Here's a mockup. I had actually wanted the thing to have these really nifty pseudo-transparent image backgrounds but that didn't really pan out (too many formatting problems arose when I tried it, go figure). So, it's all flat gourad shading. 😀

new/mockup.shtml

Bugs in MSIE that are out of my control:

• PNG support. It just isn't there. I even reduced myself to using 8-bit PNGs instead of 32-bit ones, and it still comes out fucked up. You'll really only notice it on the header image. Just realize that you're probably seeing colours being rendered darker than they truly are. (Why, you ask? Because Microsoft is fucking STUPID and is rendering them at gamma 1.9 instead of the correct gamma 2.2.)
• Misalignment of things that have repeated background images. eg, the section headers. Not a very big deal, just a rounding error in MSIE.

And oh baby, it's W3C compliant on my first try. I'm getting too good for HTML and CSS.

well, if you've decided on #3, then maybe you should close the poll?

also, if png's aren't working correctly because of a bug in ie... then why not change it to jpg, or something?

i mean, unless you plan on having multiple colored backgrounds, i really don't see you needing a logo with transparancy. and if you really want one, you could just go with transparant gif. it wouldn't have nice alpha blending, but... you really don't need alpha blending if the background colors aree going to only flucuate minutely.

The bug has been in IE since well...forever. No sense in working around MS's bugs if we're all trying to move away from MS anyway. If MS doesn't feel like complying with W3C, because they feel like W3C isn't where MS want's to go (pretty much MS's words...I'll try to find the link) then why work around MS limitations?

W3C is a standard for a reason.

This post is a lie.

BTW, GIF files suck.

Whoo. Getting closer. I don't really like the buttons at, um, all.. so if you've got better talent, or suggestions for them... let me know!

Perhaps a border around the buttons ? Or does it look bad ?
And making the buttons a little bit larger than the text wouldn't hurt.

Ah, here this thread went.

I'm finally making some progress on the new forum again, though for how long I'm not sure, I'm about to get beaten down by my school and parents for not doing work, and now that I've finally started doing work... on things other than school... well, yeah. Anyway. *cough* I hope to be allowing a public link to the new system soon, but I've had to (and am continuing to do) lots of modifications to it. Unfortunately one of the mods I was planning on adding seems to have been wiped off the face of the earth, hopefully someone will rectify that problem soon.

Oh, and I decided I officially hate those buttons, so if anyone can make better ones, please do so. Otherwise I make more crappy ones that use rounded boxes since they're less bad than ovals. 😀

Originally posted by Snover I'm finally making some progress on the new forum again, though for how long I'm not sure, I'm about to get beaten down by my school and parents for not doing work, and now that I've finally started doing work... on things other than school... well, yeah. Anyway. *cough*

Function first, then form. The board seems to function fine as is, so I wouldn't bother. Don't let the board hose "real life"...

Ha ha, it doesn't matter, I'm screwed anyway. 😜

Originally posted by Snover Ha ha, it doesn't matter,...

So if you're on fire, don't put out the flames, as you know you'll be burnt later on and you'd rather get it "over with" now than later...Ahh.

Something like that.
...
well, do YOU want to analyze The Day The Leader Died?
if yes, same question, but now with a psycho back-to-the-roots african-american english teacher.

Originally posted by Snover well, do YOU want to analyze The Day The Leader Died?

*pauses*
My sympathies. Would you like a sword for Seppaku?

Nah, I'm not big on the whole sacrificial suicide thing.

new mockup. now with more, completeness. eventually the borders around the main shit will be reduced to 1px, but for now there's an error in Mozilla (gasp, I know, I know, but it's been reported and there's a patch that's gotten superMod review and should be included in 1.4.1 or maybe even 1.4 final) that causes border-collapse to do stupid things like overwrite the top and left borders of its containing element with its own.

Anyway, here it is. It looks fucking beautiful. I've also got the board set up in a secret place that not even my moderators know about so that I can launch it straight away when I'm finally done. Of course, by that time, phpBB 2.2 could very well be released and then I'm back to square one, but we'll see. 😉

I apologise to the IE viewers that can't gape at the marvelous background art properly, or that see PNG files rendered at gamma 1.9 instead of what they should be, 2.2.

Depending on how everyone likes the background I may or may not have it in. Things look kinda plain without it, but as you'll notice viewing in IE, it is crapped up.

(And I'm so nice, I made the site so you can view it in 800x600 resolution, god forbid you're still using it)

Oh, and, if anyone complains about the non-existant links not working I'm going to flog them.

Erm... How do I put this? I like the current design better.

* starts to watch his back

Yea, maybe you do, but it's not mine, I didn't design it, the coding is dreadful, and frankly, it doesn't leave much to the imagination. It needs to go away and be replaced with something original and, more importantly, XHTML-conformant and GIF FREE. (Not to mention the added bonus of pages having much less overhead.) I had another point too, but I can't seem to figure out what the hell it was at the moment. Oh yes, I remember now. I'm still tweaking. 😀

Update: touched a bunch of the graphics, it looks much sexier now. quick.link
Update^2: the new vogons will be released under a creative commons license.
Update^3: Thread display page online. w00t. almost.done! (don't know what I was on when I wrote it, okay??)
Update^4: Forum display page online. w00t. bwah.

Hmm...I think I prefer the current design only because I am more used to it. The font on the buttons is a bit hard to read if you don't already know what they're supposed to say. There also seems to be a lot of empty space down the sides of the window too, but I just realized that it's the same way in the current design (I think it's more noticable in the new design due to the higher contrast in colours between the side borders and the middle boxes). The post font seems a tad too brick/blood for the background blues (doesn't clash as bad as this teal though 😜), but I can imagine that the only other choice in that theme (pink) could be too low-contrast.

The bottom line is that it's harder to read and busier-looking than the current theme. I'm confident that I can get used to it though, and then I might prefer it to the current theme 😉

I really like the new look, but then I have a penchant for purple so that's probably what sells me on it. I like the logo particularly... looks... chocolatey... 😀

The squarish "new" button needs to be styled in the same way as the true round buttons, i.e. with the raised bit around the outside as well. I can see why people would find the overall look difficult to read, too, but I think there's always going to be someone. I have to squint to read the turquoise of HunterZ's post, for example 😉

HunterZ wrote:

The bottom line is that it's harder to read and busier-looking than the current theme. I'm confident that I can get used to it though, and then I might prefer it to the current theme 😉

I agree with HunterZ, the thread display page is really harder to read than the current one. A little more contrast would be very nice, indeed.
By the way, is the font for thread names that big or is it really another IE quirk?

Regards,

The thread title should be 12px bold. Individual post subjects are 10px Verdana above each post. Somehow my sites always manage to have complaints about low-contrast. I'll never understand it. Is that the problem with the display page?
I'll see what I can do with the buttons. Is it just the font? I had Vlad complaining about the font being difficult to read. (Maybe I'm just used to it from working with it?)