Forum Re-Design

[Matthew Schenker]

How about we just:

• Keep the current production (default) theme, modfying the palette to change the bluish to greenish.
• Use Andrew's series of logos, and rotate among them on a daily basis.  (If it's Tuesday, this must be Rotex.    )
• Call it a good job and move on.
  

I'm with Ned as This "defalt" was my favorite of all that has been presented thus far,
But if it is too complicated then move on. No need to add extra work to what should be smooth and pleasing for both the users and the IT department. And besides there have been lots of great formats.

Everyone,
OK, let me say that behind this whole effort is something bigger than just changing superficial visuals. I was going to bring this up later, but I think I need to put it out there now...

Besides the visual ugliness of the default format (SMF), there are several other limitations I am trying to address here.  I've been listening to members and taking note of which  features, and the kind of functionality and ease people want.  Several of these features simply aren't available with the core software we're now using.  This whole discussion is a way to ease us into a point where we can test and compare two very different core formats and then make a major move.  My approach is to introduce the concept through test forums, where we can debate the details for a while long before the actual changes are implemented.  All the design questions coming up here are helping me see what people want.

All of us agree that when we moved to this new format a year ago, it was a vast improvement from the original.  But in the past year, I have learned a lot about what makes a real forum work, and I am looking for the best match for our needs.  Major changes should not happen on a whim, and that is why I am taking such pains to discuss it before anything happens.

Just stick with the discussion, and keep telling me what you want to have in your forum.  This will all become clearer as we move ahead.

Matthew

[Matthew Schenker]

Everyone,
I should have added in my last post that SMF is about to release a major upgrade (V. 2.0), with numerous new features.  As much as possible, I'm trying to coincide the proposed re-design with that upgrade, as I also look at other options for us.  It's all about making the forum experience smooth and easy.

I'm probably putting too much under-the-hood information here!  Usually, I keep this stuff quiet, but this is the one discussion where I feel it's appropriate.

Stay in touch,
Matthew

[Fred West]

Matthew, I disagree. I think your introduction of the "under the hood" information has been vital and stimulating. I very much applaud you for doing so and thank you as well. Fred

[SRSemenza]

Matthew wrote-"I also did a couple of other small tweaks.  can youi see what they are?"


     I see that the thin line is now a thicker thin line.  Looks good! I like it better. Maybe it should be thicker across the top too, and seperate the logo and/or other stuff with the real thin line?


Seth

[Matthew Schenker]

     I see that the thin line is now a thicker thin line.  Looks good! I like it better. Maybe it should be thicker across the top too, and seperate the logo and/or other stuff with the real thin line?

Glad you like it.  I'm continuing to make small changes, and I am always interested to hear member reactions.
Keep checking the test site!
Thanks,
Matthew

[Matthew Schenker]

A progress note on the re-design effort...

I just changed the "Reply," "Notify," "Mark unread," "Send this topic," "Print" and similar text to buttons.  This makes them stand out much better.

This morning, I'm editing the buttons so they match the forum's general color scheme.

Matthew

[Ned]

A progress note on the re-design effort...

I just changed the "Reply," "Notify," "Mark unread," "Send this topic," "Print" and similar text to buttons.  This makes them stand out much better.

This morning, I'm editing the buttons so they match the forum's general color scheme.

Matthew

The button text is almost unreadable on my screen.  It looks even smaller than the menu bar text, which is right at the limit, IMO.

In the current production version, buttons (like Post, Preview, Spell Check) react to being hovered over, along with links and the menu bar (Home, Help, etc.)

In the test version, the behavior is similar, except that these latest buttons (Reply, Notify, etc.) don't react.  Can't tell they're live.

Ned

[Matthew Schenker]

The button text is almost unreadable on my screen.  It looks even smaller than the menu bar text, which is right at the limit, IMO.

I can try to work on that.  Is everyone else experiencing the same issue with the buttons?

In the current production version, buttons (like Post, Preview, Spell Check) react to being hovered over, along with links and the menu bar (Home, Help, etc.)

In the test version, the behavior is similar, except that these latest buttons (Reply, Notify, etc.) don't react.  Can't tell they're live.

Doesn't your mouse pointer change from an arrow to the hand (or whatever the pointer is in your theme)?

Matthew

[Ned]

In the current production version, buttons (like Post, Preview, Spell Check) react to being hovered over, along with links and the menu bar (Home, Help, etc.)

In the test version, the behavior is similar, except that these latest buttons (Reply, Notify, etc.) don't react.  Can't tell they're live.

