Better, than the test site, blander than the past.

[SevenSidedDice]

That is how it has always been.

You're right, that's how it was. I think the grayish line on top of a post helped make it loook better. It looks very abrupt now.
And the black / white lines are also from the previous layout.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

Even if the forum needs it's code updating, or whatever, could it just be made to look like it's old self again? I think it was pretty aesthetic as far as forums go, and pleasantly simple. It had that classic forum type look where hyperlinks look like hyperlinks, posts have good separations, different menus have boundaries, and clickable elements have highlighted borders, etc. I've been on a lot of forums, and in general I think the newer ones, which aim to present a smooth GUI, with borderless lists, sliding menus, are off-putting because the eye has a natural tendeancy to require firm separations, and older websites give more 'tactile' feedback on things.

Couple of friendly suggestions...

To post this image, I couldn't just copy it and paste it; it now requires the oldfashioned URL copying into a dropdown box:

I think the old order for ratings was better:

Can the separation lines between threads when viewing forums be made more apparent, as it almost looks blank on my monitor:

Old:

New:

Similar tasteful design on a WH40K forum:

Also the white outline surrounding links to subsequent pages made them stand out a bit more:

Same goes for the main forum, the lack of separators and stuff makes it look messy:

That large piece of text describing the forum takes up quite a large amount of space. I can't remember how it looked before, but it might have been smaller or something, or maybe this is where "latest thread" was, I can't remember. The new text takes up about 80% of the area, looks blue like a hyperlink, and this potion of the box isn't clickable (meaning that a huge amount of the forum list is completely non-interactive, despite being in the colour of a hyperlink):

I think a lot of minor things like the Alerts box could do with tweaking over time, as for example, the old one presented a much larger clickable element than the new one which separates the hyperlink into "your post" and "[name of thread]", when they worked much better as one link, describing both the thread and also leading to your post.

Old:

New:

[EDIT: Thankyou to whoever made it a fully clickable pane, I don't think it was like that before.]

On the top forum, the eye just kind of slides off things now, especially the chat box for example, which is just kinda an ill-defined thing on the right, with little separating it from everything around it. For example, the chat box's "chat history" portion is the same colour as the rest of the box. There are other things that just make it blend into it's surroundings, but I can't remember the old one very well to contrast them:

Perhaps the colors for text and hyperlinks in the forum list might be something considered for tweaking. For example the shade of blue currently being used for some descriptive text (as seen earlier), as well as usernames beneath a thread, is more typical of hyperlinks, than the white thread titles, which is more typical of plain text. On the old forum, the hierarchy of color was better defined, with bold grey for thread titles (which also looked like a hyperlink color), and lighter near-white for usernames and stuff (the less prominent link):

Old:

New:

It's not a bad selection of colours, but perhaps owing to blue being more of a hyperlink colour, and white being a text colour, the hierarchy of what text is more prominent has been reversed compared to the above example. Also as noted some text in blue is not hyperlinked. Perhaps simply bolding the thread title would make it look better, but experimenting with grey and near-white might be worth it.

 

[Tavar]

Incredible progress in the last 24 hours, a big thanks to everyone involved. My biggest pet peeve at the moment are these two problems in combination:
1. Threads with new posts in them are only marked by bold texts which is too subtle.
2. The watched threads page seems to lack the option to only show threads with new posts in them which we had in the past.

 

[Nevill]

The emoji listings should be changed back to
Brofist x 1

Seconded. The text descriptions for ratings need to go, too. They can be viewed on a tooltip. The point is to determine reactions at a glance, and the old design allowed to have 15 different ratings in a single neat and compact string.

Some of the more "out there" rating descriptions are unnecessarily long and take too much space, like the TL:DR one. Granted, it's on purpose, but it hurts the look.

This is what it looks now. Note the different backgrounds - they look a bit ugly.

Spoiler

And this is the old look. I think it's much better:

Spoiler

 

[Tacgnol]

I just noticed that subthreads are appearing under the main sections again. Thanks to whoever got that fixed.

Great work in general. Tons of stuff has been fixed since yesterday.

 

[conan_edw]

Now ratings overflow some of the text when there's too many of them.

Image

Edit: Fixed

 

[Louis_Cypher]

Thankyou to whoever put separators between threads in the sub-forums, that looks way better

 

[Twiglard]

What the fuck?

 

[Darth Roxor]

yeah watching a video about diablo iv, now that's just degenerate

 

[Jenkem]

Why it say brofist again insteat of rating or whatever

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I am impressed by how much positive changes has been implemented since yesterday. Through, I must say how much I dislike how generic sitting troll used for avatar for people without avatar has been changed into generic autogenerated first letter of an user name. The former approach added to the atmosphere, the latter is diminishing it.

 

[Ryzer]

Also add view ignore list...

 

[Jenkem]

Make sure to sign up for push notifications!!!

 

[thesheeep]

Agree about the positive changes.
I just wonder why this wasn't done in some kind of testing server beforehand, working on some old-ish data backup.
You know, add a button at the top "click here to beta test our new forum, you filthy peasants"... instead of just going live with the most bare bones thing possible

 

[SevenSidedDice]

MASSIVE improvements in the last four hours. Thanks for adding back the red background for the new post marker.

I think the emoji bar could still be 15-20% larger.

And please make the donut super-sized.

