I'd hoped to roll out all the upgrades at once, but in the process of installing the new forums I filled up the harddrive (text indexing is kinda big). So since the forums were unuseable anyway, I took the opportunity to just roll out the new forum software. As with any change, I'm sure some people won't like it, but the additional features (some of which may be disabled depending on usage) and security make it worthwhile.

IF you don't like the skin, you can change it in the user control panel. There should be a variety of skins there to suit all tastes.

Other changes to be rolled out over the next few days:

* dragonhighlander.net will replace the uwaterloo site for the rules
* forum.dragonhighlander.net will replace the truespace sitename for the forums


Some stuff will break, and I'll have to fix it... such is life. Feel free to PM me or post any bugs/flaws/security problems you find.

Hope its' worth it for you guys, and thanks again for all your contributions to the format!

G

Faaaaaancy!

Bug: If you change the forum skin to ProDark, the system errors out and forces you to logoff. The account then becomes unusable, as any attempt to login results in that same error message upon trying to return to the board index.

(this may just be something that's still being loaded in, so I'm not entirely worried, though my normal account will be happy)

- bradleyjx
静

Oops... heh. The proDark theme is what I deleted to free up space to complete the upgrade Sorry bout that

I've reinstalled it, so hopefully it'll work better now... for those who like a darker style with more contrast (until I can get the default DarkFantasy style tweaked for lighter link/text colour), ProDark is a reasonable option.

G

I've said it somewhere else, but since this is the official "new interface" topic I'll say it here again :P

You can't recognize new posts very easy anymore. It's just another color blue, but still blue like everything else. So if it's possible that that could be changed to something bright, please do so :)

I've changed the forum link and topic link to a much darker colour, which should make it stand out a bit better, especially vs the lighter blue of a visited link. You might have to force-reload (without cache) the page to see it. Any better?

I've also installed some additional dark themes that people might prefer (Black Pearl, GWA and twilight... no it doesn't have anything to do with vampires). LMK.

I have to say i went through all the skins and they are either:
A) hideous
B) Hard on the eyes (who seriously reads anything with white text on black? or good grief black on grey, are you serious?)
C) Confusing (why in good gravy are everyone's avatars on the right side? and why aren't there any helper buttons? (links bold etc.))

Are there plans of adding more skins? cause as it is now i doubt i'll ever come here anymore. (I realize i'm not a super active person but mostly just a lurker so take that for what it is worth).

Ironically, I personally prefer very simplistic presentation in favour of clear content (see also: the EDH rules page )... but people have complained that things were too boring. I happy to swap in some different styles from http://www.phpbb3styles.net/db/ if you can provide a link and an explanation for why it's better than the current option(s).



Um, yeah... me? I hate black-on-white. I find it far more harsh to look at on any kind of backlit screen, and a dark background makes colour stand out more for things like syntax hints/highlight. To each their own I guess.


That said, the I've imported the old "subsilver2" skin that the old forums used... despite the fact that it's ugly as sin. The prosilver skin is the new "default" which replaced it... and I think the avatars are on the right because that's not usually what people care about when they're reading the forums? I dunno... it was a bit odd when I first saw it but it kinda makes sense.

If it's so intolerable that you can't stand to read a forum with the avatars on the right... I think you need to switch to decaf

G

Wow, I like the new look. Pretty fancy. Congrats on the upgrade!

Thanks a bunch Gavin, it was nice meeting you when you were out here in T.O.

I posted this in another thread, but were the threads that were being kept track of by users with emails sent to users when they updated still kept track of, or will I need to post all over again?

EDIT: Also, on the "Sandsoft Blue" skin, would it be possible to have the avatars+post count for users on the left hand, rather than the right hand, side of the screen? It's a bit confusing from the way it was...at least to me.

The new forums support a better means of subscribing to threads, either via RSS subscription or email... I believe the "threads you're watching" settings were converted, but I wouldn't swear to it. If they weren't, you won't need to post again, just "subscribe" to that thread.

Unfortunately, editing the orientation of the skins to that degree isn't really feasible for me... I think you'll probably get used to it (if you choose to stick with that skin) fairly quickly though.

G

I haven't fully explored all of the new functionality, but I'm really, really digging what I've found so far. A few glitches are obviously expected, but that's a small price to pay for the bucketloads of awesome. Nicely done.

Uh, I do. Staring at a bright white computer screen for hours on end is really hard on the eyes. Using dark backgrounds also saves energy, which can add up to quite a bit of energy with all the computer monitors in the world.

I blame Windows (particularly Word) for making black text on white the norm.

Anyway, nice update. I like the new look.

i blame the newspapers.