A Shiny New Mac-Forums!

Really nice!

I.M.O.G. said:

Working on the subnav thing as well, it is one of the priorities I noted as well - the dropdown works, but I like directly clicking. When you spend all day or multiple hours on a site, which many people do, it really stands out how much more convenient it is to point and click rather than hover point click.

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That is good to hear. I use the Get New/New Post feature very often and I completely agree about the convenience. The requirement to hover isn't as convenient if a person uses the button as often as I do.

lifeisabeach said:

It's also a bit too "white" all around. Perhaps a soft gradient could be used as a background for the sections to "float" on top of. White floating on white just doesn't work. And the spacing…. everything takes up twice as much space. Just browsing through a forum category takes twice as long now.

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I also agree with both points. White on white makes it extremely bright to look at. It does look pretty but I don't know if I want to look at it for long periods when reading the forum. The background can be white but I do think the floating white part should be a darker color. It could still be a light color since I dislike forums that uses black backgrounds but please just don't use white on white.

The spacing also seems rather excessive. I've already forgotten what the spacing on the old design looked like so I can't remember the exact difference except that now one person's reply can take up almost my full screen.

I also miss the centering of the reply text box section when I type a reply like in the old design. The new design has the reply box all the way to the left causing me to constantly turn my head to the left.

Overall I do like the new forum so hopefully you don't get the wrong impression from my reply. As others have also mentioned there seems to be a only few minor changes to make it a better forum design.

Matt, Rob one of our Mods from England can not even log in to Mac Forums. He wanted me to give you a heads up. Tried several browsers and nothing so he asked me if the forums are up and they are for me. he is in England.

This is what he just told me in Chat.....

i think its an issue with the 3.8.4 adless skin - cause i can access the new look before, but not after i log in - it just comes up totally blank. it says "thank you for logging in, robduckyworth" in the new style, then nothing.

This will take some getting used to, but it looks great.

dtravis7 said:

Matt, Rob one of our Mods from England can not even log in to Mac Forums. He wanted me to give you a heads up. Tried several browsers and nothing so he asked me if the forums are up and they are for me. he is in England.

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This "problem" sounds like the perfect excuse not to do his mod duties for the day. Just kidding Rob.

Looks good on my Imac! Very nice upgrade!

On the site with my PlayBook as i type this. I have to say, it looks even better on here! The ratios just seem a lot better, if thats even it.

I saw it briefly, then switched to the old one to compare, and can't switch to the new one.

Is there a way?

I.M.O.G. said:

There has been a couple comments on the red, but nothing close enough to a consensus yet - there needs to be something of a color, and red was part of the old theme as well. As you would likely agree, design stuff can be difficult to appease everyone's tastes. If some sort of consensus emerges, we are always open to change however. These things are also discussed with site moderation and administration, to prioritize what needs attention, what is agreed upon, and get that consensus necessary to ensure we make good changes.

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I agree that you will never please everyone. And design stuff is difficult… I'm far better at critiquing it than actually creating anything. That said… red was only a part of the old theme in terms of the graphics. I don't ever recall red fonts anywhere. Hopefully I've adequately articulated why it's such a bad idea. Not trying to deride your efforts here, mind you. I'm just not one to nod my head and say it's all great.

I've seen comments about the white/spacing go both ways - some have commented it looks cleaner and sharper, others think too much white on white. If we let this simmer, we may also get a better sense of consensus.

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I'd suggest making a couple demos showing alternatives to white-on-white. Not necessarily the entire site, but maybe post screen caps of a page. I'd bet my last dollar that if it's done right, a large number of those who are fine with how it is now would pick an alternative.

EDIT: it's also possible I'm more bothered by the white-on-white due to the increased spacing, which itself leads to more "whiteness" in between lines.

oh wait I figured it out.

Anyone else who found the new style switcher on the front forums page and wants to switch back, User CP>Edit Options>Forum Skin @ page bottom, -- Mac Forums 3.8.6

Looking pretty good. I almost thought I went to a different website when I clicked on my bookmark tab for the forum, haha! I agree with some about the bright white but it's a fresh change. I do kind of wish things were a little be smaller though. The topics and categories look a bit large, but I'm sure we'll all get used to it over time.

McYukon changing forum skin to 3.8.6 does precisely nothing.

harryb2448 said:

McYukon changing forum skin to 3.8.6 does precisely nothing.

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3.8.4 switches it back to the old style. Which I think I may keep using until some of the small kinks are worked out of the new one.

Love it!

Hello,

This came as a surprise this morning, it's always good to see change and progress..well done.

Yes I know I can be a bore at times but I'll post this link again.

http://www.pnas.org/content/82/17/5983.full.pdf

I'm finding the home page difficult to navigate around, it has an 'Impressionist' feel.

EDIT-extract from article...

"In our experiments, brightness assimilation is less than half as strong as the effect of contrast. Thus, the brightness of an object is to a large extent determined by the local physical contrast around its border. However, assimilation is not negligible."


A change from Red to a medium Blue colour for header fills and fonts would probably nail it.

A quick question also, why is the Review pane so prominent? I find it distracts away from the forum.

Liam

Looks good. Definitely was confused for a bit. Thought I had gone to some other forum by accident.

Fresh and nice. I would like a single "what's new" button though, not two steps to get only "today's". Thanks and cheers.

I'm quite liking it, looking at new content isn't too difficult and getting to the subscriptions is easier.

I also, unlike others it seems, quite like the white - red combo. Much smoother.

This is weird. I reverted back to the old style, and I thought, "Ooh, this is nice!"
In my opinion, there was never a problem with the way it looked. It was real nice, simple layout, easy to navigate, and easy on the eye with the backgrounds/layers.
I'll probably be sticking to 3.8.4 for a while.