BYOND Forums - BYOND Discussion - New site colors, minor layout foo.

#40 Jan 29 2012, 4:37 am In response to LordAndrew (#7)
OrangeWeapons	LordAndrew wrote: Those don't really seem relevant to anything though. Who cares what gender a person? Um...erm...hahahahahaha~! Well, you see, when looking to mate, you should seek out a female.

#41 Jan 29 2012, 4:38 am

In response to SuperAntx (#38)

OrangeWeapons

SuperAntx wrote:

This is a nice improvement, but it could still use a little tweaking.

1) Only unread posts should have the orange header. Read posts should be #BAC3C7.
2) The page navigation at the bottom of the thread is too close to the bottom post.
3) Add another set of breadcrumbs to the bottom of a thread to make navigation easier.

Also, I think this area needs updating. It's an artifact from the old layout and clashes with all the new stuff.

Really? I like consistency in colors and visual layout.

The Extend your Membership color looks a bit odd.

Besides that, I don't see the problem with that graphic. I've come to accept it into my heart using BYOND since that update!

#42 Jan 29 2012, 5:26 am (Edited on Jan 29 2012, 5:33 am)
EmpirezTeam	You should have changed the color of the text too. You have dark blue and orange on dark shades of gray now, so it looks too dull and lifeless. Find a brighter shade of orange and blue so the text stands out and is easier to read. [Edit] Actually I just edited it and I think it's the huge blank space that's making it look dull. It should be white, but its actually light gray color.

#43 Jan 29 2012, 5:45 am

SuperAntx

It's not just the graphic itself, it's the overall design of the whole thing. The curved folder tab not only wastes space, the round edges clash with the generally angular, boxed layout. The extra sunburst orange stuff just adds unnecessary colors to an already crowded color palette. Like I said before, it's only there because it's from the old layout.

Something like this would be better. The idea is to get rid of all that wasted space so you can see more page content. Move the member stuff into the top bar login/registration link and use that space for promoting the software on every page you see.

That second search bar is still cluttering things up but I can't think of a good way to get rid of it.

#44 Jan 29 2012, 6:35 am (Edited on Jan 29 2012, 6:44 am)
Falacy	Good job, Aaiko. I'm glad the 'New post' type text has finally been turned into noticeable buttons.

#45 Jan 29 2012, 6:38 am

In response to SuperAntx (#43)

OrangeWeapons

SuperAntx wrote:

It's not just the graphic itself, it's the overall design of the whole thing. The curved folder tab not only wastes space, the round edges clash with the generally angular, boxed layout. The extra sunburst orange stuff just adds unnecessary colors to an already crowded color palette. Like I said before, it's only there because it's from the old layout.

Something like this would be better. The idea is to get rid of all that wasted space so you can see more page content. Move the member stuff into the top bar login/registration link and use that space for promoting the software on every page you see.

That second search bar is still cluttering things up but I can't think of a good way to get rid of it.

Yeah, I get what you mean. Although I'd rather see what is on the bottom of the page (Download - About BYOND - Terms of Service - Contact Us) in that box instead.

#46 Jan 29 2012, 7:09 am

In response to Falacy (#44)

SuperAntx

Falacy wrote:

Good job, Aaiko. I'm glad the 'New post' type text has finally been turned into noticeable buttons.

I feel the exact opposite. The forum buttons look like programmer art from 1995.

OrangeWeapons wrote:

Yeah, I get what you mean. Although I'd rather see what is on the bottom of the page (Download - About BYOND - Terms of Service - Contact Us) in that box instead.

If it was down there nobody would see it.

#47 Jan 29 2012, 7:11 am (Edited on Jan 29 2012, 7:17 am) In response to SuperAntx (#46)
Falacy	SuperAntx wrote: I feel the exact opposite. The forum buttons look like programmer art from 1995. I think they look pretty nice, with their rounded edges and shadowy background. Regardless, they're surely better than the barely noticeable plain text [New post] links that used to be.

#48 Jan 29 2012, 7:21 am In response to Falacy (#47)
SuperAntx	Falacy wrote: I think they look pretty nice, with their rounded edges and shadowy background. Regardless, they're surely better than the barely noticeable plain text [New post] links that used to be. Oh, nevermind. I thought you were referring to the quote/reply/edit buttons. Would it really be too much to just pay a professional $20 to draw a nice set of buttons?