Doesn't your mouse pointer change from an arrow to the hand (or whatever the pointer is in your theme)?

Matthew

You're right, I now see the pointer does change.  So I need to change my claim from "Can't tell they're live." to "Didn't notice that they were live, because all other hotspots on the screen change both the pointer and color.  Obviously I'm depending on the color change to tell me.

Ned

[Daviddubya]

The button text is almost unreadable on my screen.  It looks even smaller than the menu bar text, which is right at the limit, IMO.

I can try to work on that.  Is everyone else experiencing the same issue with the buttons?

...Matthew

I doubt it would surprise you if I said I think the font size is too small on most of the new forum design.  There - I said it again!  Smile and thanks.

[Fred West]

Matthew, I must agree with a few of the others that I found it hard to realize that the "reply", "notify", etc. buttons were live as they did not turn green as everything else does when you place the cursor on it. If for some reason in 2.0 you are unable to have them turn green then can the neat little icons to the right of them turn green or can the cursor itself turn green? Fred P.S. what a great job you are doing.

[SRSemenza]

Hi,

   Nice icons. But make them change color.


Seth

[Matthew Schenker]

I'd be interested to hear from others if this is an issue, as I am always curious about people's experiences navigating the site.

I guess I'm a little surprised to hear that this is a problem.  Yes, text elements do have hover colors, but very often "button-like" elements do not need hover colors (for example, the "F" and "new" indicators) because the transforming mouse pointer is usually enough to indicate that it's active.

In the meantime, I'll look into how to create some kind of hover color on button elements.

Matt

[Dan Clark]

Matthew,

The buttons look nice.  However, I think they are a step back.   

Unlike the icons in the current forum, with the new buttons, the font color does not change during mouseover and the font size is fixed.   At least with FireFox, scrolling the mousewheel increases the button font size in  production FOG but does not do this in test FOG.   On a higher resolution monitor, it's difficult to see the text.   This is makes them more difficult to use.

Regards,

Dan. 

[Ned]

Unlike the icons in the current forum, with the new buttons, the font color does not change during mouseover and the font size is fixed.   At least with FireFox, scrolling the mousewheel increases the button font size in  production FOG but does not do this in test FOG.   On a higher resolution monitor, it's difficult to see the text.   This is makes them more difficult to use.

On a higher res monitor...or with older eyes.

Thanks Dan for catching this.  Since I routinely change the size back and forth, I frequently don't know what the "normal" image would look like.

I don't know a name for the UI element at the top of the page in both Production and Test, the thing that shows Home, Help, Search, etc.   It's not a menu bar, since none of the sub-elements act like menus.  They all act like buttons--click it and off you go without further ado.  I think it's a button bar, and that's what I'll call it until someone comes up with something better.

All button bars in both production FOG and test FOG respond to this enlargement chosen by the user, including the button bar recently replaced by buttons that we're discussing here.

IMO, no change that degrades the user-controlled flexibility of the site is a good change.

Ned

[Matthew Schenker]

Good afternoon,
OK, I'm going to get rid of those buttons and put back the text.  Doesn't seem to be a good option here.
Matthew

[Matthew Schenker]

Good Afternoon,
Just a note to everyone following along: I fixed the background color of the spelling checker in the test forum.  Now it is white.
Matthew

[Matthew Schenker]

Good Morning,
I've made a few more changes to the test site, adding alternating colors.  I'm using the same alternating colors we now have in the main forum, since people seem to like those.  Check out the test forum to see what the changes look like.

Now that the logo poll is closed, and we have a winner (Andrew Ledbetter's series) I'm smoothing out the way the new logos work with the welcome text.  Over the next few days, you can see the progress on this by checking out the test forum.

Although I had originally planed to launch the new site today, I'm delaying implementation for a little bit, as I work to tweak a few more details and allow members to comment some more on various elements.  Andrew and I will be working off-line to finalize the logo appearance.

Thanks,
Matthew

[Daviddubya]

Looking good Matthew.  I imagine you have discovered that you have an error in the placement of the logo right now.  It overlays the links on the right side of the banner area.

[Matthew Schenker]

Looking good Matthew.  I imagine you have discovered that you have an error in the placement of the logo right now.  It overlays the links on the right side of the banner area.

