New site theme

[Tank Program]

I've moved the example/ directory in bzr into the html directory. Nothing should go in the themes/ directory directly unless it's not pure html, a phpBB theme, or a wiki theme. If it's not one of those, create a directory specifically for what it is. Wordpress theme, create a wordpress directory, etc.

Also, I think this idea of lack's we're working with needs a name. I've called it 'lack3', concord 'lacktankcon', and there's 'example' as well. The original phpBB2 theme was called 'lackarma' so I called my phpBB3 port 'lackarma2,' so far so good. 'aatemplate1' for the current mainsite. 'armagetronad' for the wiki for... I've got no idea. *Looks at Lucifer.*

I would call it 'suave gray' at this point, but that's just me. (And the black one doesn't have the suave feeling to it at all.) Got a name for it Lack? (Since we appear to be running with it for now.)

[KamP]

I have to say, I like Lackadaisical's design, and I love how he translated it to the wiki. I'd like to see how you translate it to the main site and a blog, if one comes about. But you pretty much got my sentiment in one, it's cleaner, it's smooth and you can differentiate between parts without using a lot of borders. I really like it a lot.

The graphics look like you've been watching too much Star Trek: TNG lately, but I've noticed a lot of game sites are really more on the highly-graphics-intensive side, and I think you found a good use for graphics here without overwhelming with them.

I applied for the Launchpad group that Tank made, and I'd love to start making code/themes for these things. I'm not excessively familiar with either theming system, but a little heavy reading, and jumping in there a bit with php/html/css and I'm sure I'll figure it out rather quickly

[Lackadaisical]

To be honest the longer I look at it the more boring it gets.. I think it's probably to do with just too much gray, and not enough contrast between the colors. I also feel it kinda lacks coherence as if there isn't enough structure between the different elements. So I created an alternative version with the colors Concord used and some extra shapes to group it all together. Let me hear what you guys think.

Updated the example folder with the alternative version (index2.html), but i also attached a screenshot.

[Tank Program]

I think this is better, I like the symmetry with the black bar at the top and bottom. If there's still not enough contrast, perhaps moving away from gray to a slight tinting for some of the elements?

[rumpole]

It does look very good, clean layoutm nice colors, personally I think the contrast is ok

you could always throw in a color widget that allows each user to customize every single color XD

[Lackadaisical]

Not as many replies as before, but I suspect it's more to do with it being the 5th design posted than anything else, so I'm just going to start skinning with this design (as being available right now in the example folder, which has a different menu than the last ss) as basis. I think i'll start with the wiki

[Concord]

A PC (or linux) user should also re-set all the images I've done regarding consistency across the site

[sinewav]

Not as many replies as before, but I suspect it's more to do with it being the 5th design posted than anything else...

You have my full support, if it makes you feel better. Usually "no news is good news", so I would take the lack of comments as an endorsement.

[Lucifer]

Heh, I'm still trying to figure out what Tank Program was looking at me for.

Ummm, yeah, I like it more than the previous revision (and it does look like a revision to me ).

I was wondering if there was some way to make it more tronnish, like putting the cycle wall graphic as the background for the buttons, colored like you have there. You might be able to get away with doing a little png/alpha magic to get that effect and using the raw cycle_wall.png file. Contrary to popular belief, IE *does* support .png for that use, but you have to change the bitrate for it, iirc. I can try to google up what you have to do to the png to make it work on IE (It's something like "change it from 32 bit samples to 24 bit samples).

Or you could just do it by hand with the GIMP.

[wrtlprnft]

I'm slightly concerned about the usefulness of that sidebar. I don't like navigation sidebars on forums because they restrict the width of the main text without adding anything (they usually disappear after the fírst couple of posts and just leave empty space).

[Z-Man]

I'm slightly concerned about the usefulness of that sidebar. I don't like navigation sidebars on forums because they restrict the width of the main text without adding anything (they usually disappear after the fírst couple of posts and just leave empty space).

Yeah. On the forum, I wouldn't want to have that.

Overall good work, though. /me likes minimalistic styles. Go right ahead. If I don't complain, I'm happy

[Lackadaisical]

Thanks for the replies guys

The sidebar will not be there on the forums, instead the left part will be filled with the userinfo/avatar stuff.

[Your_mom]

Looks good. Let me share some bad ideas, opinions. Can we keep borders off the wiki, not increase the size of the borders on the forum, and keep the wiki's sidebar about the size of Wikipedias(just want to keep it from getting too large). Save the horizontal space! :)

[Lackadaisical]

Well that's definitely something on my mind mom, I'm kind of torn between just letting the site go as wide as it can and display as much information as possible, or having a max-width which ensures at least some readability, since really long lines are usually kind of hard to read. How large is your screen mom?

[Z-Man]

having a max-width which ensures at least some readability, since really long lines are usually kind of hard to read.

That's usually a good idea. Is it possible to specify the maximal width in terms of the font size? Some people have high resolution monitors ( <- 1600x1200 on a 15'' screen here).