[BLOG] Icrontic's next redesign, vol. III
It's been a very evolutionary process for the new forum design over the last few days. The major structural changes were done, but now it was time to really dig in with the spit and polish.
My first stop was the forum home page again, where I spent an inordinate amount of time on that cursed Start New Discussion link. I really think I spent at least four hours over three days coming up with just the right style. Of course, it was also time well spent, because as you'll see that style served as a template for every other button. It really puts the "Icrontic" stamp on the last few generic-forum elements.
I also worked on visual and functional consistency quite a bit. You'll notice that dark blue bar = main division and light blue bar = sub-division everywhere now. The mix-n-match color scheme and style has gracefully left the building. What you can't see about the new design is that most of those dark blue bars also double as links to their respective areas now. "Who's here?" has always had a link, and I mirrored that functionality throughout the template now.
This solved another dilemma I had. Since everyone clicks the "Get New Posts" link so often, it didn't seem appropriate to only have it in a block of centered text. To remedy this, I changed the top left block's title from "Last 5 Posts" to "Newest Posts" and linked that text to the same place. That puts a "Get New Posts" link in a memorable spot your mouse can wait in as the page loads.
When I got this far, I sighed very, very deeply. It wasn't because of what I had accomplished, but because I knew what was next: the forum display. Ugh.
The forumdisplay template is the one that lists the discussions in a category, like General Hardware. I know this will shock you, but the default layout of this vBulletin template is particular terrible, and it's one that I've avoided doing anything about over the last few years, so I knew I had my work cut out for me.
So much got shifted around on this one that I'll just stick to the highlights and ramble through them like I'm ripping off a bandage: Announcements looked like normal threads and had dumb info shown, the "Display" options were at the bottom of the page instead of being self-explanatory at the top, the pagination needed help, the footer was an amalgamation of poorly-formatted, little-used options, and I don't want to talk about all the ridiculous dropdown menus.
Phew.
One nice touch on this page is a subtle one: the "Start New Discussion" button becomes a "Start New Discussion Here" button, which allows it to maintain a consistent place while taking over the functionality of the "New Thread" button.
Of course, you'll also notice that the breadcrumb trail in the top left is much more prominent, and the entire page has gained a nice frame. I managed to port both of these consistently throughout the forum, which continues the visual theme that started in Wordpress.
Both of these features carry over to the showthread template, which is our last port of call on this 10-cent tour. Not much has changed here, except that the buttons match the style introduced on the forum home page and the footer has been nicely simplified. Oh right, and that gigantic friggin' header went away for logged-in members. What's 250px of vertical real estate between friends?
The rest of the issues are mostly related to creating that framing effect consistently throughout the forum; I'm sure I've missed plenty of places, so let me know if you stumble on a particularly hideous page after the theme is updated.
That takes care of most of it. I'll be rounding off a few more edges before it becomes reality, but expect it to be coming quite soon now.
My first stop was the forum home page again, where I spent an inordinate amount of time on that cursed Start New Discussion link. I really think I spent at least four hours over three days coming up with just the right style. Of course, it was also time well spent, because as you'll see that style served as a template for every other button. It really puts the "Icrontic" stamp on the last few generic-forum elements.
I also worked on visual and functional consistency quite a bit. You'll notice that dark blue bar = main division and light blue bar = sub-division everywhere now. The mix-n-match color scheme and style has gracefully left the building. What you can't see about the new design is that most of those dark blue bars also double as links to their respective areas now. "Who's here?" has always had a link, and I mirrored that functionality throughout the template now.
This solved another dilemma I had. Since everyone clicks the "Get New Posts" link so often, it didn't seem appropriate to only have it in a block of centered text. To remedy this, I changed the top left block's title from "Last 5 Posts" to "Newest Posts" and linked that text to the same place. That puts a "Get New Posts" link in a memorable spot your mouse can wait in as the page loads.
When I got this far, I sighed very, very deeply. It wasn't because of what I had accomplished, but because I knew what was next: the forum display. Ugh.
The forumdisplay template is the one that lists the discussions in a category, like General Hardware. I know this will shock you, but the default layout of this vBulletin template is particular terrible, and it's one that I've avoided doing anything about over the last few years, so I knew I had my work cut out for me.
So much got shifted around on this one that I'll just stick to the highlights and ramble through them like I'm ripping off a bandage: Announcements looked like normal threads and had dumb info shown, the "Display" options were at the bottom of the page instead of being self-explanatory at the top, the pagination needed help, the footer was an amalgamation of poorly-formatted, little-used options, and I don't want to talk about all the ridiculous dropdown menus.
Phew.
One nice touch on this page is a subtle one: the "Start New Discussion" button becomes a "Start New Discussion Here" button, which allows it to maintain a consistent place while taking over the functionality of the "New Thread" button.
Of course, you'll also notice that the breadcrumb trail in the top left is much more prominent, and the entire page has gained a nice frame. I managed to port both of these consistently throughout the forum, which continues the visual theme that started in Wordpress.
Both of these features carry over to the showthread template, which is our last port of call on this 10-cent tour. Not much has changed here, except that the buttons match the style introduced on the forum home page and the footer has been nicely simplified. Oh right, and that gigantic friggin' header went away for logged-in members. What's 250px of vertical real estate between friends?
The rest of the issues are mostly related to creating that framing effect consistently throughout the forum; I'm sure I've missed plenty of places, so let me know if you stumble on a particularly hideous page after the theme is updated.
That takes care of most of it. I'll be rounding off a few more edges before it becomes reality, but expect it to be coming quite soon now.
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