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Re: New in 2.6.0RC1 [message #13655 is a reply to message #13576] Tue, 21 October 2003 21:43 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
Wild_Cat is currently offline  Wild_Cat   Ukraine
Messages: 144
Registered: November 2002
Location: Odessa, Ukraine
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I also were unpleasantly surprised by the new layout.
Constructive thing at the bottom, I even made some design drwaing showing my vision!

First, why I don't like it:

1) While changing the sidepanel to top of the message has almost no effect on threaded view, the user info interwined all the time with the messages text does interfere a lot with reading the topic in flat view! This could perhaps be bettered a little by making it a distinctly different color, but with RowStyleA, RowStyleB & RowStyleC classes alone, such change could spoil other views where those styles are used... Perhaps you should add a separate style for user info, so that it could stand out from the message text? Or at least make it the RowStyleC class, the one least used (I found its use only for selected message in message listing in thread view?).
Also, the message subject separated from the message text by user info does not look good either and gets lost...
And... The user rank separated from user-named and included only after other secondary info (like place of living and date of registration) also looks odd a bit.

2) Topics and forums lists became less readable also! Tables were invented especially for a handy presentation of information and while I would agree with putting the moderators below forum descriptions rather than in a separate column, I don't think putting date and author of last (first?) post below topic subject instead of columns is any good idea at all... At least for the moderators to glance at the list and see the dates and names, for instance!

3) 64 px is YOUR height of userinfo horizontal pane. I use 100x100 avatars e.g. and there are forums which allow even larger ones, or 80x80, so for all those this pane would become 80px or 100px or even heigher! It is also true that the avatar is the least easy block to put in layout from the point of view of decreasing white space and increasing readablity...

4) The white-space issue: there is more white space on short messages in old template than on big messages, where it only takes the narrow side panel. But this could be amended in other ways, it seems to me.

I think that the common template IS good in certain ways and kept thus because it is convenient, otherwise this would be changed by many developers long ago. Also, it is a strange idea to change the layout just to make a difference at the expense of readability of the forum!

Now, to be constructive:
With *short messages* on the old template we lose indeed a lot for white space:
http://fud.prohost.org/forum/index.php?t=getfile&id=839
With the old template and big message text we only lose narrow white space below the user info:
http://fud.prohost.org/forum/index.php?t=getfile&id=840
IMHO, it is much easier to shorten the sidebar by optimizing following things (eliminate userinfo link dupe, location often not filled in, pass the add to friends and ignore to the actions panel):
http://fud.prohost.org/forum/index.php?t=getfile&id=841
and in the end of all ends, it could become left-aligned table, if you absolutely ned to use all the width for the message?

Some design suggestions:
I were thinking about making certain changes to the old template, upgrade to 2.5.3RC3 and stay there (since I have to embed modules and upgrades will become difficult), and I figured out how the above drawn changes would look like:
http://fud.prohost.org/forum/index.php?t=getfile&id=842
YET! I made a modif basing on your new template but with regard to my dislikes to it too and it definitely begins to look appealing to me too, may be that would be the best golden middle?...
http://fud.prohost.org/forum/index.php?t=getfile&id=843


Lady of Avalon
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