RPF New Look Feedback Thread

[Abelugo]

great new look, the logo is ready for an App.

 

[JediG60racer]

Re: Before you create a thread about the new look of the RPF...

for the record, I think it's clean and nice.

 

[Bear]

Hey Art, yeah dark background/ light text. To my eyes just taking that brightness down a few notches would help. The contrast between the black backround and bright blue is harsh.

After looking at it for a bit, I have to agree, it does seem a tad bright.

 

[EvilRocketeer]

Hey Art, yeah dark background/ light text. To my eyes just taking that brightness down a few notches would help. The contrast between the black backround and bright blue is harsh.

Yeah, it is the dark background with light text..when i click on a specific forum, the threads are like tiny needles stabbing my eyes

 

[Risu]

I just switched over to check it out and the first thing I noticed was that it looks an awful lot like every other forum I stumble onto after a Google search about a topic I'm unfamiliar with. Very plain. I suppose the same goes for the junkyard change. I've always used the Star Wars theme and couldn't ever bring myself to use the others. I will say that the new style is better than the previous non-SW one, but I'll miss the legacy when it's gone.

For the time being, the fixed width doesn't bother me. I've been using the same monitor for years and I'm stuck on dinosaur resolution. When I get around to upgrading though.....

For the most part, there's not much to complain about, at least not seriously. All the stuff I mentioned before, I'll get used to. The one thing I don't think I'll get used to, and I'm sorry because you did put so much work into them, is the new set of logos. The RPF logo looks kind of sickeningly Apple and the others all look a bit like Word Clipart.

 

[Jannix Quinn]

Agreed, VERY apple with the logos.

I also don't like the width setting. other than that, it's ok.

 

[The Wolf]

I was pleasantly surprised to see the new style.
It seems an appropriate style (especially the topic logos) and unique to this place as opposed to the Star Wars style.
Good work.

Wolf

 

[Art Andrews]

Hey Art, yeah dark background/ light text. To my eyes just taking that brightness down a few notches on the text would help. The contrast between the black backround and bright blue is harsh. Compare it to the blue on the old star wars theme. It seems to really kicks in when there is ALOT of it on one page (ie homepage and forum topic listings)

I have knocked down the main content links a notch... if you look in the navbar, your name is the new color and the links at the bottom are the original (brighter color). Is that better? My concern is that everyone sets their monitos different and we don't want those that have their brightness/contrast set lower to have difficulty seeing the text.

 

[Art Andrews]

The RPF logo looks kind of sickeningly Apple and the others all look a bit like Word Clipart.

Agreed, VERY apple with the logos.

Youch! :lol

I won't argue that the logo has a modern look (which Apple is the king of overusing) and I guess if your criticism is that we have a modern logo... I won't fight it too hard.

In regard to the icons, we wanted something that was immediately identifiable or could become easily identifiable. We went with a 40s-50s look because it is uniform and very commonly known by most people. If there is any shortcoming to the icons in my opinion, it is the last three, because I made those...

 

[Alan Castillo]

It seems that when a thread is visited, the link to the title on the forum main page of links to all threads, doesn't show up in a different colour (purpleish) afterwards to indicate its been visited. Or is it just me ?

 

[Zombie_61]

As far as the "look" is concerned, I'm in the "don't care" camp. I've been using the "light background/dark text" setting anyway, so the new look isn't really much different.

When I visit a website, my main concern is layout and functionality. It can have a stunning visual quality, but if it's difficult to navigate and nothing works the way it should it doesn't do anyone any good. That said, if I were visiting the RPF for the first time I think I'd find the layout to be very user-friendly and easy to navigate.

As for the Junkyard/Marketplace debate, it's clearly labeled as a place for members to buy, sell, and trade things, so you could call it "Steve" for all I care.

In short: Well done RPF!

 

[Michael Bergeron]

Alright, have to chime in again...

REALLY not a fan of the new look. As others said it's very "Apple" but that's not why. It's because this forum was a comfy place for me to visit kinda like that old pair of underwear that looks like garbage but feels perfect. (nasty image I know!)

I've switched back to legacy and will start my begging for it to be included when the forum gets upgraded. Not as a default of course but PLEASE as an option!

All I really care about is that banner at the top. I've always identified the RPF by that banner even as a lurker before I joined. It just wouldn't feel like home without it and I know there are a lot of people here who feel the same way!

 

[Mechinyun]

I have knocked down the main content links a notch... if you look in the navbar, your name is the new color and the links at the bottom are the original (brighter color). Is that better? My concern is that everyone sets their monitos different and we don't want those that have their brightness/contrast set lower to have difficulty seeing the text.

Hey Art, I think this looks great. It also adds a benefit of some navigation text being different than posts and forum headers, breaks it up some. :thumbsup

 

[Xhiwar]

It seems that when a thread is visited, the link to the title on the forum main page of links to all threads, doesn't show up in a different colour (purpleish) afterwards to indicate its been visited. Or is it just me ?

Yeah, I noticed that too. There's no more color change at all to indicate that you've visited a link already.
Other than that (and the fixed width, which is really annoying on my widescreen), I like it a lot! Good work! :thumbsup

Cheers!
Roman

 

[exoray]

Re: New Look

Is there any way to be able to get the general appearance fit into all my PC screen ?

As Art has indicated this is likely going to be the biggest gripe out there with the new format...

