Forum Upgrades

[Draconalis]

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I've actually gotten used to this rather quickly, I can deal with it, if not completely like it.

Setting my background to space is neat, but ultimately, doesn't really change how bland everything looks because when reading, I tunnel vision on the center and see nothing more.

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Spoiler: Maybe some more colour in the report, quote and post buttons as well...

Something like this though, I can start to get behind. Maybe change the buttons to be blue as well to make them stand out against the unclickable grey bar.

Maybe something like this, with a little red to try catch a little attention and deter accidental reportings.

Spoiler

I like the quick PM envelope on Terratina's too.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

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You say that when reading you 'tunnel vision on the center' of the page. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but I fail to see this as a problem. These are discussion forums, the emphasis is supposed to be on the text, isn't it?

 

[Draconalis]

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The emphasis my be on the text, and I don't disagree with you there, but if the entirely of the forum looks bland and dull it might affect my desire to read said text.

The text is clearly important, and I don't disagree with you there at all... but a little color doesn't hurt.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

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The emphasis my be on the text, and I don't disagree with you there, but if the entirely of the forum looks bland and dull it might affect my desire to read said text.

The text is clearly important, and I don't disagree with you there at all... but a little color doesn't hurt.

I hear ya, really I do. I'm making a note in the mental ledger!

 

[Draconalis]

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The emphasis my be on the text, and I don't disagree with you there, but if the entirely of the forum looks bland and dull it might affect my desire to read said text.

The text is clearly important, and I don't disagree with you there at all... but a little color doesn't hurt.

I hear ya, really I do. I'm making a note in the mental ledger!

Oh gods! The grey dullness is making my posts dull now!

Kidding.

But seriously... what the hell happened there? It's like I had two thoughts that both had that statement... and they just kinda crashed into each other and I didn't bother to take note of it.

I wanna punch myself now.

 

[Draconalis]

Did the buttons always highlight blue for quote and post and red for flag and I didn't notice? Or was that just ninja implemented?

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Did the buttons always highlight blue for quote and post and red for flag and I didn't notice? Or was that just ninja implemented?

No, that was there before. I thought you knew and just wanted them... more highlighted? hehe

 

[Draconalis]

No, that was there before. I thought you knew and just wanted them... more highlighted? hehe

... Yeah... I knew about it already... I just... uh... want too be more clear about it...

Totally knew all about it...

/me shifty eyes

 

[SonicWaffle]

Otherwise, the only difference is color and your ability to have larger avatars and more badges. We made these changes because we considered them to be an improvement, of course.

Does this mean my screen is going to stop spazzing out when someone posts a picture, jumbo-sizing the post box and removing the reply/quote options? Hurrah!

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Otherwise, the only difference is color and your ability to have larger avatars and more badges. We made these changes because we considered them to be an improvement, of course.

Does this mean my screen is going to stop spazzing out when someone posts a picture, jumbo-sizing the post box and removing the reply/quote options? Hurrah!

We didn't remove the reply/quote options. They're on the bar attached to your name and avatar. We did try to make their functions more clear, however.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Otherwise, the only difference is color and your ability to have larger avatars and more badges. We made these changes because we considered them to be an improvement, of course.

Does this mean my screen is going to stop spazzing out when someone posts a picture, jumbo-sizing the post box and removing the reply/quote options? Hurrah!

We didn't remove the reply/quote options. They're on the bar attached to your name and avatar. We did try to make their functions more clear, however.

No, no - I mean that under the old design, when someone posted a picture into a thread under a spoiler-tag and I opened it, it would resize the posts on my screen and push the quote/reply options off to the right where I couldn't access them. Same thing with the page numbers, meaning I had to refresh a thread to see the second page or respond to someone.

I was just hoping that this was a known issue and that it might have been fixed in the update, but apparently not. Sad times.

 

[dnazeri]

I'm fairly new to these forums and personally I find the design quite nice. Maybe the only thing I would change is the grey bar at the top of each post to the escapist light-blue.

 

[Mr Fixit]

The change is overall a good thing, the text seems a bit easier to read. The only issue I would have with it is that it seems almost too sterile, I guess thats the word I'm looking for. I'm not saying it should be all bright & shiny & eye bleeding colorful, but a little more color wouldn't hurt. I do like the layout though.

 

[ShadowHand25]

So... Signatures are still not being to be activated?

Nope. We're not going to do signatures. It's simply not going to happen, no matter what other changes are made.

I personally detest forum signatures myself but why do you guys dislike them?

People tend to go nuts with them, putting in animated gifs, etc. and they make forums look hideous (and less readable).

We figure we provide plenty of opportunities for self-expression without signatures. Many people would love it if we added them, and I respect that, but it's just plain not something we're going to do.

I completely understand your disdain of "overwhelming" signatures, and support your decision of not allowing them solely on that basis. But perhaps if there were some way to allow a pre-determined amount of text, disable the ability to integrate image files, and/or add a setting to enable or disable seeing signatures in the forums...

...But that would be quite a bit of work, and you would probably still get several complaints about signature restrictions, not to mention the potential of explicit and otherwise offensive content...

It honestly doesn't matter to me whether or not signatures are enabled, despite having one ready just in case, but these might be some ideas to kick around next time you guys decide to shake things up again.