Hard Light Productions Forums

Announcements => Announcements => Topic started by: Sandwich on December 31, 2010, 04:02:47 pm

Title: Forum Width?
Post by: Sandwich on December 31, 2010, 04:02:47 pm
I'd appreciate everyone's input in this poll. Thanks!

Flexible-width example: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/
Fixed-width example: http://www.hard-light.net/




Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on December 31, 2010, 04:14:03 pm
Personally I use 2 different sized screens.  I really hate when I'm on a site that doesn't adjust and leave space on the sides especially when I have to scroll to see pics.

Oh and since we have to maintain retail hardware spec compatibility that fixed with would have to be 640x480 wouldn't it?  :warp:


Also the warp smiley needs a transparent background.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Rodo on December 31, 2010, 04:31:23 pm
flexible please, if that's not too much of a problem.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Lukeskywalkie on December 31, 2010, 04:59:24 pm
Flex. I mean, as long as we're upgrading for security purposes, we may as well take the time to implement  and adapt to new features (if useful, as this one is IMO).
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: ABetterWay on December 31, 2010, 06:11:27 pm
Flexible 100%

Its much easier to read on different devices that way.

-ABW
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Aurora Paradox on December 31, 2010, 06:33:24 pm
Flexible 100%

Its much easier to read on different devices that way.

-ABW

I second that.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Nuke on December 31, 2010, 06:55:12 pm
i cant really tell the difference
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: NGTM-1R on December 31, 2010, 08:32:48 pm
The Flexiforums appear to win by a landslide.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on December 31, 2010, 08:45:53 pm
The dial up vote probably isn't in yet.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: SpardaSon21 on January 01, 2011, 12:27:06 am
Flexible.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Fury on January 01, 2011, 01:44:42 am
I don't think this poll was accurate enough. When Sandwich says flexible width that takes 100% of browser width, he literally meant it as such.
(http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/4356/width.th.png) (http://img255.imageshack.us/i/width.png/)
You see that there are no empty sides like there are in default SMF theme. While width of those empty sides could be smaller, I personally prefer some empty space on sides as opposed to none at all.

Actually, I merely haven't gotten to that part of the templates yet. There will be sufficient white-space on the sides, don't worry. :)  - Sandwich
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Zacam on January 01, 2011, 01:56:01 am
I'm with Fury on that one. A 10/20 px margin of padding on left and right for a variable width format would be cherry.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on January 01, 2011, 02:27:33 am
While that would be an issue on some forums with the no avatar and only short comment under the name I don't see it as a problem here.  You can still move the mouse to one side and scroll without hitting other scroll bars. 
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: FreeSpaceFreak on January 01, 2011, 02:44:25 am
Basically, as it currently is. Flexible, with some margin on the sides. It's perfect.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Shivan Hunter on January 01, 2011, 03:19:01 am
tbh I'd prefer a much smaller margin than we have now and than we had on the old theme. Makes more efficient use of space- at the moment we're wasting 138 pixels for the forum border, and 38 more pixels for the borders between that border and the actual post. Sandwich's pic wastes around 2 pixels, at least that I can see. Something around 10-15 pixels on either side would be alright, but honestly, the less the better.

Oh and, flexible, obviously. Fixed-width forums are a broken design in and of themselves imo- using less than the available space for no reason at all (or more than the available space!) is not a good design by pretty much any standard.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Grizzly on January 01, 2011, 03:21:58 am
Flexible, for those netbooks. < 960 screens are actually quite common.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Sandwich on January 01, 2011, 10:00:39 am
As I added to Fury's post above, I merely haven't gotten to that part of the templates yet. There will be sufficient white-space on the sides, don't worry. :)
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Ypoknons on January 01, 2011, 11:51:11 am
Eh, I read HLP on several devices - 1920x1200, 1024x600 and 640x960 (Monitor, rooted Nook Color and iPhone 4 respectively). Flexible thus preferred.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: -Sara- on January 01, 2011, 01:42:28 pm
Flexible please, I got a high resolution. Defined pixels x pixels typically fill half the screen for me or others who run on a similar resolution. Fixed sizes work for blogs and bulletins, not for forums I think.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Black Wolf on January 01, 2011, 02:08:26 pm
Given that it's 42 to 1 with 7 snuffies, I'd say you can probably stop voting now :p
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Sandwich on January 01, 2011, 03:36:11 pm
No! I must have... ACCURATE DATA!!!!
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Nuke on January 01, 2011, 08:58:00 pm
i still dont see any difference between the two examples.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on January 02, 2011, 05:36:11 am
(http://koti.welho.com/ahesso/Animation/Giveadamn.gif)
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: NGTM-1R on January 02, 2011, 05:17:01 pm
Snuffleupagus.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: [DW]-Hunter on January 04, 2011, 05:04:17 pm
is there something wrong with CTRL+SCROLL that people cant blow things up in there browser when they cant read it or something, predefined width is nicer because it doesn't adjust when you shrink or grow the page.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: rsaxvc on January 04, 2011, 08:43:02 pm
is there something wrong with CTRL+SCROLL that people cant blow things up in there browser when they cant read it or something, predefined width is nicer because it doesn't adjust when you shrink or grow the page.

