New Layout for the New Year? Mayb?

[Faiien]

hey guys i was wondering if we could have a new layout, or mayb even just a new banner for the new year. Just a suggestion :)

[Frattimonde]

what's wrong with the current one?

[Thedutchjelle]

It's sooooo 2007ish.


But seriously, do we really need that?

[Black.Ice]

New styles would always be nice, the problem is a lack of people making them.

Here's a little insider secret: If you want to get stuff done, post the completed item / skin and suggest it.

e.g. go post a new header or make a new skin and suggest it to be used.

[FrankZ]

I think AJ'll be getting the latest update of vBulletin sometime near, and it should introduce a new look. Also, if you will be making your own skin, try to wait for the new vB version first.

[Faiien]

lol, well we dont need one
but it would be pretty cool if we had a new layout for 2008

[Black.Ice]

I wasn't joking about my last post.


If you get something done by yourself, there's a 90% chance it'll be used.

[Sid]

lol, well we dont need one
but it would be pretty cool if we had a new layout for 2008
I Agree...
Maybe Starcraft 2 style...

BTW, she's hot... Really.

[Faiien]

ill try and photoshop a new banner or something and see if aj will approve it lol

[FrankZ]

Suggestion:

Your banner should be something about a StarCraft unit battling a WarCraft 3 unit, while a Sorceress from D2 hovers above them on a Hellgate:London place setting.

[Faiien]

lol iam done

[Jimmy_the_saint]

I'd Rep you but im not allowed to yet.

[FrankZ]

Things are getting sarcastic around here. Yeah, but cool. That's the idea of it you know? (but seriously, I'd be ashamed if AJ puts that up as banner).

[Protogod]

Suggestion:

Your banner should be something about a StarCraft unit battling a WarCraft 3 unit, while a Sorceress from D2 hovers above them on a Hellgate:London place setting.

seems like something of a clusterfuck, in my opinion. We dont need to jumble a bunch of copyrighted game images to show what we're about - and more importnatly, WB isnt just about blizzard games. It's about community.

[Neo]

We could hold a simple contest or something.

I'd actually be interested in seeing us do a sort of random banner thing, since that can be fun.

Mock up a template banner, and then throw in some various stuff from various games n stuff.

-Neo

[AJ]

I wasn't joking about my last post.


If you get something done by yourself, there's a 90% chance it'll be used.

:samurai:
no, seriously. quoted for accuracy. ;)

[Lithium]

Well, I've got an VBulletin theme that I'm not using...It's this one right here (http://exaltic.com/product/venise).

I'll give it for a rep from AJ. :D

[Neo]

Ugh, stupid bookmarks bar.

I wish I had access to a legit vB, rofl. Ha, while we're at it, access to the vb forums to, so I can learn about vB template/skins.

Ever since I toyed with the phpBB3 default skin (for instance, member info is on the right in a postbit) I thought it would be interesting to work on a new skin in a similar style.

Though it seems as if knowing vB would be better at any rate. It really bothers me the way phpBB3 ended up "feature frozen" -- seriously, it doesn't have a quick reply default?

Really irks me. So something that is standard on almost every other major forum solution, is still a mod for phpbb?

Unfair or not to compare phpbb to vb, phpbb has certainly fallen behind. There are so many things I take for granted on Warboards when I goto moderate something that is still impossible with phpbb without mods.

Meh. Ranting here.

Anywho, I always thought it'd be fun to mock up an "updated" warboards theme. Something thats lighter code wise, and something that loads faster. At least for me, even @ 10 posts per page, threads can take a while to load and stick on individual posts for a second or two.

-Neo

[Black.Ice]

I agree. I would have started making a skin, but it's a lack of know how and lack of a live vB sandbox to try it out.

Maybe AJ can provide serious contestants with the current theme so we can learn what's needed or something.


(And is it possible to move away from tables and start using div's)

[Neo]

I agree. I would have started making a skin, but it's a lack of know how and lack of a live vB sandbox to try it out.

Maybe AJ can provide serious contestants with the current theme so we can learn what's needed or something.


(And is it possible to move away from tables and start using div's)

Well here's the thing, I've got a version of vB that i could run on a WAMP setup... but it's not really the same thing as an official install.

Generally I just wanted to know how vB handled themes. It's a bit more complicated then I thought, and to move from tables to divs would require more then just a new theme...

AJ did mention the newer version of vB that'l released soon, and some of the features look really sweet, so I'm hesitant to even start work on a vb specific theme if the new version is going to change the way themes are done anyways.

I wish vB had, like, a developer's version for those of us interested in theming for vb, but not really interested in the forum software, since we don't really need it to be a forum.

Seriously, you know, like a version that has, say, no database functionality for members (posting, replying, etc..) but a fully functioning administration system (at least for the theming aspect) and a sample set of forums+posts.

-Neo

[Faiien]

iam glad to see you guys wanting to contribute to the idea of a new layout!
i mean theres nothing wrong with this one
i just think its kinda bland and we just need some change is all
if you guys could find a new skin that would be awesomex1000
as soon as you guys have decided on a good skin plz pm me and ill try and whip up a banner for us
i dont want the banner and the skin to clash with each other

[AJ]

@ Neo/BI: vBulletin 3.7 which will be the latest update applied to the site within the next couple weeks, will just slightly change templating and add fun new features.

It'll be a while before vB4 is released, more than a year, but that release will begin the switch to css-controlled, div-based templating.

