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| Re: FUDforum Layout Contest!!! |
Sat, 10 September 2005 10:24 |
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Great!! I was browsing the Internet for something of this nature. I wanted to find a message board company to redesign their layout. If I win (which I will, a little sportsmanship trash talk) I don't want an I pod -- just recognition. I just graduated from Virginia college webmaster program and I am looking to get more recognition for my website. Good Luck.
Thanks,
Malachi Knight
Note: Is there a color scheme you have in mind?
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| Re: FUDforum Layout Contest!!! |
Sat, 10 September 2005 20:09 |
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how about submitting an already made forum layout. And if it's chosen, a skin will be made. I think that would attract more people because skinning takes alot more time then comming up with a layout.
anywho, if you would, i'll submit this layout from my website. www.vjournals.net.. Of course it won't look exactly the same, i have some major tweeks in mind.
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| Re: FUDforum Layout Contest!!! |
Sun, 11 September 2005 13:17 |
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| Malachi Knight wrote on Sat, 10 September 2005 10:24 |
Note: Is there a color scheme you have in mind?
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I'd prefer to stick with neutral colors such as blue, since afterall the "default' theme should be flexible enough to work in nearly all situations without requiring much tweaking.
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| Re: FUDforum Layout Contest!!! |
Wed, 12 October 2005 11:35 |
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My idea turned out to be a bad one. I had come up with a way to use definition lists and unordered lists for the main content but it ended up being a recreation of the table structure.
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| Re: FUDforum Layout Contest!!! |
Mon, 17 October 2005 11:31 |
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Is there anybody else who still make a theme for the contest? I'm finishing with this one:
It will have a classic version (with colors and icons similar to default FUDforum theme) but personally I like this one better. Any thoughts or suggestions?
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| Re: FUDforum Layout Contest!!! |
Mon, 17 October 2005 11:47 |
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Looks good, I like your choice of colors, although the "native" icons for read/unread status look a bit out of place. Perhaps they need to have their colors adjusted to match the theme better?
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| Re: FUDforum Layout Contest!!! |
Wed, 09 November 2005 15:13 |
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I really like the theme shown above. I do agree that the native icons need to be changed. Will forum administrators be able to customize the colors?
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| Re: FUDforum Layout Contest!!! |
Wed, 09 November 2005 15:33 |
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My biggest request would be a simpler stylesheet. There are a lot of unnecessary styles in the current stylesheet. If more robust selectors were used, then the stylesheet would be a lot easier to edit.
One method I have found handy is to split the stylesheet up based on function. Take a look at what I did with http://james.roomfullofmirrors.com/'s stylesheet(s). If you do, keep this in mind, I didn't catch some bad cascading with my original design so I implemented a quick fix by referencing the appropriate sheets on the pages that need them. I just haven't had the time to go back and fix it. It is still a good example of decently planned stylesheets, though. Oh, and it won't be too awesome in Internet Explorer; it is my personal site and I don't make any concessions for IE. If it were something more than a personal site, sure, I would have made IE work just like the rest of the browsers.
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| Re: FUDforum Layout Contest!!! |
Fri, 11 November 2005 09:24 |
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There is a reason why there are so many styles, I think you'll agree with it in a moment. If there were fewer styles more parts of the forum would be goverened by the same style, making most changes very wide spread, much more so then the designer may may want. This would mean that many of the layout changes would need to be done in individual templates, making the process of customizing the forum's appearance more complicated.
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| Re: FUDforum Layout Contest!!! |
Fri, 11 November 2005 09:46 |
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Actually, more widespread changes is why I am in favor of a simpler stylesheet. If I were to rework it I would probably split it up thusly:
1) A stylesheet that styles the overall layout. It would mostly just style the tables and divs that are used on every page of the forum. Any style that would be used on every page (such a styling of links) should go in this sheet.
2) A stylesheet for the index page. This would style the text and links on the main index page. The styles in this sheet would more than likely be used by the category and forum views.
3) A stylesheet for the thread view. Stuff like the "code" tag doesn't need to be in the other two sheets. This sheet could also be used for post composition.
It may sound complicated but it really isn't. I think it actually simplifies things. Every element wouldn't have to have a specific class or three. This would reduce the overall size of the markup as well as the size, and complexity, of the stylesheet. Which in turn would increase performance a bit.
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| Re: FUDforum Layout Contest!!! |
Fri, 11 November 2005 09:49 |
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Separate stylesheets would actually decrease performance since you'd need to load >1 stylesheet per page.
Having individual stylesheets for separate pages is a bad idea IMO.
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| Re: FUDforum Layout Contest!!! |
Fri, 11 November 2005 09:55 |
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It would only decrease it the first time a user views the page. Once the styles are cached they aren't redownloaded again until they have changed, as I am sure you know. Even then, though, the user usually has to clean out their cache. Plus, you wouldn't have to include all three stylesheets on every page. The only page that would have, at most, three sheets referenced would be the thread view page. And really, how is sending a whole bunch of useless information faster than sending less, more relevant, information?
Also, the stylesheets could still be sent in one request by using the @import rule instead of referencing them with a link.
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| Re: FUDforum Layout Contest!!! |
Sat, 12 November 2005 14:53 |
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I believe you have a very interesting, sophisticated, fast, and efficient theming system. However, I believe you would have more people interested in making themes if it were less complicated. The web-based template editing is very sophisticated and it requires a lot of time to understand and then use. Some people I know, who have looked at it, didn't even want to try to understand it. The thing I do like about it is that I know of no other forums that provides such an interface into the templating system. Maybe a different layout for this would be beneficial. I can think of nothing at the moment, however. As for designing themes, the modular approach is also complex and requires much time to learn the layout of the files. I think it would be very helpful if there were some kind of interface, whether it be win32 based or web based, for designing the theme. The template editor is a good start. I think it can go any direction from there and it will be better. Anyway, these are just some thoughts I had a few days ago during a conversation with someone at work. I hope it helps in some way.
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