Yes, that's sort of intentional.  Andrew is working on redesigning the logos to work better with the welcome text by switching the text and graphic portions (or some other fix).  It will make sense soon!
Matthew

[SRSemenza]

Hi,

    I think the new forum design is shaping up nicely. On the logo I like the "recent unread post" etc  better when stacked up on the right rather than above the logo words.  Seems like it is intruding / crowded on the OWNERS GROUP"


Seth

[SRSemenza]

Hi again,

  I also prefer the solid black  line around the quote boxes over the dotted.


Seth

[SRSemenza]

Me again,

    The alternating blue is ok. Not sure it jives really well with the grey quote shading.  How about trying a VERY pale green for the alternating color?

Seth

[Brice Burrell]

Matthew is there a ETA for the change over yet?

[Matthew Schenker]

    The alternating blue is ok. Not sure it jives really well with the grey quote shading.  How about trying a VERY pale green for the alternating color?

Yeah, I agree.  I just added a new shade -- a very light "blush" of green (don't want to overdo it).  Check the test forum now.  The trick is seeing how it shows up on different people's monitors, so if everyone would take a look and report back that would be great.

Matthew is there a ETA for the change over yet?

I'm making sure everything is in place visually and functionally.  No need to rush.  But I am hoping to confirm the new design by the end of this week and then activate it over the weekend.

While we're discussing this, everyone please take a look at the Test Forum and let me know how it works for you.  As I mentioned above, different monitors and different systems may display various things differently.

Couple of recent changes:
1. I fixed the "welcome text" so it does not overlap the text of the logo.
2. Andrew submitted an "edited" version of his logo series -- slightly smaller ones that should work better on smaller monitors.

One last thing: remember that even after the new design is launched, I can still tweak things if necessary.

Matthew

[Ned]

1. I fixed the "welcome text" so it does not overlap the text of the logo.

Yup.  Looks good on an 800px-wide screen.

Ned

[Matthew Schenker]

Ned,
Since you're using an 800px monitor, can you also tell me if the size of the logo is good?  Does it occupy too much of the screen, or do you think it works well?
Also, how does the light green shading for the alternating columns look?
Matthew

[Daviddubya]

Coming together nicely, Matthew.  My screen is 1280 X 1024.

A couple of suggestions - put the Welcome text and links in the right side of the banner back the way it was - with Show unread... and Show new... on seperate lines.  That text still crowds and overlaps the logo.  When it was on four lines instead of three, it worked better, IMHO.

Try the logo in a vertically centered position within the banner, or at least a bit higher.  It's close to the bottom now.

The logo and the Welcome text need to work together.  They seem to be fighting each other right now.

I like the light green shading.

[jonny round boy]

A couple of suggestions - put the Welcome text and links in the right side of the banner back the way it was - with Show unread... and Show new... on seperate lines.  That text still crowds and overlaps the logo.  When it was on four lines instead of three, it worked better, IMHO.

I agree - I didn't see the test forum when it was on 4 lines, but it doesn't seem to work on 3. Show unread... and show new.... need to be on separate lines.

Other than that, it looks great!

[Ned]

Ned,
Since you're using an 800px monitor, can you also tell me if the size of the logo is good?  Does it occupy too much of the screen, or do you think it works well?
Also, how does the light green shading for the alternating columns look?
Matthew

My comment before was based on narrowing the browser window, not actually running 800x600.  I have switched my secondary monitor to 800x600, and all the comments here are based on looking at that monitor.

The FOG heading looks fine.  The logo's just fine horizontally, and logo and two text areas ("Welcome..." and "Festool..." don't overlap and look pretty good.

The logo defines the vertical space required by the heading, changing text size has no effect.  The heading takes up about 30% of the vertical on 800x600. 

Since modern browsers let us play with text size, I can't really say "how it looks on 800x600", I can only say how it looks on mine.  Ditto questions of color--doesn't look bad on mine.

I do wonder if 800x600 is now obsolete as a minimum, and if 1024x768 or 1280x1024 should be the current minimum.  There was a time when we had to make everything workable on 640x480, but now feel safe that approximately no one is running that resolution.

In the same way, should we bother worrying about 256 colors?  I think/hope not.  Windows Vista won't even go to 256, the minimum is 16-bit ("thousands of colors").  The 800x600 monitor is set to 16-bit, and looks pretty good.  The light-green column shading looks light gray and OK.

Overall, I think test FOG looks fine on an 800x600.  Reading FOG will require more work scrolling, but that's life on a screen of that resolution.  I have looked around the test FOG and don't see anything that's terminally ugly or that sticks the user in an unnavigable position.

Ned