Skin changes

R

r3naissanc3r

Honoured Citizen
Citizen
Hi all,

The admins (well, OK, it was a unilateral decision on my side, so all blame goes to me) have made some changes to the skin.

1) The color theme for the userbar and various buttons was changed, from a blue gradient to a solid dark blue, matching that of the flag and header.

I've grown to dislike the color gradient we used to have, first because most of it was too bright, and second because due to the low-res of the graphics the transition was of low quality. Also, I generally prefer solid colors.

2) The shape of the various buttons has also changed, in addition to their color. I went for larger ones and with rounded edges.

3) The layout of the header was changed. We downsized the various ads in width, condensed them into a single row, and replaced links and the old images. The new images are all of the same scheme, and same shape as the skin buttons.

I am looking for feedback, so please let me know what you think. If you don't like some/all of the changes, be honest :p .

Best,
r3n.
 
The header is very Windows 8, but I like that. :D

And we should have another row for ad space that can be given by the Citizen Integration Ministry or Culture Ministry, for instance for newspapers or books.
 
Me likey mucho, especially the line of links at the top. So pretty.

However, I do have two issues: One, the edit button is still the old scheme. Second, the reply, fast reply, new topic and new poll buttons now look out of place. If we do keep this style, we should look into adjusting them, at least a bit (I'd go with rounding the right hand edges, getting rid of the drop shadow, and changing the colour from the gradient to the same colour as the new buttons)

On a side note, it really bothers me the the large star in the header is about three pixels too far to the left. And the stars are a bit fuzzy.

But yes, these changes are lovely :wub:
 
PL, do a hard update (ctrl+F5 on firefox). All of the buttons have been changed, including the edit and reply, fast reply etc.

As for the start in the header, yes it bothers me too. I do not have an editable version of the header though, so that I can fix it. I'll see if madie has a copy I can work with.
 
Peaceful Llamas said:
Me likey mucho, especially the line of links at the top. So pretty.

However, I do have two issues: One, the edit button is still the old scheme. Second, the reply, fast reply, new topic and new poll buttons now look out of place. If we do keep this style, we should look into adjusting them, at least a bit (I'd go with rounding the right hand edges, getting rid of the drop shadow, and changing the colour from the gradient to the same colour as the new buttons)

On a side note, it really bothers me the the large star in the header is about three pixels too far to the left. And the stars are a bit fuzzy.

But yes, these changes are lovely :wub:
Click to expand...
roflmao

Looks good, thank you R3n.
 
r3naissanc3r said:
PL, do a hard update (ctrl+F5 on firefox). All of the buttons have been changed, including the edit and reply, fast reply etc.

As for the start in the header, yes it bothers me too. I do not have an editable version of the header though, so that I can fix it. I'll see if madie has a copy I can work with.
Click to expand...
Cheers. Looks lovely ^_^
 
r3naissanc3r said:
As for the start in the header, yes it bothers me too. I do not have an editable version of the header though, so that I can fix it. I'll see if madie has a copy I can work with.
Click to expand...
After much browsing and cleaning my hard drive, I seem to have deleted that PSD file, unfortunately :(

Working with the banner up there now, I've tried to move the stars into a much neater alignment:




As for the blurriness of the stars, it's because I used a brush instead of drawing them as vectors. I'm *horrible* at drawing vectors though. If anyone is willing to draw them as vectors then send me the file or just edit it onto the current banner, that'd be great.
Or if I could get a bigger and less transparent version of the text box background image, I could try to use that one instead.

Alternatively, we could try to create a new banner that incorporates Europeia's little circle star shield icon thingy.


Also, I like the new link images at the bottom of the header. Very Windows Metro.
 
Gustavus Adolphus Rex said:
Swakistek said:
I like it, except that the Citizens' Assembly is no longer in the header and needs to be.
Click to expand...
Perhaps Euro Statistics could be moved in favor of Pseudonym then?
Click to expand...
Gods no. Euro Statistics is a brand new feature installed by R3n that will provide us some extremely valuable data whereas Pseudonym has attracted little attention.

I guess we could add another line of clink-adds but I think it will make that bar area look horribly cluttered.

Looks great R3n! The only thing I have noticed [and you might have as well] when you click 'reply' and go to the reply screen - the top banner does not stretch the whole length of the page. That might just be me though.
 
Vinage said:
Looks great R3n! The only thing I have noticed [and you might have as well] when you click 'reply' and go to the reply screen - the top banner does not stretch the whole length of the page. That might just be me though.
Click to expand...
Vinage: That is an issue with IF unfortunately, that existed before these skin changes.

Basically, the forum layout is wider when you are posting a reply, than when reading the forum. As a result the banner can only span exactly the forum width in only one of these two situations. The same applies for the main title bar, you'll notice that when you're posting a reply, it no longer spans all of the width of the page.

Given that the majority of the time we are in the "reading mode", it is preferable to design all of the skin images with the width the forum has when reading, as opposed to when posting.
 
Also, a note because many people have come to me on MSN confused:

There are two sets of changes:

One is the new header, and it is something that will appear immediately when you log in.

The other is that the userbar and all of the skin buttons have been replaced. Because your browser caches these images, these won't appear until the cached versions expire. So, it is very likely that you are still viewing the old skin, which can make you wonder what the hell we're talking about :p .

To make sure you are viewing the new skin, you should refresh your cache by doing a "hard refresh". On Firefox, that is done by pressing CTRL+F5. I am not sure what is the right key combination on other browsers, but the cache will be refreshed anyway after a few regular page refreshes.
 
Vinage said:
Gustavus Adolphus Rex said:
Swakistek said:
I like it, except that the Citizens' Assembly is no longer in the header and needs to be.
Click to expand...
Perhaps Euro Statistics could be moved in favor of Pseudonym then?
Click to expand...
Gods no. Euro Statistics is a brand new feature installed by R3n that will provide us some extremely valuable data whereas Pseudonym has attracted little attention.

I guess we could add another line of clink-adds but I think it will make that bar area look horribly cluttered.

Looks great R3n! The only thing I have noticed [and you might have as well] when you click 'reply' and go to the reply screen - the top banner does not stretch the whole length of the page. That might just be me though.
Click to expand...
Bryan, Swak, and I will start to work with Citizen Integration to help with Welcoming. It's important for people to know that Pseudonym exists once we start promoting it. Besides, dozens of clicks to Pseudonym, especially from guests, have come from the banner. Euro Statistics can be linked through a redirect forum.
 
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