Planet Descent
Planet Descent => PD Feedback => Topic started by: The Chief on May 09, 2009, 04:07:43 PM
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Themes installed:
- Babylon Theme
- Black Fs
- Black Light SMF
- Cileweb
- Classic YaBB SE Theme
- Debase
- Dusky
- Fs Gray
- Orange2Gray
- SMF Army
- SMF Default Theme - Core
- New theme added: Musiconica
- New theme added: GI Digital
- New theme added: Referance
- New theme added: Helios Multi
- New theme added: Dirge
Please use the theme switcher, located in the right column, below the Shout Box, to preview these themes and post comments here.
note that most of these themes have not been modded for this site yet... but I will set priorities based on your input. Example: SMF Army has no link from the articles page to the forum index. This is because this theme was not originaly meant for use with TinyPortal. I can fix this fairly easily, but there are many little mods to make in each theme and if no one like SMF Army, I don't want to waste time fixing it.
Also, some of the thumbnails in the theme switcher are incorrect. Again, this can be corrected, but only after the most popular themes are identified and modded. So please take a few moments of your time to go through them and post your thoughts here.
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I'm kind of mixed between Debase, Babylon, and Cileweb.
I liked the graphics and smooth design of Debase, but I prefer a lot of the appearance style of Babylon (layout is clean, plus it auto-resizes for your screen width - yeah!) ... but I'm not very fond of the colors in either one of those. I liked the colors of Cileweb ... mostly. I'd actually prefer more straight blues, with light text (not so pastel blue shades).
You know... it's too bad we don't have a rock wall pattern for a background, with red letter Planet Descent in the Descent font (like the Descent 1 and 2 game titles) ... with black/charcoal text body background with light gray/white text. Hmmm...
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Thanks for your time and needed work to let us try this out!
IMO 'SMF Default Theme - Core' would be the one.
This one is easy to read (for me) and don't hurt the eyes as much of the other themes.
As second I would like 'Classic YaBB SE Theme'
I'm the one who is more interested in Descent related informations, facts, news or help. And I would like to find (and read!) these easy. I don't think that there is any need of 'some kind of Art' for a Descent related websites besides Level-pictures or screen shots from Dallas scripts or settings :)
So I would suggest to use all this 'website related eye candy' with care, less would be better in my opinion.
But I'm sure that I'm not representing more as 25% with this meaning. You are the one who must decide how it should looks like later..
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I will eventually have to pick one theme as forum default, but registered users will be able to pick which one they use.
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I voted for Debase also. Of, course, I imagine what it would look like with a few colorful Descent related touches. ;)
I prefer a darker background, less contrast seems easier on the eyes. After reading a few site with white background, I find I have some trouble seeing the text. Especially if the text is black. Debase is dark without looking depressing. Everything fits well, no odd overlaps or cut off images. Like TP said, it's smooth. Although I am not sure I like the white band at the top, but it does draw attention to the news ticker.
I like Black Light SMF, too. Especially the transparent header over the image of the eclipse. It's not as slick as Debase, though.
Don't care much for any of the other themes. Babylon would be my choice among the 'whitish' themes, and I think Cileweb has some potential for a blue theme. orange2grey... eh... Fs black and Grey Fs are too depressing, these two I like the least.
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I like black light smf, it seems more simple and organized. :P
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I voted Debase, but I think it needs quite a bit of work. I like the slick design, but it's too compartmentalized (a bunch of boxes in bigger boxes in bigger boxes. If there was a way to seamlessly remove the Debase header (which is a different shade of gray than the sides of the forums) and make it more like the Black Light SMF theme "PlanetDescent" header, which has the eclipse up top and on the left side, I think it would work great.
But, just my opinion, Black Light SMF is pretty darn good as it is, and if you don't want to alter the status quo, I'm quite happy with the look of that (precisely what I'll use unless/until Debase is properly adjusted).
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I was just using the Debase theme for a few minutes, and the more I use it the more I seem to like it. It's very readable and easy on the eyes partly because it is more "compartmentalized" which helps to visually separate the different components on the screen (the posts, recent posts list, shout box, etc.) ... but that white news strip at the top would surely have to go (or at the very least drastic color changes). It's just nasty.
For that theme it also might be nice to either enlarge the fonts for the "Reply, Notify, Add poll, Send this topic, Print" strip or give those items buttons that can be visually seen.
Am I asking too much? ;D
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I'll work on Debase later this week, or this weekend at the latest.
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Personally, I like Dusky.
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Currently, I like Black Light, but I think they would all need some work to better fit the Descent theme. :)
Black Light does also seem a touch more cluttered, but I think that's just me. :-\
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Keep in mind black light has already been customized, somewhat. So if you are thinking, "Oh, I like debase best, but it doesn't have cool custom Descent themed icons, and some of the menu links are missing..." then keep in mind these things will be fixed.
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Looks like Debase is a hit ;)
There is one more option that perhaps should be mentioned, there are tons of themes available for free, and you are welcome to suggest themes that are not loaded here yet. Visit the SMF 1.1.8 theme site (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/) and under "Themes for your version of SMF" click on "SMF 1.1.8".
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Added four new themes:
Musiconica
GI Digital
Referance
Helios Multi
Please check them out, comment, feel free to change you vote if you like!
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Helios is too graphical, takes forever to load. I like the hex background in Musiconica, but otherwise, it's too bright. There's nothing I like about GI Digital and don't care to much for Reference, either.
Edit: you might like Dirge theme by Crip, HERE is a site using it. (http://forum.concours.org/index.php). (although you might have to be a member to select it... I'll see if I can find it elsewhere...)
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Added Dirge.
