme?

I think for a forum like this something very minimal is most appropriate. "Proglass" is a subtle variation of the default style.

I would shoot for finding one style such as this and then simply downloading a few different colored variations of it instead of choosing many different styles. I foresee having multiple styles lead to formatting issues (like the forum logo being centered on one theme but off-set on another, and that throwing the other banners off or causing other miscellaneous aesthetic problems) that no one really wants to deal with.

Honestly I think some homemade improvements to the existing theme would be fine -- the icons for things like new posts in a thread could totally be turned into little footbags (gray scale for threads with no new posts and colored for active threads) by someone with a little bit of talent in the design department. Just an idea.

I too am glad to be rid of the old banners. I am in favor of having them look somewhat official. I like the advertisement for Worlds 2012. Ideally we could just keep swapping this out for images promoting other upcoming events. Assuming that we won't be able to cook up a slick banner for every single jam a month down the road I think going back to some sort of rotating system would be best (unless someone really wants to invest themselves into making a legitimate logo for the modified.in forums). It could be as simple as some nice shots of players hitting whirls (or some other photogenic tricks), but for instance it'd also be cool if each image could also have its own link -- so if a footbag club has a logo and a footblog/website that could be part of the rotation too. I'm sure Freedom Footbags wouldn't mind some free advertising either!

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Allan
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Re: Forum Design (banners, themes)

Post by Allan » 25 Jul 2012 09:58

As it turns out, the more stuff I look at the more I'm pretty sure that we basically have to stick with the default as it sits (at least with me acting as a technical admin). The thing is, most "mods" are oriented toward working with the default theme (prosilver); so, if we want to do any sort of customization (such as "likes" or mobile theme switching), we will be much better served by sticking with prosilver, since the effort to install such mods is greatly increased (to the extent that I wouldn't even want to try with some themes) if we're running something non-standard.

As well, many of themes that I've tested out so far are terribly half-assed. Even if they look good on the surface (board index, thread view), they invariably have issues like not supporting PMs properly, or the UCP is all messed up, or something that makes it much less desirable to use than the standard.

As it sits, I've made some minor tweaks to prosilver to adjust things to our liking and I think we just need to get used to how it is. If there are reasonable tweak requests, I can certainly accommodate them (such as moving the mini-profiles to the left). I'm going to leave several theme options enabled for users to manually switch to if they so desire, but I don't really know how I feel about making & maintaining tweaks to multiple themes. I can install any theme as an option, but these themes will retain the generic phpBB logos, won't have the banner, and will basically not get any love from me unless there is both good reason and more than one person asking after changes.

Out of time again. I'll follow up later ...

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