Yes. That is wrong. You shouldn't have to fiddle with each and every web page so that the zoom is correct. If you can't read it, set your font correctly, which is a different issue. Predefined width is lame because it doesn't adjust when the rest of the world starts using multimegapixel monitors (I'm up to 3x3MP, and loving it.)
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Dark RevenantX on January 05, 2011, 08:03:16 pm
Isn't this an incredibly simple change?  It would take me all of 30 seconds to try out each of them on my own SMF v2 RC4 forum.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Starman01 on January 07, 2011, 05:42:28 am
Uhm,,..... Now that I see how it turns out, when the forum is stretched all over, I must say I don't like it that way.  :nervous: It's very uncommon, hopefully I get used to it :)
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Xelion on February 10, 2011, 10:25:43 am
I know this reply is a little late but I see an issue with the flexible width option... reading from left to right on a monitor that displays 1920px across isn't ideal for human eyes, neither for 1366px but its easier :). I know I can re-size my browser but would it just be better to put the content as a fixed width for the screen stylesheet. A great article to read on the matter is Ideal line length for content (http://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/em/) and note that the article is very easy to read for the eyes :yes: and yes I know it's an old article :p
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Sandwich on February 11, 2011, 06:11:18 pm
I know this reply is a little late but I see an issue with the flexible width option... reading from left to right on a monitor that displays 1920px across isn't ideal for human eyes, neither for 1366px but its easier :). I know I can re-size my browser but would it just be better to put the content as a fixed width for the screen stylesheet. A great article to read on the matter is Ideal line length for content (http://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/em/) and note that the article is very easy to read for the eyes :yes: and yes I know it's an old article :p

Yup, I'm quite aware of the whole optimal line length for reading issue (as a web designer, I'd better be!). Unfortunately for that aspect of things, the majority here like to make use of space, even at the expense of easy readability. I'm considering making this a user-selectable toggle - if I can figure out how. :p
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Xelion on February 13, 2011, 07:00:00 am
Yup, I'm quite aware of the whole optimal line length for reading issue (as a web designer, I'd better be!).

I knew you were :D... but I've discovered in life that its always good to have evidence to backup what you say :p


Unfortunately for that aspect of things, the majority here like to make use of space, even at the expense of easy readability. I'm considering making this a user-selectable toggle - if I can figure out how. :p

That would be awesome :yes:. Would this feature be integrated into the forum settings thus one change applies to all threads and forums, or would it be selectable per thread or forum?
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Sandwich on February 16, 2011, 07:32:25 am
I'm considering making this a user-selectable toggle - if I can figure out how. :p

Would this feature be integrated into the forum settings thus one change applies to all threads and forums, or would it be selectable per thread or forum?

Definitely a site-wide toggle; per thread would be annoying. At the very least, I think I can make it cookie-based (3rd-party; not using any of SMF's own cookies), but I'd prefer to figure out how to add it as a custom user preference so it's tied to user profiles as opposed to a specific browser.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Fury on February 16, 2011, 07:52:44 am
I really mean no offense, but seeing how much is still left done with the theme itself, I don't think that is feasible to do and maintain. It would definitely have to be done in a form of an SMF modification, akin to those available for download in the official site. I'd just go with one solution that is aesthetically pleasing, suitable for forums and accepted by majority and stick with it.
Title: Re: Forum Width?
Post by: Sandwich on February 17, 2011, 06:22:45 pm
Well, the only reason I'm so open to implementing it is because I actually did have exactly that feature implemented for the mainpage for a while, so the essentials are already done. But you're right that other theme elements have priority.