Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 3:51 am

I thought to start a new thread for all the ideas for site design and graphics. I really like what you did with the logo. It took me a second to realize what was different, but I think it looks a lot better now. Way to go Zugg!

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 4:21 am

Yeah, what do people think? For an hour or so in Fireworks, I think it turned out pretty good. Certainly an improvement?

I also discovered I had a cellspacing setting in the header that I didn't need that was causing the menu buttons to separate. I'm still working on the menu bar itself, so you'll probably see some other changes before the night is over.

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 4:53 am

I would also like comments on the compass graphic to the left of the Zuggsoft graphic. It doesn't mean anything (well, maybe it relates to the mapper), but it adds some complementary color. Sort of like a "bullet" icon for the site.

Wizard Joined: 15 Jan 2002 Posts: 1644 Location: USA

Nice Header :P

1. The text in the related links for the KB articles should be a tad bit smaller right now its almost twice the size of the article text size :P

2. Post the articles in the outdated support library to the new KB library (I can go through and do this if you want)

3. Definatly keep the cyan I never liked the magneta even on the other forum :P

4. Round corners on buttons suck :P IMO

5. Remove the who is online box and recent forums from the main page portal page Crowded pages that repeat bother me :P and Add in content about zuggsoft kinda like the old main page Run the Latest news closer together so there isn't a huge gap between them *starting with the Latest News header.

6. Ok how do I explain this one.... I open the forums open all the new topics in tabs go through em do my thing and submit or close depending and when I go back and reload the main forum page it stills shows some of the topics ive read as unread (sometimes even topics I have replied too!) <- hates this the most :P

7. This problem http://forums.zuggsoft.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=73162#73162

--Using firefox 0.9.3 at 1024*768 And don't yell at me to upgrade its on my todo list as soon as my connection connects at 50k instead of 24k

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 5:56 am

1) Text looks fine here. It's actually *smaller* than the article text. Might be a font problem with your Firefox. Will need other reports on this one.

2) Yeah, I need to do this. But it's not trivial. It requires converting the HTML to BBcode so that we can then edit the articles online and keep them updated. I plan to modify the script that I used to import the ForeHelp HTML help files. So, unfortunately this isn't really anything you can help with...I'd never ask anyone to do all of that reformatting manually.

But yes, in general, all of the articles in the Support Library will be going into the Knowledge base, and then I'll be updating the links in the popup menu to point to the knowledge base instead of the support library.

3) Thanks. I'm still playing with colors. Just so people are aware, all of the changes that I'm making are in the "Classic" theme. So select that and click Apply and the Refresh your browser. I'm not going to touch subSilver and I might even end up deleting subSilver when all of this is done. I'm just now coming to the realization that allowing custom themes is really silly for a commercial site. Everything needs to blend together with the header along the top, and just changing to some precanned theme is not a great idea probably.

4) You mean the buttons like "Submit Reply", etc? I actually really like these button icons and even though they are the defaults, I don't plan to change them at this time. I personally think they are quite nice, but I'm open to other opinions. They also look more like the default Windows XP buttons that people are used to. I actually don't like the square "old" buttons in this quick reply box, for example.

5) The problem you are having is that the current "Home" page is not going to be the official main zuggsoft.com page. The main page will be going back to something similiar to what we had before. The current "Home" page is for people like me who want to see everything at one glance. And the Recent Post list on the main page is a lot more readable than the sidebar recent posts on the Forum page. Also, I like having the Who's Online box there also. I guess it depends upon where you hang out. I tend to leave my browser at the "Home" page and not in the Forums themselves.

6) I'm still trying to track down how the "recent topics" icons work. Actually, since I fixed the problem with the double-login I haven't had any problems with the Recent posts myself. So it's also possible it's a Firefox cookie issue somehow. I'll need to collect more data on this and find a way to exactly reproduce it.

7) Replied to the forum topic. I'll have to write a script to fix this. All KB topics are messed up in this way.

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 6:41 am

Related to Evangelist's post in the other topic (and moving the discussion over here...)

Maybe the best way to help me with the site is to just give me indications as to whether new changes are "better...worse...same". I'm tweaking all sorts of stuff, and what I want is that the overall impression of the site gets better, and not worse.

So, if you see something that you think is worse, let me know. And of course if you see something that is better, let me know. Improving the site incrementally like that is probably the best way to go. I'm certainly not going to throw things out and start from scratch, so looking at sites that are completely different isn't much help.

What I've been doing for the last hour or so is slowing eliminating a lot of borders in various places. I'm trying to keep enough to keep the forums readable, but in general, the fewer borders, the cleaner it looks. But if I go too far, let me know.

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 7:25 am

Well, time for bed. I think I've finished on removing table borders. I might have gone too far and maybe I need to make the border color between posts a bit darker?

I never got around to doing anything new with the toolbar. I want to do something similar to the second example that Rainchild posted in the other thread. Also, I really need to integrate the top toolbar with the forum toolbar under it.

Finally, I still plan to put a search box at the right-most edge of the toolbar (where the copyright message is) and move the copyright to the bottom of the site and redo the other text down there.

Good night!

Adept Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 224 Location: USA

I would make the row in between posts the same dark blue that outlines the table for the thread. See how that looks?

I don't really like how the responses go from blue to white personally. I think you should just go with one or the other and have a solid color for the row in between the posts. Alternating colors get on my nerves, but some people like it. [/quote]

Adept Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 224 Location: USA

I wanna add this too. The menu up top, home search members groups, etc. I see it centered in every forum. Try and make it align right just to see how it looks. I haven't tried that before on phpbb, lol.

EDIT:

Maybe break down and have a zapp and emobius forum, or even break it off and have a forum devoted to this site. Err, I mean categories not forums, but I am too lazy to replace, hehe.

Or do you feel that emobius is still too far off to give it its own category?

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

I think the Recent Forum Posts box on the portal page should be seperated into a frame with its own php file. This would allow the up and down buttons to only update that section of the page, saving on bandwidth and loading time. Similarly the users online might be better done in its own frame. I believe you can also use the auto-refresh within the frames page, this would allow some things to automatically update, but is wasteful of bandwidth.

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 6:08 pm

Hmm, I'm not sure I really want to mess with frames like that. There are other ways to handle page update and refresh without using frames.

Yes, eMobius is still a bit far off for it's own category. I just adding forum categories by the amount of traffic. So far this forum doesn't have too much traffic yet and the eMobius and zApp posts have been intertwined a lot.

Making the separator the same dark blue as the outline brings back the "boxy" look that I was trying to get away from. I'm going to try doing dotted lines and play with other options though.

I personally like the alternating band colors, which just goes to show that I won't be able to please everyone.

Adept Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 224 Location: USA

Changed to classic theme, looks ALOT better even with the alternating band cololors. I think it looks good now :)

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

Don't use frames :P

The new header is lookin' a lot better, I don't mind the compass either.

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

I just dislike having the whole page reload to update one section. Whatever is the best way to do it will be what I like.

Overall I like the way the site is looking.