Pardon our dust

[Yincognito]

I think most of the replies here focus either on colors or the size of the content. In my opinon, from a purely chromatic/optical point of view, both "problems" would be solved by differentiating colors more (than it is now - which is close to 0, lol). Believe it or not, more different colors for the sections of the webpage would also create the impression of it...not being "empty", thus easing things for those on 1920px monitors.

Aside from the color 'problem', one thing I noted: the <code> sections are way too small - they barely include 5 lines of text. While I do understand the reason for this (aka allow for more replies on one page), this could be annoying especially for long lines of code (think some ellaborate formulas or a RegEx line). It's harder to connect parts of the code in your mind if you can only see 3 or 4 lines at once. I'm not arguing for a change to this, it was just an objective observation.

This being said, the feel of "new" is something I always liked, so it kind of compensates for the much loved lost 'theme', haha!

[fonpaolo]

You can always modify css for yourself, easiest with Stylish extension. It's avaliable for Firefox, Chrome and Opera.

I'm using Chrome and I don't want to create a style for every forum I use...

As I said before, most of them are very uncomfortable to read, for size, gradient of colors very close on each other and so on.

[fonpaolo]

I think most of the replies here focus either on colors or the size of the content.(...)

I completely agree with all you said!

[jsmorley]

...one thing I noted: the <code> sections are way too small - they barely include 5 lines of text. While I do understand the reason for this (aka allow for more replies on one page), this could be annoying especially for long lines of code (think some ellaborate formulas or a RegEx line). It's harder to connect parts of the code in your mind if you can only see 3 or 4 lines at once. I'm not arguing for a change to this, it was just an objective observation.

We actually increased this from 200 to 300 pixels yesterday.

[jsmorley]

I think most of the replies here focus either on colors or the size of the content. In my opinon, from a purely chromatic/optical point of view, both "problems" would be solved by differentiating colors more (than it is now - which is close to 0, lol). Believe it or not, more different colors for the sections of the webpage would also create the impression of it...not being "empty", thus easing things for those on 1920px monitors.

My only comment about "color" on the forum is that it is my opinion (and mine alone) that the foundation of a forum like this, the structure the posts live in, is not what I want to be eye-catching and interesting. It's like a browser for me. The more plain and simple the better. The browser, and in this case the forum software, needs to "support the content" and get out of the way.

What is of interest to me, what I want to catch my eye, is the content of the posts. The code, the images, the examples of skins and the posts themselves, the interaction of the community.

So our goal, and we are probably not quite there yet, is to create something that makes it easy and intuitive to both create and consume the content posted by the folks here. it's really not about how pretty the forum is, but how well it works. For me, colors and images in the software itself are only useful when they are helping to make the content easier to interact with. If colors or images help with the "flow" of things, then fine. Otherwise, I have little interest in bells and whistles.

[fonpaolo]

Ok, I already noticed many improvements, so, I can live with this layout and I'll wait until it'll be finished.

It shouldn't be eye-catching, only comfortable to read: in the old forum I've always used the "dark" theme...

[jsmorley]

Trust me, we didn't make this change because we didn't like the old theme. or wanted to be "trendy" or something. We did it because there was a major new version of the underlying phpBB software, that has enormous security, ease of maintenance and upgrade and performance changes. We really had to get current, or risk having unpatched security issues crop up. The problem was, the new version of phpBB has major foundation / architecture changes that just make it impossible to "port" the old theme to the new software. We don't want to spend more time on the forum theme than we do on Rainmeter itself.

We have a very few little tweaks and fixes left to do, and then we are likely to let it stew for a while. One of the things I have always found is that in an environment like this "familiarity" and "habit" play a big role in how much you like or don't like it. I, along with others I'm sure, need to see if we don't "get used to it" and like it better than we might think at first blush.

[FreeRaider]

You can always modify css for yourself, easiest with Stylish extension. It's avaliable for Firefox, Chrome and Opera.

Ready code for Firefox

Code: Select all

@-moz-document domain("forum.rainmeter.net") {
.page-width {
    max-width: 100% !important;
}}

Excuse, I am not an expert in these things, but let's assume that I have the .css of the old style, can I use it?

[Yincognito]

We actually increased this from 200 to 300 pixels yesterday.

Yes! This is it Much better now.

Regarding what you said about bells and whistles, I completely agree. My point was that the similarity of some colors hinders the ease of use and the functionality of the forum (e.g. you can hardly see where a button starts and ends or, as mordasius said, where a quote ends). This thing is further amplified by the nature of today's LCD monitors and their (still) delicate relationship with the viewing angle.

In short, it's all about color contrast. The new forum theme is well done and you guys have done a great job with it - it's just that sometimes you need to "force" your eyes to notice where something starts or ends. The previous theme didn't have such problems, due to the fact that different colors (or different shades of one color) were used for different sections of the page. On the new theme, almost everything (except the text colors) tends to white (aka almost the same color) - which makes the user have a hard time properly identifying things. For example, try to make a skin using the 255,255,255,255 background color, put a 255,255,200,255 box on it and let a user with an LCD monitor look at it from different angles - you'll get that user complaining he can't properly see where the box is...

I'll leave it here - I'm sure you understand what I (and not only me) am trying to say. At the end of the day, just like you said, Rainmeter is the most important issue. User preference on how a forum should look like is of a lesser importance, especially if the people sharing their knowledge on the forum do their job - and they surely do

[lysy1993lbn]

Excuse, I am not an expert in these things, but let's assume that I have the .css of the old style, can I use it?

Not much of it would work really..