It's a lot harder, and not really fully realistic to move away from tables in the current incarnation of vB.

[Neo]

Which actually is fine, since tables can be styled just as well as divs when you get right down to it.

I would assume though that the tables for Warboards style are a bit more excessive because of the many picture components involved in the interface/postbit layouts.

plus, to be honest, tables somehow seem more right for forums.... but that's prolly just me. I just wish the table-based layouts didn't look like... err... table based layouts, rofl.

-Neo

[Black.Ice]

That last paragraph had me laughing... table based tables not looking like tables! Oh yeah, baby.

Div tags are always nice and it's moving towards the separation of content and design and all that crappy junk you've heard. I think that we need a light theme, just a few colors and CSS styles. Maybe a few background gradients but that's it.

The current theme is way too clunky and graphic intense IMO. I downloaded a few premade themes and starting playing with them. Like you said earlier, it sucks because we can't test it out anywhere.

[FrankZ]

seems like something of a clusterfuck, in my opinion. We dont need to jumble a bunch of copyrighted game images to show what we're about - and more importnatly, WB isnt just about blizzard games. It's about community.

Dear Protogod,

That's why there's this thing called opinion, and mockery. Yeah, thanks for that very optimistic message. <3 you.

[Neo]

That last paragraph had me laughing... table based tables not looking like tables! Oh yeah, baby.

Div tags are always nice and it's moving towards the separation of content and design and all that crappy junk you've heard. I think that we need a light theme, just a few colors and CSS styles. Maybe a few background gradients but that's it.

The current theme is way too clunky and graphic intense IMO. I downloaded a few premade themes and starting playing with them. Like you said earlier, it sucks because we can't test it out anywhere.

Well, for instance. If you check out many of the themes for phpbb2... and even 3, they may have really nice header/footer areas, but the main area (forums/posts) basically have the same table-based layout. Table cells have borders, poster info is on the left side, etc...

It's boring.

The prosilver or whatever the new default layout for phpbb3 is (http://forums.kupatrix.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1) hints at a different way to do layouts. I've actually been planning on tackling it, and customizing it myself. However, phpBB3 will require an assload of mods anyways, so I don't know if I'll be all that thrilled to theme it, then have hack the templates everytime I add a mod.

There are different ways to do postbits is all. Tables are nice, but it's obvious when used as much as they are on wb, that it can slow down page rendering and such.

Besides this, using divs is possible, and could clean up the code.

The problem is not knowing how this will affect vB's core functionality.

BI it is possible I could setup my WAMP again, and we could tinker with the vB in that manner. I just don't have... err... a legitimate copy. So I'd rather not put it up online.

Suppose I could password the directory and stick it up online? That maybe possible. We could probably even ask AJ if we could get a copy of Warboards current theme, just to see how it's put together.

Just don't want to piss vb people off >.>;;!

-Neo

[Black.Ice]

If we have it password protected, and ... uhh, not accessible, do you think that the nice folks at vB would come down on us? Hmm...

I don't foresee too many problems on a WAMP server. The mySQL and Apache are pretty much the same. The only thing I could think of is probably a few permissions issues, but that shouldn't be a big deal at all.

[Neo]

Sounds like a plan. I could setup a wamp, but I'm not sure if I could setup access correctly... barely have my file sharing going across our home network lol Plus I'd rather work on a *nix system like my host runs. So maybe I'll set this up this weekend and we can fool around with it =D

-Neo

[Fenguin]

CSS works magnificently in most cases, but for things that actually require significant organization and complexity (i.e. postbits) tables are still the easiest way to do it. Even with something like the WB postbit, it'd be rather difficult to port the theme to CSS as there are just too many floating divs we'd have to deal with, and with the insane amount of browser compatibility issues with even simple CSS code (width, padding, and borders are rendered differently in IE vs. all other browsers, for example) we'd have to bring the complexity of the graphics down. Of course, if page loading time is favored over graphical complexity, this doesn't matter - I remember making a theme for WB at some point that had no images at all.

I mean Neo, the new phpbb theme looks great but it's still a very simple design - it might be possible to do some crazy CSS to get it to look sweet (e.g. csszengarden.com) but would it provide that much of an improvement over just straight tables?

If it's too much trouble to set up a local VB installation you can ask AJ or whomever to let you into the admin cp and set up a temporary theme for you to play with - I remember doing that at some point.

[Neo]

This goes back to table vs css, but the fact is that DIVs/CSS can accomplish the same as tables did in the past.

Hell, to be fair, each postbit could be contained in a single div (ie: most blogs on the internet w/their posts), and inside could just be a simpler version of a page layout (sidebar/content area).

Even with the extra divs, it would be way more streamlined and faster then the multitude of tables WB currently utilizes.

Heck, I was thinking just the other day how you could change the current postbit's images to maybe 2 or 3 background images.

And browser compatibility isn't to big an issue, and even if there is you could always use YUI or whatever "css reset" type sheets to uniformly reset css across browsers.

Besides, AJ said he doesn't really care about browser compatibility for those older browsers that might have issues.

Don't really mean to say divs > tables but css/divs and such are so much easier to manage -- graphics or not.

Plus I really want to expand my own experience, and I just don't see much of a future in tampering with phpBB, since vB seems to be where it's at.

Plus once I found Sandbox for wordpress, making themes from scratch for WP seem kind of pointless, heh.

-Neo