New Forum Design

[Mike Teutsch]

Originally Posted by Dave Largent

Right now it seems darn hard to read,
-----------------------------------------------------------
Yeah, it seems a lot harder to read.

Is much harder for me to read, almost half my screen is white. May be just me, but it seems no where near as easy to navigate. Do not see any new pop-ups or anything on my screen and the previous features are absent.

Maybe we will get used to it, but what new features does it have? If it is better then great! If it was change for the sake of change, then I like old format better.

Thanks for the great work Chris, and I'm sure you'll do what is best. This is the best forum I have ever seen and that is not a matter of format style, it is all about the person who controls it.

Mike

[Barry Gribble]

Chris,

I definitely like it overall. I think the navigation is richer, the style is nice, the link parsing is very welcome, the pop-up message text from the thread listing is nice, the hovering mouseover links are good, User CP is great, etc.

My only issues are:

1. I'd like to see the links a different color so they are clear without mousing over them.

2. The pop-up message text is inconsistent for me... some messages have it, some don't.

3. It does seem vaugely tougher to read, but I'm not sure why. I am open to the idea that my eyes were just so used to the other format.

4. The new format on the summary pages allows fewer lines per screen...

All-in-All is is certainly a welcome change for me. Good job on this and the overall continued running of the site.

[K. Forman]

I felt more comfortable with the old format, and it seemed to work fine. Speaking of which, I'm using firefox and the site still works great.

[Luis Caffesse]

As other have said, it may simply be that I'm not used to it yet....
but I'm finding it hard to read.

I also feel a bit taken aback...as though I just came back home to find that someone had replaced and rearranged all my furniture.
:)

I feel like there is way too much white on the screen, and the fact that there is no division between posts makes it more difficult to scan the topics quickly.

I have to be honest, I sort of feel like..."if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
My initial reaction, honestly, is that I really don't like it.

but I'm sure I'll get used to this.
It would take more than a facelift to keep me away from DVinfo

[John Sandel]

I'm a bit dismayed at how unsettled I was---how much a creature of habit have I become ...?

Chris, I like the shorter text-lines in posts; most magazines & newspapers know this makes text generally easier to scan. I'd love it if the lines were a bit longer. I'd like to see less margin to either side of the central text column.

I love that posts are numbered now!

I rather liked the pale grey background of the previous design. If possible, could you split the difference between that and this new b.g. of near-white? But these are cavils ...

Just wanted to echo a couple other critiques:

“Icons to[o] small”--Richard Alvarez

“I'd like to see the links a different color so they are clear without mousing over them.”--Barry Gribble

“The fact that there is no division between posts makes it more difficult to scan the topics quickly.”--Luis Caffese

Haven't explored the organization changes yet. I can find all the buttons I need. Hmmmm. All in all, I think maybe I kind of like it, sort of ...

I'll judge the site not by the color of its pages but by the content from its characters.

[Chris Hurd]

Keep the comments coming, folks... your input makes a difference!

There's a "style chooser" at the bottom left corner of the page; pick a full-width option for this skin, or revert to the standard "vBulletin 3" skin (please ignore the big vB logo; I'll have a DVi logo in there tonight.

Within the next day I'll have a couple of other skins available for you including the old purple-ish DV Info theme from before. Thanks for bearing with our dust... I know it's a bit of a surprise; only our moderators knew it was coming. Hang in there and give it a chance to stabilize... many thanks,

[John Sandel]

Chris, to my eyes, the "Blue White - Wide" style is a less-jarring visual compromise. Thanks!

(Guess you decided to nuke the old "Welcome, [Joe Schmoe] and Relax ... You're Back Among Friends" opener.)

Richard Alvarez: See what you think of the "vBulletin 3" skin; it changes the icons' appearance.

[Johan Manders]

I think that the 'width' of the pages are a downside.
If I look for new posts, the Forum column is pushed together, not funny.
Furthermore...it looks ok.

[Brad Simmons]

I really like the new design Chris.

Functionally I think it works much better as well.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I think the old one was easier on the eyes, if I have to be honest. I had the feeling with the old one I could read hours and hours, and with this one, I don't know, I don't think I could bare it that long.
Maybe if you can have more dark colours it would be a little more easy to read...

But, thank you for doing so much effort!
I agree with the others: long, wide sentences are much easier on the eyes too, but I fixed it already with that Quick Style-thing.

[Luis Caffesse]

Thanks for the tip on changing the width Chris, it works a lot better for me on the 'wide' setting.

I just found another detail that I think is pretty unintuitive.

In the old format, when we made a link, the link would automatically be underlined, to let people know it was a link.

But now it just looks like regular text.


Can you tell which one of these sentences is a link?

It is either this one, or the one before it.



Did you guess correctly?
:)
(okay, that was a trick question...but you get my point)

So now there is no way for people to know when something is a link, unless the poster tells us directly "Click Here"

[Richard Alvarez]

I checked the "V3" option, and like the layer much better. I'll be using that one to read the board.

Also, how come I'm now a 'registered user' instead of 'insider'... nobody likes a demotion :(

[Richard Lewis]

I really, really don’t like the new design. It's more clinical like lots of other forums. I guess its because I spend so much time here, it’s like someone has come round and ripped up the carpets and painted the walls. Really big surprise, I’m glad you will have the old style as an option soon.

Yeah, and what happened to that title that I worked really hard for??!!

[Luis Caffesse]

"I had the feeling with the old one I could read hours and hours, and with this one, I don't know, I don't think I could bare it that long."


That's a great point, and I'll second that.
I don't think it's really the layout itself for me, as much as the high contrast in the colors, and the brightness of the background.

The 'shades of grey' on the old layout made it easy to read and read and read...
this is very stark, contrasty, and kind of tiring on the eyes.

There are things I like better in terms of functionality on this layout...but in terms of color, I think the old color scheme was more inviting and made it easier to read.


And, I have to admit, I am a little sad to see the name titles go away.
"Registered User" just seems so cold compared to "Inner Circle" (which sounds like I'm part of a secret society)
:)

Then again, I'm a shallow guy.

[Richard Alvarez]

I worked hard for my "inner circle" dammit! And I want my decoder ring too! (At least, you can't take back the secret handshake...)