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I gotta agree with WillyP, "Helios_Multi" has got too much graphics going on. Sure, it looks way cool (IMO) but being able to watch it piece it's graphics reminds me of 33k baud modem days ... but I'm on decent high speed internet. Yeah, too much graphics.
Not sure about "Dirge" :-\ , I don't like "Reference" at all, "GI-Digital" is ... interesting (I don't like the green for sure),
"Musiconica" is not bad at all. I might try that one a bit to see how I like it.
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Can the forum be switched to all full screen width auto resize? If so, I'd change my vote for Musiconica.
EDIT: Check that. If Debase can be set to auto re-adjust width to screen width ... I'd really just prefer to stick with Debase.
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Debase is looking really nice so far, Commander. ;D The only thing really that really feels "off" about it is the user information for each post. Stuff like the avatar, powerup buttons, post number, etc. all have too much space between them, causing even small posts to take quite a bit of space up on the screen. Just a thought. Otherwise, I'm really liking it. ;)
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Hmm... I just compared Debase with Black Light ... and I think that complaint could be corrected by simply reducing the font size for the user information of each post. Black Light uses a substantially smaller font for the user info while Debase shows that info in a larger font size (looks like about 12). That's kind of big.
Wonder how hard that kind of adjustment would be.
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I really like Helios Multi, but yeah, it does take a touch too long to load. :( If it wasn't for that, it'd have my vote.
The next one I liked would have to be GI-Digital, but it would need some substantial changes done. Like the fact that I noticed that the page selection stuff is just plopped on top of the graphic and is hard to see, the title bar would have to go, and the text seems...smaller...at the very least it's harder to read. I like it though, because it does have a semi-Descent feel. TechPro commented he disliked the green, maybe if we changed that to another color, like maybe blue? That would be a step forward, at least.
Dang, I'm still heartbroken over the fact that Helios Multi takes too long to load, I really like that one. If you could find a theme just like it, but didn't have the loading issues, I think we'd have our theme. :)
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Unfortunately, the reason for the slow loading is the many, large graphics. And that is what Helios is all about. So, any theme "just like it" will have the same issue. ::)
As far as making the forum wide, or variable, it is doable on themes that don't use width specific graphics. For example, below is a graphic that determines the width of Black Light. Change the width of the forum and it won't fit the graphic. One way around that would be to create a different width graphic then copy the theme, with the different graphic. So, you'd have "Black Light 1024" and/or "Black Light 1280" etc...
([url]http://www.planetdescent.net/Themes/blacklightsmf/images/theme/top.png[/url])
(I put this in a quote to give it a contrasting background.)
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Does Debase have width specific graphics?
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No. It was set to 80%. I changed it to 95%.
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Very nice! Thank You! (powerup)
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I like reference and digital. Helios multi is really too slow.
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And with that change, WillyP, Debase just became my default. Another powerup for thee. ;)
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A touch off-topic, but every time I drop by the visit the forums, I find that the site has defaulted to the reference theme each time. Not that there's anything really wrong with that, I'm just not satisified with reference, and usually switch to another (usually Black Light SMF, because I'm most familiar with that one). The site keeps switching back to reference every time I come back to the site, tho.
Should this be happening? And if so, why reference? I thought it was in the minority... ???
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Did you check the "Permanent?" box when you swapped to a different theme?
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Scy: Debase is the forum default. For me it stays where I set it when I leave. Do you allow cookies?
ALL: Let me know what theme you are using, and what changes you would like.
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I'm using Debase. The only issue I see are some broken links to the image http://www.planetdescent.net/Themes/Debase10/images/smshield.gif
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Debase seems to be a little "off" in spots on Internet Explorer 7 - the navigation bar (home, forum, gallery, etc) and the page location (planet descent >> forum >> planet descent etc.) run together on Debase. I have not tried it on 8 yet. Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari are displaying it perfectly fine. This is pretty standard of most sites, of course. ;)
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I'm using Debase in IE8 and the items D2Junkie mentioned do not run togther but there is no vertical separation between the two while I use a zoom factor of 100%. If I increase the zoom factor to 125% the items separate. If I decrease the zoom factor to 75%, then they run into each other.
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I'm trying to use Black Light, as thus far it's been the one I'm most comfortable with. Yes, I have tried checking the permanent box after switching to the theme I want, and it didn't seem to make a difference. :'(
There's nothing wrong with Reference...except for the fact that I just don't like the white background. Which is weird, because normally I'm indifferent about forum backgrounds, and there are plenty of other forums that I visit that have white backgrounds, which have never bothered me. I don't know why Reference irks me so much. ???
Trying to switch themes again...let's see if it'll stick this time...
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I have IE8 in addition to FireFox and about the only significant issues I've spotted with DeBase in it's current form is with regards to the small blue shield orb the indicate Admin/Mod/Forum rank (for some you there are two golden stars) in your profile info.
It looks like the link to the graphic for that is currently broken in the DeBase theme. FireFox (unless you tell it otherwise) doesn't shape a broken graphic box substitute unless the web page tells it to shape a box for it. IE8 (and I assume IE7 does the same) will show the broken graphic box as a visual que to you that there is something missing there. I'm not sure, that behavior may have a toggle as well.
As is, FireFox doesn't show the problem, just doesn't show the missing graphic, thus the page still looks pretty good. IE8 takes the time to show the issues to anyone and everyone.
I'm sure Command-In-Chief will be correcting it when he can.
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Yes, the animated graphics were annoying with so many on every page, so I will make some new ones non animated. The reason the graphics link is broken is because I reloaded the theme after I screwed with it and haven't reloaded the graphics.
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Update: Site actually remembered my preferred theme t'day. All is well here. :)