[Charismatic]

Ok, so, HLP 3.0 was www.hard-light.net. That was the coolest, sharpest lookeing version of HLP to date. Was freaking aswem. Then we did some sort of total host or w\e change. Now we got this, no offence, but it does not look near as sharp and aswem as our last..version. What is this, 3.5? I know of hard work went into this but.. seriously, this was the tradeoff for custom buttons, search function, and a few new options?

What do you guys think (About the look of HLP, no personal cuts please)?
Leave your hatemail and flames at the door, please. Thank you all for your feedback.

[Falcon]

Looks fine to me...

[achtung]

The forum was updated to SMF Release Canidate 2.  This was done so we could use the search feature again.  There was a downside however, the old theme can't be converted, so we have this until the next official release of SMF Forums.

Am I right?

[ZylonBane]

The previous forum had a ludicrously cluttered layout, and this one isn't much better. Message boards are supposed to be about the messages, dammit, not making the screen look like a nuclear reactor control panel.

[Kie99]

Aswem?

[Prophet]

These boards are pretty good currently me thinks. At least when you compare to some other horrible avatar galleries out there...

[Colonol Dekker]

The Boards are absolutely fine.

[aldo_14]

It's fine.

Anyways, content counts, not style.

[Setekh]

This is the final release candidate for SMF 1.1. Personally, I'm just waiting for the full version to come out before I go at it with a new set of graphics. I know Sandwich is the same in waiting to change the stylesheets.

[Fury]

AFAIK, there might be RC3 before final.

[redsniper]

I think maybe it should be a little more red rather than the kinda maroon color we have now. That's about it though.

[WeatherOp]

To tell the truth, I agree, I really liked the very sharp color we had. It just looked more like a active game site. Like the HLP website, it's very sharp, but now the forums have a very smooth look, dare I say it, allmost like the calm site of a dieing community.

[IceFire]

I think maybe it should be a little more red rather than the kinda maroon color we have now. That's about it though.

Nope...I fought that whole red thing tooth and nail.  Here's why:

1) Red is a very noticeable colour to human eyes.  Its very sharp and alarming in its tone so when you see of red it is a mental load.  Its likely part of a conditioned response to seeing blood and thus cause for alarm.

2) Your eyes do not see as many reds as they do blues and greens.  Red is a harder colour to see.

3) Those of us with sharp contrast brand new LCD monitors see what used to be those massively red borders like they were lighthouse beacons.  I turned my monitor brightness all over the board and it was just a horrible experience.  I started not visiting the forums for a while soley because I couldn't make heads or tails of what I was looking at easily.

Red is a VERY bad colour to use on the web in any quantity.  In terms of UI and HID its very bad.  What you want to do is accent titles or draw attention to certain items using red.  Other than that you should use more neutral tones that your eyes are used to seeing.  Maroon is more of an earthy tone and blues and greens are far less jarring unless  they are super bright as well but blue will never be as bad as red for this.

When we do move to a new scheme...I'm sort of hoping that we'll do a HLP Blue theme with similar styling but with a shade of blue or green.

[Windrunner]

I think maybe it should be a little more red rather than the kinda maroon color we have now. That's about it though.

Nope...I fought that whole red thing tooth and nail.  Here's why:

1) Red is a very noticeable colour to human eyes.  Its very sharp and alarming in its tone so when you see of red it is a mental load.  Its likely part of a conditioned response to seeing blood and thus cause for alarm.

2) Your eyes do not see as many reds as they do blues and greens.  Red is a harder colour to see.

3) Those of us with sharp contrast brand new LCD monitors see what used to be those massively red borders like they were lighthouse beacons.  I turned my monitor brightness all over the board and it was just a horrible experience.  I started not visiting the forums for a while soley because I couldn't make heads or tails of what I was looking at easily.

Red is a VERY bad colour to use on the web in any quantity.  In terms of UI and HID its very bad.  What you want to do is accent titles or draw attention to certain items using red.  Other than that you should use more neutral tones that your eyes are used to seeing.  Maroon is more of an earthy tone and blues and greens are far less jarring unless  they are super bright as well but blue will never be as bad as red for this.

When we do move to a new scheme...I'm sort of hoping that we'll do a HLP Blue theme with similar styling but with a shade of blue or green.

have to disagree with you collin, i don't know why but i also liked the sharp red collor

[WMCoolmon]

Ok, so, HLP 3.0 was www.hard-light.net. That was the coolest, sharpest lookeing version of HLP to date. Was freaking aswem. Then we did some sort of total host or w\e change. Now we got this, no offence, but it does not look near as sharp and aswem as our last..version. What is this, 3.5? I know of hard work went into this but.. seriously, this was the tradeoff for custom buttons, search function, and a few new options?

Good tradeoff.

[Mars]

You people read way too much into the color of the Forum. I think the maroon we have is rather ugly (I would prefer blue or green) but I don't think it's an indicator of the status of the community.

[Fury]

Coming tomorrow: yellow/pink color style.

[Fineus]

Meh.. After we have the style itself sorted out I'd actually quite like to convert it to a blue/other version. We'll see when that time comes though.

[Fury]

The previous forum had a ludicrously cluttered layout, and this one isn't much better. Message boards are supposed to be about the messages, dammit, not making the screen look like a nuclear reactor control panel.

You know what? Disabling signatures helps a LOT.
(Profile > Look and Layout Preferences > Don't show other users' signatures)
If you want to, you can also disable avatars from Look and Layout Preferences as well.

People would probably complain if we'd go as far as disabling sigs alltogether. Personally I still prefer not to look at stupid sigs.

[Wobble73]

The previous forum had a ludicrously cluttered layout, and this one isn't much better. Message boards are supposed to be about the messages, dammit, not making the screen look like a nuclear reactor control panel.

You know what? Disabling signatures helps a LOT.
(Profile > Look and Layout Preferences > Don't show other users' signatures)
If you want to, you can also disable avatars from Look and Layout Preferences as well.

People would probably complain if we'd go as far as disabling sigs alltogether. Personally I still prefer not to look at stupid sigs.

Then you're missing some cracking jokes!!

"There are 10 kinds of people in the world, Those who understand binary and those who don't" as one example