My god, this new design is ugly.

[Asher]

The more iPads you own, the easier it is on your eyes.

[bc1871]

The new design is absoltue ****! Just give us back the old design.

[Asher]

Style the forum like it's 1871.

[Harry Tuttle]

nm

[Wiglaf]

Anyone else just spill Coke (not diet) all over their keyboards?

[Closey]

And my number one pet peave. Give me the "Forums - Civilization - General" Buttons at the bottom of the thread. I HATE SCROLLING BACK TO THE TOP ON EVERY THREAD!!!!!!!11!1ONEELEVEN11!!

I'd actually missed this as well without realizing it. Put a link back to the forum between the thread links at the bottom.

Like this:

« Now about the new content | Site Feedback & News | The New Apolyton Civilization Site - Comments »

[Robert]

Very few browsers can handle scrolling over fixed elements (the background image) with good performance. Google Chrome and Firefox 4 beta do.

It was a very poor choice of a design.

I'm on MSIE7 right now and it works perfect.

[Robert]

The new design is absoltue ****! Just give us back the old design.

Hehehe, I rememben when Locutus introduced the old design, about 2 years ago, and everybody was *****ing about that style
Anyway, it has been said before, we will (and already have!) introduce a new style.

[McMonkey]

I have got used to this theme now (using no background and wide columns). I can read the test fine. It does strain my eyes after a while, but so does black on white after staring at it long enough. I have been giving it some thought and I have to agree with the poster (techumseh?) who said it was uninviting/foreboding. This may sound daft but I feel like I'm reading something evil in a dark cave. Closey's blue face Avatar just adds to the spooky element. The site and theme do look very professionally made and the first time I saw it I was impressed with how up to date it looked, but now I have visited here for several days I have to say that I honestly don't like the way it looks AND feels. I'm not just copying the general anti theme, this is the vibe I get from the site. When I visist sites with lighter backgrounds it just feels less oppressive. If I like to one and flip between them it really highlights how unfriendly an environment this is ATM. Sorry! Just wanted to pinpoint what it was that I don't like.

[McMonkey]

I just swapped back to the default style with the background image and narrow columns and it does look a bit less oppressive and a bit airier, but I switched off the background image because I found it very distracting so this doesn't really help. I really like the image itself, I agree it does give the site an epic feel, but this if a forum for debate and the site really needs to be functional and user friendly. Style should be a secondary consideration.

I do like the new logo. The A/Delta/Triangle does give the site a brand that should stick in the mind. It looks good in the shortcut bar of my Chrome browser which is a grey and black theme!


EDIT:
I think I will stick with the default theme for a while as it is certainly less oppressive than a screen full of black. I look forward to trying out the new themes.

[Robert]

Thanks for the feedback McMonkey,
Do you think that it may help if we have less transparency so that the background will be less distracting?

[Closey]

Closey's blue face Avatar just adds to the spooky element.

Heh

I actually like the background images more and more and I hope they'll be avaiable (at least as an options) with the new themes you guys are going to make. It'd be interesting to see how they'd feel with a lighter forum color.. I think there'd be less of a clash there as well.

Edit: Here's a thought.. no idea if it would be better or worse however.. what would it look like if you made the background in the actual posts very slightly transparent? The backgrounds would show through a little bit and make them lighter and you'd still have a very similar style. But I guess the people who don't like the backgrounds wouldn't like this option.

[McMonkey]

Thanks for the feedback McMonkey,
Do you think that it may help if we have less transparency so that the background will be less distracting?

I think that if you want to use the background then it would make more sense to have a lighter theme with MORE transparency (IE in the posts themselves) so you can actually see the background image, though this might make it harder to read text as it could clash with light/dark parts of the image. At the moment the light background images seem to clash with the black theme and the transparent bits between posts make it all look a little disjointed. All you can see of the beautiful images is a thin column either side of the posts. My personal preference would be for all (transparent posts so you can see the background) or nothing (solid backgrounds).

I think that as soon as a lighter theme is available I will swap to that and go with wide columns and a solid colour background. For me this would be more functional. The images are epic but I come to Apolyton to discuss Civ not to look at inspiring pictures. If you can get the backgrounds to fit in with the posts then great but I just can't see how it will work.

EDIT: Just realised a lot of what I said here is along the same lines as Closey.

[Closey]

Brilliant minds think alike eh?

Considering the header is a transparent white it might work well for the posts as well.

[Robert]

http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/1...lmost-finished!