Have your say: Forum Theme Revamp

I have been here over five years. In that time, the clan has changed immensely. We have gone through many forums, switched hosts, gained a teamspeak server and IRC bot, and have all upgraded our computers and software.

Despite this, the theme in this - our current forum - has not changed a whole lot since the day it went online. Sure, we have added a few addons, which have changed over time; My coding skills have changed a whole lot, yet the overall theme has not changed much.

I think its time for a change. Take a look around - Is this forum perfect? Can you think of things that you never use, that are taking up space? Can you think of things that are a pain to use - things that would be handy?

Heck, take a look at the forum width. It is ~850px wide, no matter what size window you view the forum in. Its fine for those of us who use 1024X768 laptop screens, but who uses those any more? I mean, most laptops now have widescreen displays, ones that are a fair bit wider - Does the forum suit those screens? And, its even worse for desktops - I currently use a 22" 1680X1050 LCD. I keep the forum in a small window, but even so, there is plenty of wasted space on the sides.
This needs to change.
Now, I know how to fix this. I could do it in a couple of hours, and it would work. But... is that really what I should do? Make yet another fix to an old and poor theme?

I think we should redesign the theme. Once I have good plans for a new theme, I will have a lot more freedom as far as making it extremely usable. And this is where you all come in: I want you to figure out colors, images, possible designs. What do you like, what don't you. Show me pics of other forums, stuff you like.


Think about all this, then give me feedback. I want lots of feedback, feel free to post multiple times if you need. Just give me your thoughts.

Specific questions to look at:



-Robbie

• Combat/stats by the username: Is this useful? Do you use it a lot? Would it be better to have this as a mouse-over option for the username itself?
• Side borders & brown rock texture: Are these good looking, and if so how much brown rock would you like to see at the side of the forums?
• Forum list/index: Are all the various "chrome" images useful? What on that page is useful/useless? Would it be handy to have the full title of the last posted in topic as a mouseover of the link to that topic(where it currently says "go to the first unread post")? Would it be useful to know the sub-forum of the last-posted-in topic?
• Overall theme: Do you want a heavy-weight theme with lots of shiny chrome images, or do you want something sleeker that loads faster/is better on smaller screens?
• News/announcement box: What tabs and features do you use most? What would you like? What do you see is unneeded?
• Topic title length: Do you run into issues with topic character limits, or is it fine as it is?
• Emotes: What do you use a lot? What ones should be removed or relegated to the "show all" page? What would you like added?

robbie, I trust whatever you plan on doing. You have never done anything wrong or bad for the forums, can't wait to see a new theme, although....the new part is always something people are scared of.

Spoke to you in the IRC with an idea that might be good for WG. I'll speak to you again tomorrow.

A link to the attendance/war record. A last date event attended for people would maybe be helpful if that isn't on that record.

A counter of thread starts from people might be nice. I've seen that on other websites.

The darker theme has always been nice for me.

Add this Smile for me: I need it for Vephy. There may be a few that you could get rid of and give some new ones.

Make it so some polls can be voted like in order that you like them. Example is what is your favorite color. Then you could put 1st purple 2nd pink 3rd red and ect . . . This could be helpful to staff. Maybe like a drop down menu for when the person is going to start the poll to choose how people will vote on it.

If a topic has already been reported maybe somehow we could know that so we aren't bugging George.

When someone is an allie on the forum, it might be nice to have their clan's name appear with a cursor over there name thing.

If I think of more stuff, I'll post it.

I actually think that a revamp will be benefitial for WG.

The current theme is uber already, and with your talent for making forum themes I do believe that you could top this one. It would be nice with some changes and perhaps it will blow in some new life and atmosphere to the clan?

I vote yes for changes

Oh and yeah..

1) I think the combat level indicators above our names are nice and unique.. I vote no for getting rid of them.

2) I think it works out great. The only thing where I maybe can see an improvement is the brown background. Maybe make it more "alive"?

3) Again, I think it adds personality to the forum and I'd say the more info you get on what you click the better.

4) I wouldn't mind a heavy weight theme. thinking that we are in the year of 2009, most people should have gotten an upgrade or two to their computer. Another suggestion would be to get some "theme" on the scrollbars.. They don't fit in as we speak.

5) Haven't really used it that much..

6) I've never stumpled upon an issue similar to this. I don't see why it should be changed. Not for my needs...

7) There is a bunch that's not being used. We actually only use a few of them. It's only when people go crazy the spectacular emotes are brought up.

let me do gfx design k

I wonder, can you have the board width relative to the forum skin? Eg. keep the 850px one and add in optional 1000/1200 etc.



This smily is horribly inaccurate, I demand it be fixed to to represent the historic moment correctly.

Guardianscore highscores!?!?!?!?!