 

[Twiglard]

Just look at the old style and recreate it in XF2.

That essentially entails rewriting half the forum software to make it look exactly like you want. For no reason beyond that.

I'll probably edit the thread list template like I did the post template as the level of customization is at its limits (see below for the folder icon).

.is-unread .structItem-title a[href$="/unread"]:before {
    content: url("/forums/styles/rpgcodex/folder_new.gif");
    position: absolute;
    width: 18px;
    height: 15px;
    margin-left: -16px;
    margin-top: 2px;
}

There are multiple things going on and it kind of works by accident:

- the above '''''clever''''' thread icon
- thread tags (i.e. colored box) aligning to the right with float: right
- child forum name aligning below the tag and the watched/sticky icon with clear: both

It's going to explode if any other functionality is added to the thread list.

No "bullets" option in the formatting / text box

Can only automatically quote one (recent) poster, chain replies have been turned off (please turn them back on)

I think the old order for ratings was better:

Can't do it on my own. Forwarded to admins.

- Make the "NEW" indicator on top of posts RED

Done.

Can the separation lines between threads when viewing forums be made more apparent, as it almost looks blank on my monitor:

Done.

To post this image, I couldn't just copy it and paste it; it now requires the oldfashioned URL copying into a dropdown box:

Works for me when copying from clipboard.

Even if the forum needs it's code updating, or whatever, could it just be made to look like it's old self again? I think it was pretty aesthetic as far as forums go, and pleasantly simple. It had that classic forum type look where hyperlinks look like hyperlinks, posts have good separations, different menus have boundaries, and clickable elements have highlighted borders, etc. I've been on a lot of forums, and in general I think the newer ones, which aim to present a smooth GUI, with borderless lists, sliding menus, are off-putting because the eye has a natural tendeancy to require firm separations, and older websites give more 'tactile' feedback on things.

Sure, but complaining in general without any relevant suggestions doesn't do anything except having me spend time scanning the long paragraph for anything useful. Same with scrolling past shitposts, and scrolling past people arguing with shitposts/sky-is-falling whiners.

For the second day I'm working on this since waking up, free of charge and with no user privileges. Not that I asked for any. So don't make it harder than it already is.

Same goes for the main forum, the lack of separators and stuff makes it look messy:

Done. They do look different with the new layout and its different padding. But at least the separators are of the same color and width.

Also the white outline surrounding links to subsequent pages made them stand out a bit more:

I made the text brighter. Is it legible enough now?

That large piece of text describing the forum takes up quite a large amount of space.

Yeah, but there's the tradeoff with the last post's thread name and it has to fit in 1200px width along with the shitbox. I made the thread name shorter by 100px.

Now ratings overflow some of the text when there's too many of them.

Ratings are now inline with the bottom-right action bar only for page width of at least 1100px.

I just wonder why this wasn't done in some kind of testing server beforehand, working on some old-ish data backup.

There was, but there was silence after an initial wave of complaints.

 

[SevenSidedDice]

For the second day I'm working on this since waking up, free of charge and with no user privileges. Not that I asked for any. So don't make it harder than it already is.

DU please pay this man, or at the very least give him a badge or something.

 

[NJClaw]

The ratings bar is close to perfect now. It only needs two more changes:
- "Funny: 1" should become "Funny x1"
- Rating names should disappear after a certain number of different ratings have been assigned to that post.

Apart from that, we're basically there. Twiglard you're my codex hero.

 

[thesheeep]

There was, but there was silence after an initial wave of complaints.

Was that ever properly announced or just hidden away somewhere in the site feedback category?
Cause I sure didn't know about it, and so I'd assume the same for most.

 

[Twiglard]

Other changes:

- fix "RateBrofist" with new reaction list
- add old-style border around reaction list
- fix for child forum name when posts are aggregated (aligned badly with square thread tag on the right)
- add a folder icon for threads with new posts (should the bold be dropped then?)
- more margin for posts without signature

 

[Twiglard]

Was that ever properly announced or just hidden away somewhere in the site feedback category?

It was put into the forum title. On the main page and the html meta title attribute.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

For the second day I'm working on this since waking up, free of charge and with no user privileges.

Thankyou Twiglard, it is much appreciated.

 

[Twiglard]

Thankyou Twiglard, it is much appreciated.

Sure. Just keep reporting bugs like you already did.

 

[Zizka]

Sure, but complaining in general without any relevant suggestions doesn't do anything except having me spend time scanning the long paragraph for anything useful. Same with scrolling past shitposts, and scrolling past people arguing with shitposts/sky-is-falling whiners.

The thing is that people use this thread to complain and give feedback. You’d need a thread about feedback with an initial post you could update with requests and things you’ve done, like this:

- fix "RateBrofist" with new reaction list
- add old-style border around reaction list
- fix for child forum name when posts are aggregated (aligned badly with square thread tag on the right)
- add a folder icon for threads with new posts (should the bold be dropped then?)
- more margin for posts without signature

Will the ignore thread be back as a function? Is it complicated to code in?

 

[Twiglard]

So I'm trying to shave off some pixels on the forum list to allow for longer display of last updated thread's name. It's now 350 pixels instead of 300. Does it look too cramped?

Also changed the forum description font to Helvetica Tahoma (for more text fitting horizontally) and forced it to justify.