Site Feedback Layout customisation ?

H

huolesoh

Bluelighter
Joined
May 29, 2011
Messages
440
one of the reasons i always liked Bluelight was the clean, pixel design; you could even say it's a good representation for the clarity of thought that goes on here
much nicer then many other tacky or badly mashed together forums

put simply, i'm not sure about this design; gradients everywhere, and greys?

just wondered if there might be plans to make it more customisable for the user

but top job on fixing everything behind the scenes! and no archive was lost, this is very very good. i'm sure many will appreciate it, myself included :)
 
Even though there's already a large thread dedicated to upgrade issues, since this one is brand new I'm going to use it to address the "look" of the site.

Firstly, to those saying it's the default skin... well actually, that's kind of like a dig in itself because it's definitely not!

The lack of preparation leading up to the upgrade was probably most exposed when it comes to this issue. That is, only when the site and database had been upgraded did we look deeper into the old BL skin to find that it's author had not deigned it worthy of upgrading to the new version of the board software.

With not much time to do it in, the admins were told to find a suitable skin, the only condition being it had to have some blue in it =D. This was the one they agreed on, we purchased it and threw it on the site. We're customising on top of that skin, with every customisation we tie ourselves further to it so with the work we've already done, turning around and choosing a different skin would be time-consuming. On the other hand, those customisations are also going to give the skin a bit more of a personal touch until it becomes the BL that we expect to see and use every day.

For those who would suggest we just upgrade the old skin ourselves, from an engineering perspective, it's a bit like trying to take the exterior of a ten year old car and fit it over the internals of the next generation of that model. It's certainly possible but none of us have the weeks or even months it might take to do it.

Design wise, the biggest hurdle is that the old design was table-based whereas the new format (and web standard) is to use CSS-based layouts. It doesn't mean we can't try and approximate the old skin but really... why live in the past? Unlike a lot of you, I can actually see a copy of the old site and do hear where people are coming from in regards to the aesthetic princple, but we put years and years into that skin, this one is barely a week old. Being put in a situation where we had to abandon the old skin drags us kicking and screaming a little closer towards the present.

Web design principles and practices, like all fickle and artsy things change over time and if we upgrade the site in another five years time, the design principles the next skin will be based on will be entirely different. Gradients, greys, bevelled corners... yeah this skin has all the current things those lame Apple people at work like. That's just what the kids want now. =D
 
thanks for the in depth reply! in retrospect i feel a bit of a twit, i've only been here a few months (on a different account) and feel i underappreciated the service provided here

glad to hear this skin is not set in stone though! after reading your car analogy, i understand what you mean about how complicated fitting the skin on top of a new system is, especially when the old skin was based upon a completely different language, so to speak. add to this the pressure to change in a short space of time...
...and i think i just noticed the post count updates itself live? this is a nice touch

yes, i keep seeing simple gradients all over the internet! i'd always hoped they'd fade out along with microsoft's "wordart"! perhaps to make way for favor of flat vectors... im sure a slight change of colours, a bit of time, and some user feedback will bring this one to life :)
 
That's cool that you can customise it. The only problem I really had with it is that, by default, it's huge! Zooming out a couple of times, it's fine. I tend to mostly read the text not look at the bevelled corners anyway :D Again, good work!
 
Hoptis, vbulletin 4 has a style generator that migrates your old skin to this version of vbulletin.
 
Mander said:
Hoptis, vbulletin 4 has a style generator that migrates your old skin to this version of vbulletin.
Click to expand...

If that's really the case, you may wanna send a PM to hoptis about that, you are able to PM him even though you're a GLer, because that might be something really useful.

Also, thank you hoptis for that explanation...I'm getting used to the new skin, and people hate change, but given the circumstance it seems that the best decision was made --- pick the least awful one and get BL up and running, because having it down for so long isn't safe (LOTS of harm reduction information available on here!) and then deal with tweaking it to make it work. And, I'm on my MacBook Pro by the way :) I actually enjoy the way my mac OS is set up compared to previous windows ones (I don't have much experience with windows 7 so I can't judge) and most of Apple's allure is "it's pretty :)" %)
 
Post originally from Renamed: Upgrade Discussion Thread.

Perhaps we can keep discussion of the design/layout to this thread?

jancrow said:
Yes, PM me.

Also, can anything be done about the width of the column with username / avatar / join date etc in it? It takes up a freakish amount of space at the mo (running Chrome).

