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Death on keyboards
Site Maintenance
Posts: 8604
WHM-6R, when you have to kill every last Fedrat...
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As you can see I've implemented a new skin. We were operating on legacy code in most of the old skins that were causing some problems on the back end, had several major bugs and even some security issues I felt I could no longer allow to go unaddressed.
This skin was not really meant to be launched this early, as it's appearance is mostly meant to complement the next version of the website itself, however over the past eight hours I've fast-tracked it into something deployable.
For those of you who used the other 'color' skins like WBU_BLUE, Classic Classic, and Infoscoop, while those are not currently available I hope to have at least two of those deployed by friday - most likely "CBT Blue" and "CBT Bare"... So please bear with me as I sort those out and get them ready.
There are several new features, not the least of which being that the new skin loads faster and likely will consume a lot less bandwidth. It is a total rewrite from scratch of every line of HTML output by SMF, cleaning up a lot of things I had issues with.
Oh, and pay attention to all the little silver chevrons - like the one on the Reply/Edit post page which let you expand/shrink the size of the text entry box. There are other little features like color coding of sticky/locked/both, color coding of new, changes to where you click for 'new', etc which I hope will make your stay here more enjoyable.
If you have any issues/questions please post them to this thread.
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Colonel
Posts: 16190
Thanks, KatW!
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This is just somewhat unusual for me. Not unpleasant, just sorta weird. Also, my profile avatar seems a little...distended. Although I'm liking some of the features.  |
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Manei Catalyst
Moderator
Posts: 13721
We are the finders of your secrets
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Sorry if I'm being dense, but do we still have a place to see how many many PMs we have?
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Death on keyboards
Site Maintenance
Posts: 8604
WHM-6R, when you have to kill every last Fedrat...
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Sorry if I'm being dense, but do we still have a place to see how many many PMs we have?
See the mail icon on the menu? |
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Major
Posts: 5966
Gotta be a way to cram on a few more guns here...
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While I recognize that the old stuff had to go, I hope that we'll be given some darker skins soon.
This color scheme kinda hurts my eyes.
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Sergeant
Posts: 172
Religious/Mystic NOT worshipping toasters.
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When you get the chance can you add an option for a dark background with light text skin.
ALL of the current options hurt my eyes. So I'll be using NoSquint to change it.
Thanks
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Lieutenant
Posts: 1469
Gimme Cookies!
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I think the "IP logged" and "report to moderator" buttons are a overly large. That's just a personal aesthetic gripe, though.
The new screen for posting replies with the summary down the side is interesting.
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Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 8362
Zero G is good for you
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I think the buttons could be shrunk a tad. I think I like the topic summary on the side. but that will take a bit of getting used to. Not haveing the post box right in the middle. Otherwise, the set up looks good. But like some others, I would like a darker skin, but I know you're working on it, so I'll be patient
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CamoSpecs
Posts: 6637
Thanks, Walter.
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While I recognize that the old stuff had to go, I hope that we'll be given some darker skins soon.
This color scheme kinda hurts my eyes.
Agreed. I've been looking at it for about three minutes, and I'm in agony. I always used the dark theme with the hexmap background for that reason. Try to get something for those of us with sensitive eyes. |
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Major
Posts: 5671
Arsenal of Autocracy
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While I recognize that the old stuff had to go, I hope that we'll be given some darker skins soon.
This color scheme kinda hurts my eyes.
Hurts mine a lot, but I have migraines. |
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Catalyst Demo Team
Posts: 14709
LARP'ing is fun!
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Additionally, and I'd like to echo the darker skin request, it is rather hard to tell the red moderators apart from the orange agents. If you could make the orange more yellow and less red I think that would help.
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Death on keyboards
Site Maintenance
Posts: 8604
WHM-6R, when you have to kill every last Fedrat...
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Funny, so the 120 or so of our 9K+ members who were using the darker skins are all night owls?
I'll start on the dark blue version tonight, hopefully have something for you folks tomorrow.
Oh, if you see a broken 'code' block (like in the TRO forums) where it's not getting any formatting, do a refresh - there was a problem in the CSS.
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Death on keyboards
Site Maintenance
Posts: 8604
WHM-6R, when you have to kill every last Fedrat...
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I think I like the topic summary on the side. but that will take a bit of getting used to. Not haveing the post box right in the middle. Only does that on screens wider than a certain width (I forget where I drew the line on that) - it looked silly having this narrow little post box and so much empty screen - not that this doesn't make a whole new blank area below it but, hey... close enough. |
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Lootbag Commando
Catalyst Demo Team
Posts: 11628
Borders don't mean much anymore.
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The "unread" and "new" post listings don't have that nifty "new" button, or I'm not seeing it.
-- Oh, I see it now. Just add me to the "night owls who want blue back".
Hoot.
Hoot.
Hoot.
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Major
Posts: 3354
Solidarity, Brother
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Generally I like this theme (was using the default before), but could go with a slightly grayer blue on the areas surrounding the avatars. It would do much to reduce the squinting. I'll otherwise give the dark blue theme a try when you put it up.
Icons are certainly different. A little more in-your-face. I'll figure out the color scheme for threads when I'm more conscious. Good idea though.
edit: My own post was bright though... really bright... hurt. A lot.
edit edit: I mean the avatar area.
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Major
Posts: 5239
Even a Falcon can mourn a Wolf.
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I seem to be getting a slight glitch. The bottom of the post box seems to align itself to the middle of the post, however when I mouse over the "quote" button it realigns it'self to the correct position.
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Manei Catalyst
Moderator
Posts: 13721
We are the finders of your secrets
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Okay I'm not seeing the New button. I've looked in both IE and FF.
