SORRY! This new style is absolutely hideous.

I find it REALLY off-putting. In fact I'm posting this and not even browsing the forums. To be blunt I loathe it. It's far more garish and your previous style was a hell of a lot better. New posts are harder to spot at a glance which means I have to look at this longer, and, well, no.

Sorry, I know you don't want to hear something so negative, I just find it incredibly ugly. Please, please have mercy and give us the option to pick the scheme we like in our profile!!

PS The topic icons are very hard to distinguish, I hope I've picked a warning / alert one.
PPS The "please" at the end of line four should be in bold but the preview shows it as normal.
EDIT- PPPS It's only line four in the preview, it's line three once submitted. Kinda makes the preview pointless.

Is it just the forums you don't like? What if we shrunk the fonts and made the "Category" view the default?


EDIT: Also, what resolution are you viewing it with? I'm at 1280 x 1024 and the Category view on the forums looks pretty good.

I actually find the new version easier to use and easier to read. The colors clash though.

I don't know about anything other than the forums. Previously I posted that the black style was okay in small doses but not for lengthy articles. This new one has also put me off the forums. Which unfortunately means I haven't read a single article since you went live. (On the old blog I'd click on Post Comment then Show Article as I found that easier to read, i.e. dark on light as opposed to light on dark.
Today the colour scheme doesn't look so bad. I thought the orange on green I'll get used to, but disliked the pale yellow on green (and still do).

I don't think it's the font size; it looks like there's more whitespace compared to text, which means less information density and more scrolling. "Category" as the default I think would be better.

My screen is 1680x1050 though I only have the browser width sufficient to avoid sideways scrolling with 99% of the websites. That's just over half the screen, so maybe 900 pixels.

The new posts are now highlighted in red (and larger?) which is a huge improvement (thanks uba).

Other thoughts, in no particular order:-
The logo clashes with the new style. The new picture is a better choice because it's not solely SF. The colour of the menus also clash: the top line is old style black, the All Discussions line is grey, and the search box is white. Perhaps simplify / unify the colour palette, or just pick one menu style? The bottom black bar under "Home > Trash Talk" extends too far on either side. The logo picture extends slightly on the right compared to the Home menu area. The dropdown menu's speed of appearing/disappearing is excellent. However, the title changes to yellow and the menu body is white; why not have both yellow to tie it to the colour of the forum posts text? Or one step further, yellow on green? How about changing the lower All Discussions area colour to be grey on black, the same as the Home menu bar? Then the dropdown menu's could reverse (title and body) to black on grey? I was put off some of Michael's GameShark articles which had too many popup adverts, so I was going to comment on the vcard popup here and how irritating it was to have to click on it to close. But after a couple of times I noticed a simple mouseover again removes them without having to hit the "X". That's actually a very good compromise.

Anyway, that's my feedback. Some good, some bad, some very minor points and some not so minor. Throw in a scattering of conflicting suggestions, and end with it's just my opinion and hopefully of some use.

EDIT- I've just returned to the Trash Talk Categories page and was surprised to see there is nothing marked as "New"! There must have been something posted and I'm fairly sure there were numerous marked items before I posted this. (I haven't marked everything as read.)
EDIT2- Clearing history and cache hasn't made any difference.

Definitely an improvement for me. It's still rough in parts, but I find it much easier to read. Thanks, guys.

jeb wrote:

Definitely an improvement for me. It's still rough in parts, but I find it much easier to read. Thanks, guys.

same here. default view should probably be the categories though, or people might not realise they can start new posts.

Uba, I didn't mean to suggest I won't be reading here anymore, probably it'll be in smaller doses. I think you're pushing the boundaries of easy-viewing and it's still somewhat off-putting. Hopefully I'll get more used to it as time passes. If you implement a profile based pick a style option, you could always add a plain vanilla one for comfort reading. The forum posts' body text seems a shade more towards yellow than green, but it's a close call and could be down to my eyes!

To be fair to Gameshark, popup adverts irritate me anywhere. Actually most adverts do...

With the previous style I could mark the whole forum as read after reading the posts I was interested in. If it's now removing all indicators even when you haven't read them then I'd suggest that's a serious problem.

EDIT- I've just gone Trash Talk Categories > Modern AT > Trash Talk Categories and the posts are still marked as New. I've closed the window and returned and they're still marked. That's the same as I did when I created this thread, so I don't understand why the posts I haven't looked at in the last couple of days have become unmarked. (I haven't logged out.)

ubarose wrote:

Jeb,

I assumed that using the same default view BBG uses for it's "Forums" module, but with a more intuitive way to get to the category view would be the least confusing option. Does BBG have a way to set the category view as your default view for their front page? If someone tells me how to set it, I might be able to view their source code and figure out how to do it.

I'd suggest just changing the Trash Talk link at the top of the page to point to:

fortressat.com/index.php?option=com_kune...mid=128&func=listcat

That's a great suggestion! Holy shit, we really do have the best people on the planet here.

I have to admit that the current color scheme is easier on the eyes for me.

--Mike L.