Changes on the horizon
We're overdue for a design iteration, and I want to take the maintenance overhead down several notches while bringing the engagement & style up a few. So, I'd like to change a few things about Icrontic:
- Eliminate the front page / forum separation
- Eliminate the sidebar (except in super-wide displays, maybe)
- Use 1 unified, responsive theme (we currently have 3: forum desktop, forum mobile, and WordPress)
- Publish articles as discussion OPs, with modified styling (also solves issue that articles are currently not searchable)
- Create some new ways to show featured content, what Icrontic is up to, & how to engage
- Make a modified dark theme the default
I'm also going to make NewBuddhist & intoDetroit structurally the same as Icrontic in the process. They will each still have their current flavor & style, but they'll be using the same overall layout.
Some things I don't want to change are basic design choices that I think are settled:
- Color palette
- Font choices
- Grid & general spacing
- Category structure
- Top navigation
I'm not much of a designer and I like the way most of that stuff has shaken out over the years.
When am I doing all this? I dunno. I've already started it but these projects are notorious for dragging out three times longer than I expect, so I feel like "hopefully this year" is about as optimistic as I'll get.
Comments
Sounds good. Looking forward to it
Win.
Three years isn't a bad estimate either.
Dat first comment.
I've only been working on this a few days and I've already realized a few pretty incredible things.
Because I don't give a shit about ad placements, I can do exactly the layout I want. I really took lessons about responsive design to heart over the last few years and I think I've engineered a really slick, flexible layout that will let me tinker with all the fun stuff I want to without going "uh but where do I put this, the bottom of the sidebar?"
I've also learned a helluva lot in the last 2 years working for Vanilla, the product is a lot more powerful (especially in the area of theming), and I have such confidence with it that I'm designing the site, then patching Vanilla to allow the features I require. I'm not basing the rebuild on "what can I do with Vanilla right now?" but "what do I want to do? I can make Vanilla do/allow that."
That's all pretty ridiculous. I've been hacking on Icrontic 7+ years and I don't think I've ever been in a position of where the only limitation was how much time I could invest... and I imagine I'm a little more efficient now.
Which basically leaves me with
Noooooo
Agreed, Nooo.
Just because something is the default doesn't mean you can't switch it back.
Once you go dark theme...
Once you go dark theme, you suck at the 'Net meme.
hey mabe you should make beter drivers my ati card driv is terrible its nvidia is better plus my gpu has ddram5 and plays badlefield4 on ultra quality gtx750 at 1080p
^^ Flagged as spam.
Drunk at 9 in the morning is impressive.
^^ Spammed as flag.
Can you make a section for cars / gear heads
If we're making themes, how 'bout a TF2 theme? Or a pony theme? Oooh! How about a drunk theme that applies a filter that makes everyone look 1000% more hot? Here's how it would work:
Before:
After!
[spoiler]Combine the filters together may lead to unexpected results...
[/spoiler]
FTFY
So you're saying Brian isn't hot?