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Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 6612
Has Soul, and is Super Bad
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I get some initial mis-formats under IE8 (in XP Pro, for reference). Screenshot attached. Thread titles seem to be the only thing affected. Seems to only happen when I'm loading a graphic from the server instead of from the cache - i.e., if I've previously read a post from that person this session, their posts will be properly aligned; if this is the first time I've seen them, there's a high chance that thread title bar will be messed up. Same behavior if I reload a page that's initially misaligned: because I've already cached all those graphics, the reload fixes the alignment issues. On a particularly long thread with a lot of "new" faces, I can sometimes get three title bars in the same post block.
Also, I'm not big on having to hunt and click the chevrons to expand things like the "Additional Options" - I'd rather have that whole phrase clickable. Alternately, I'd like larger chevrons. This may be a temporary complaint for me (I'm on a crappy backup mouse while my good one is being replaced under warranty), but I can't imagine clicking those chevrons would be much fun on a laptop touchpad.
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Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 6453
No longer allowed to have nice things.
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Some of these icon graphics look like they were pulled from Windows 3.x
Not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I keep looking for a way to exit to DOS.
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Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 9318
Hunting for Adder skins
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Additionally, and I'd like to echo the darker skin request, it is rather hard to tell the red moderators apart from the orange agents. If you could make the orange more yellow and less red I think that would help.
Wait...you mean...they were different colour stars before? I could never tell! |
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Colonel
Posts: 13814
Comstar Explorer Service - Lost in Spaaaace!!!!
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Okay I'm not seeing the New button. I've looked in both IE and FF.
You mean, like, on the Updated Topics page, where you click and, theoretically, go to the first unread post? Not seeing it in Opera, either, and while clicking on the thread title, theoretically, is supposed to do it (it tacks a ";topicseen" in there), it isn't. |
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Lieutenant
Posts: 1249
Selfproclaimed High Priestess of the Anti-Toaster!
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Only complaint I have, I think, is that I can't tell if child boards have new posts or not. Was kinda handy at least when looking at the Rules questions updates to see from the front page whether or not a particular section had new rules.
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Major
Posts: 6274
Some wounds will never heal
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Yeah, I miss the old Classic Skin. Felt more Battletechisness to me.
One of the Few, The Proud, The Night Owls.
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Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 9318
Hunting for Adder skins
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The "unread" and "new" post listings don't have that nifty "new" button, or I'm not seeing it.
-- Oh, I see it now. Just add me to the "night owls who want blue back".
Sorry, Doug..I do not see the "new" button(which was the "go to first new/unread post" button, IIRC) |
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Manei Catalyst
Moderator
Posts: 13721
We are the finders of your secrets
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DR the New button only seems to be working in the actual forum threads. I see it when I look at the Comments and Questions page, but on the "Show New Replies" page, it is missing.
This is happening on FF 3 and IE 7.
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Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 6453
No longer allowed to have nice things.
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Opera shows the "New" button on the forums, but not in "new replies" for me.
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Colonel
Posts: 13814
Comstar Explorer Service - Lost in Spaaaace!!!!
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DR the New button only seems to be working in the actual forum threads. I see it when I look at the Comments and Questions page, but on the "Show New Replies" page, it is missing.
This is happening on FF 3 and IE 7.
Add Opera 9.64 to the list - exact same thing (OS is Windows Server 2008, if that makes a difference). |
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Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 9318
Hunting for Adder skins
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DR the New button only seems to be working in the actual forum threads. I see it when I look at the Comments and Questions page, but on the "Show New Replies" page, it is missing.
This is happening on FF 3 and IE 7.
Ah! OK, so that is what is happening..(the page that needs it most, too!) |
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CamoSpecs
Posts: 6637
Thanks, Walter.
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Funny, so the 120 or so of our 9K+ members who were using the darker skins are all night owls?
C'mon, man. We're all telling you that light hurts our eyes, aren't we?  |
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Corporal
Posts: 98
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It's enough more efficient that I noticed it loading faster, so I'm very pleased with the update so far. Thank you, this is a very nice unexpected treat and I look forward to seeing the ergonomic bugs worked out. While I recognize that the old stuff had to go, I hope that we'll be given some darker skins soon.
This color scheme kinda hurts my eyes.
When you get the chance can you add an option for a dark background with light text skin.
ALL of the current options hurt my eyes. So I'll be using NoSquint to change it.
Thanks
+1 I think that could be fixed by darkening the background. Solaris 7 uses green text, I've seen no complaints, and I think it's because of the dark background. I happen to like green, so I use 00FF00 or 007f00 text on a 003f00 background for my text editor (which I use a lot!) mostly because the low overall intensity and single colour are easy on my eyes and everything's nice and clear. Text input boxes here are looking like that for me, though I don't know whether it's because the board software lets my default choices apply here. Doing the same with red instead of green works fine for me too, but blue does not; in fact, blue messes with my eyes so much I use coloured text to highlight my 'mech readouts instead of [co de] the blue boxes [/co de] others use. I chose green for that too, so now they're no longer highlighted.  I don't wanna use red because it's got connotation of urgency, so now I hope we get new code boxes without the blue-on-blue thing. Again, thanks for all you do. P.S. I like the quick edit button, was that feature available before or is it new? |
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Colonel
Posts: 17327
It might seem wrong but it's just right
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I'm glad to hear the blue scheme will be back soon. The default scheme puts strain on my eyes.
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Lieutenant
Posts: 848
This Albie's for you, Dan.
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Thanks for all the hard work on keeping us alive and safe, DS. Its appreciated.  The new look is... different. I'm willing to be open-minded, though. The only comment I would make has already been made by my fellow sleepless denizens. |
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