#49 Jan 29 2012, 7:29 am In response to SuperAntx (#48)
Falacy	SuperAntx wrote: Oh, nevermind. I thought you were referring to the quote/reply/edit buttons. Would it really be too much to just pay a professional $20 to draw a nice set of buttons? I actually made a feature request about those a short while ago =P

#50 Jan 29 2012, 8:07 am

Forum_account

Everything still has a #999999 border around it. The site used to have far too many borders but it didn't look as bad because most things had a white background. At least the border served a purpose. You can use borders, color changes, and shadows to separate parts of the page, but you don't need to use all three every time.

I'm guessing that each post in this thread is a table with three cells (an orange cell across the top with the post # and time, a dark gray one on the next row with the poster's name and icon, and a lighter gray one with the post). There's a 1px #999 border around each cell *and* a 1px #999 border around the whole post which creates a 2px border around the outside and a 1px border on the inside. There are already too many techniques being used to separate things, you don't need a variety of border widths too.

Hub entries would look a lot better if you got rid of these borders around titles (ex: "Waiting List", "Recent Medals", "Comments", etc.). Those titles are different colors and have shadows around them, they don't need the 1px #999 borders too.

#51 Jan 29 2012, 8:10 am
Shadow813	I like the new color scheme better then just WHITE everywhere.

#52 Jan 29 2012, 8:14 am

In response to SuperAntx (#46)

OrangeWeapons

SuperAntx wrote:

Falacy wrote:

Good job, Aaiko. I'm glad the 'New post' type text has finally been turned into noticeable buttons.

I feel the exact opposite. The forum buttons look like programmer art from 1995.

OrangeWeapons wrote:

Yeah, I get what you mean. Although I'd rather see what is on the bottom of the page (Download - About BYOND - Terms of Service - Contact Us) in that box instead.

If it was down there nobody would see it.

Instead of a DOWNLOAD button.

#53 Jan 29 2012, 8:21 am In response to Shadow813 (#51)
Kaigne	But now it looks like there is to much grey.

#54 Jan 29 2012, 2:12 pm
Kisioj	I don't like this new color theme at all. :( I prefer the old one.

#55 Jan 29 2012, 2:57 pm
Branks	If you don't like the layout colors, then go to View > Page Style > No Style. Quick fix for the Negative Nancys. It is what it is.

#56 Jan 29 2012, 4:45 pm (Edited on Jan 29 2012, 5:21 pm)

In response to Forum_account (#50)

Aaiko

Forum_account wrote:

Everything still has a #999999 border around it. The site used to have far too many borders but it didn't look as bad because most things had a white background. At least the border served a purpose. You can use borders, color changes, and shadows to separate parts of the page, but you don't need to use all three every time.

I'm guessing that each post in this thread is a table with three cells (an orange cell across the top with the post # and time, a dark gray one on the next row with the poster's name and icon, and a lighter gray one with the post). There's a 1px #999 border around each cell *and* a 1px #999 border around the whole post which creates a 2px border around the outside and a 1px border on the inside. There are already too many techniques being used to separate things, you don't need a variety of border widths too.

Hub entries would look a lot better if you got rid of these borders around titles (ex: "Waiting List", "Recent Medals", "Comments", etc.). Those titles are different colors and have shadows around them, they don't need the 1px #999 borders too.

The borders actually do serve a purpose, and I personally like everything better with them (I tried without borders and everything bled together and it didn't look good), they just didn't implement the borders properly. Too many borders in some places like the double borders on some title boxes and around these posts, and then not enough borders like around some places on the games page, hub page, and forum list.

But there's still a lot of stuff from the old layout and a lot of stuff that can be improved, so I'm sure they're not done yet.

Edit: The #999 borders could probably be lightened some, though.

#57 Jan 29 2012, 6:35 pm
Aaiko	Here's my (probably last) mockup of the games page with lighter borders, a darker orange, and other minor changes here and there. http://iccusion.com/byond/games/ It's far from a completed design, but I think it's a step in the right direction without having to do anything too major.

#58 Jan 29 2012, 6:38 pm In response to Aaiko (#57)
Kumorii	I think this looks excellent except for the bar to the right looks funny without some sort of border.