So with that said, this isn't the perfect solution, in fact it's pretty darn raw as I whipped it up in a few minutes and it's only the most basic of all basic scripts...

This is a Greasemonkey script and will only work if you run a compatible browser and have the Greasemonkey add-on installed!!!

As with all Greasemonkey scripts they are executed AFTER the page loads so there will be a 'flicker' as it swaps from the original page to the newly reformatted one... Basically a quick refresh of the page...

If you have Greasemonkey installed read on, if not this isn't going to help you at all...

YOU CAN ALWAYS DISABLE THIS SCRIPT, BUT JUST THE SAME INSTALL AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! I HAVE ONLY MINIMALLY TESTED THE SCRIPT, IT COULD VERY WELL CRASH CERTAIN PAGES!!!

You will notice there is a list of // @exclude pages in the script, that is because for some reason the script crashes those pages mostly the ones where you enter replies, and right now I'm way to lazy to figure out why so I just told the script to exclude them from resizing... AKA lazy coding and raw script... If you find a page it crashes share it and it can be added to the exclusions for now...

You will also notice that the script includes the website 'moviepropsites.com' that is because there apprears to be some underlying shared server/DNS issues with the site that for one reason or another the script detects pages coming from both domains... Don't asked me why because I really don't know, I just know that adding 'moviepropsites.com' fixed the problem...

Instructions for Firefox, (likely similar with other browsers) anyway if you have Greasemonky installed...

Go to 'Tools' and then to 'Greasemonkey' and then to 'New User Script'

You will be presented with a Window Like this...

On that window don't worry about any of the info EXCEPT the name on the first line, the rest we will overwrite in the next step... You don't need to name it what I did but for simplicity it works and it needs a unique name...

When you click OK it will open up your default text editor and show you a minimum script that looks something like this...

// ==UserScript==
// @name           theRPF Expander
// @namespace      http://www.therpf.com
// @include        http://www.therpf.com
// ==/UserScript==

Highlight all that and delete it, replacing it with this...

// ==UserScript==
// @name              theRPF Expander
// @namespace     http://www.therpf.com
// @description      Expand theRPF to fit your screen

// @include    http://www.therpf.com/*
// @include     http://therpf.com/*
// @include    http://moviepropsites.com/*
// @include     http://www.moviepropsites.com/*

// @exclude    http://www.therpf.com/newreply.php*
// @exclude     http://therpf.com/newreply.php*
// @exclude    http://moviepropsites.com/newreply.php*
// @exclude     http:/www.moviepropsites.com/newreply.php*

// @exclude    http://www.therpf.com/newthread.php*
// @exclude     http://therpf.com/newrthread.php*
// @exclude    http://moviepropsites.com/newthread.php*
// @exclude     http:/www.moviepropsites.com/newthread.php*

// @exclude    http://www.therpf.com/members/*
// @exclude     http://therpf.com/members/*
// @exclude    http://moviepropsites.com/members/*
// @exclude     http:/www.moviepropsites.com/members/*

// @exclude    http://www.therpf.com/private.php*
// @exclude     http://therpf.com/private.php*
// @exclude    http://moviepropsites.com/private.php*
// @exclude     http:/www.moviepropsites.com/private.php*

// ==/UserScript==

var els = document.getElementsByTagName("div");
for(var i = 0, l = els.length; i < l; i++) {
  var el = els[i];
  el.innerHTML = el.innerHTML.replace(/970px/gi, '1500px');
}

OK don't hit save just yet, look at the second to last line, the '970px' is the default width of the existing RPF tables, and if you look immediatley after that I have told the script to replace it with '1500px'... You are going to want to put in what ever width you want there, you can do it in one of two ways using pixels as I did above or using a percentage...

Example using pixels set to 1240 pixels wide

  el.innerHTML = el.innerHTML.replace(/970px/gi, '1240px');

Example using percentage set to 95% of your screen

  el.innerHTML = el.innerHTML.replace(/970px/gi, '95%');

Set to whatever makes you happy and then SAVE the file!

Presto...

If you have any issues or want to edit the script you can go to 'Tools' and then to 'Greasemonkey' and then to 'Manage User Scripts' You can edit, disable or uninstall from there if you have issues... If you edit don't forget to save it!

 

[Mechinyun]

It seems that when a thread is visited, the link to the title on the forum main page of links to all threads, doesn't show up in a different colour (purpleish) afterwards to indicate its been visited. Or is it just me ?

Yeah I don't have it either. There is "normal", "hover" which is darker blue, but no "visited" text color change (previously purple on star wars theme).

 

[Art Andrews]

As for the Junkyard/Marketplace debate, it's clearly labeled as a place for members to buy, sell, and trade things, so you could call it "Steve" for all I care.

Now we know what to retitle the Marketplace for April Fool's Day! :lol

 

[EvilRocketeer]

Youch! :lol
it is the last three, because I made those...

Thank you for knocking down the brightness a few notches....helps a lot

Since we are changing names to some forums, can we change the OT to the Matt Munson forum? or at least add %@&! to the conversation bubbles to represent arguing haha

 

[Art Andrews]

Flynn, thanks for the script!

 

[Art Andrews]

can we change the OT to the Matt Munson forum? or at least add %@&! to the conversation bubbles to represent arguing haha

We tried a number of things in the OT talk bubbles but ultimately left them blank because generally the things discussed in the OT equate to "nothing at all." I do like the idea of adding %@&! in the talk bubbles or maybe something like the charlie brown angry scribble.