Other gripes:

Word wrap in post editor not working.

Old skin used alternating colours for previous posts so that when posting you could tell where posts started and stopped in the list below the edit window... can that be changed? It's well confusing as it stands.

Quote / reply buttons ugly as sin. The shine is distracting for drug users. Can they go non-graphical like the submit / previews ? Or see my first line.

Good things:

Speed

Auto Save

It's back!
Click to expand...

Word Wrap - will check it out but I've been pasting large slabs in there (with no carriage returns) and it appears to be wrapping properly. What's your browser and OS?

Alternating colors in previous posts in Topic Review on the Advanced Reply page - noticed this last night, obviously the skin designer didn't consult a usability expert or just missed it because it's bordering on useless at the moment.

Quote/reply buttons (and the logo): I asked a designer I used to work with about the logo. I mean I asked her to "check out my site" and told her I did the logo myself trying to drop hints but she didn't get what I meant... they really don't work for free. I took the font and pill from the old site, unfortunately we don't have originals so the pill had to be pixel edited and that was painful enough as it is. Quote/Reply buttons came with the skin.

Look, as of right this minute, Bluelight is accepting applications for a graphic designer. You'll be paid in having a custom title and a year's supply of skinny jeans. We'll supply all the pirated Adobe software you'll need to call yourself Bluelight's Artistic Director... please apply by sending me a PM with links to at least three gaming forums that you've skinned. :)

Mander said:
Hoptis, vbulletin 4 has a style generator that migrates your old skin to this version of vbulletin.
Click to expand...

Just had a look at it, it doesn't migrate it's just a glorified color picker, even if there was something that could convert a vb3 skin to vb4, I don't think a computer is capable of converting a table-based layout to a CSS one. We wouldn't want to stay with tables, the internet is moving away from that. Also software that smart would likely take over and kill us all.
 
Last edited:
hoptis said:
Perhaps we can keep discussion of the design/layout to this thread?



Word Wrap - will check it out but I've been pasting large slabs in there (with no carriage returns) and it appears to be wrapping properly. What's your browser and OS?
Click to expand...

Chrome, does the same thing on Ubuntu and Win XP, can check on OSX later if you want.

Just had a look at it, it doesn't migrate it's just a glorified color picker, even if there was something that could convert a vb3 skin to vb4, I don't think a computer is capable of converting a table-based layout to a CSS one. We wouldn't want to stay with tables, the internet is moving away from that. Also software that smart would likely take over and kill us all.
Click to expand...

You're right, the tables > CSS move had to be made at some point and there's no way I'd trust software to do that on a site this size without paid staff to babysit it.

I'll PM ya about gfx.
 
The 'report post' button needs changing. It looks like the 'multi-quote' button.

The grey bar above each post also has a button that 'hides' the post from view - which is kinda redundant and just adds bulk.
 
huolesoh said:
one of the reasons i always liked Bluelight was the clean, pixel design; you could even say it's a good representation for the clarity of thought that goes on here
much nicer then many other tacky or badly mashed together forums

put simply, i'm not sure about this design; gradients everywhere, and greys?

just wondered if there might be plans to make it more customisable for the user

but top job on fixing everything behind the scenes! and no archive was lost, this is very very good. i'm sure many will appreciate it, myself included :)
Click to expand...

Agreed on top job to our admins and engineers; thank you very muchly. :)

I can already tell this server kicks much more ass. Not a single blip yet (knocks on organic wooden desk); hehe, bluelight's skin has always been inorganic and sterile, just wanted to poke fun.

The main reason I have to say I like the old skin more is a purely utilitarian one. This skin is much more graphically intense and spread out. The old skin was able to fit a lot more bluelight on the screen. As someone else said, BLing on a netbook now would be much more tight; I even feel the tightness on my laptop. That's my main concern.

If we can get the scale of the old skin back I think that would fix my woes with the new skin. I just wanted to express my view. I don't expect anyone to go jumping right this moment and I thank you very much for all the work you've done :)
 
the white has got to go..something a little softer in the eyes would be key
 
I'd quip "Your future is bright, you should wear shades", or joke that the upgrade is part of the 3D craze with media these days and the new theme is part of our 3D experience...but I'd be only joking...mostly.

There are several issues we need to address for security and operational stability. Once those are in place, yes, we can look at the skin and color scheme. Until then, wear shades.
 
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