Forum Colours

Aetous

Since I have absolutely no sense of colour and design, I'm posting my current attempt at re-colouring the forums here for some help and suggestions!

Still working on the actual thread and profile pages.

Any suggestions on colour choice/combination? 

Wysteria

Reminds me of what we actually see in Mudlet with the default colouring system as is...which would make an interesting set of colour combos actually. Looks pretty good so far though.

Yrael

Tried some color variations and playing with the fonts a bit. http://design-seeds.com/ is an excellent place to grab some color palettes.

Nizaris

@Yrael: Nice work.

Sarapis

@Yrael Nice work. Unfortunately, the downside of these new forums is that while the software is quite speedy, the depth of options is not very, well, deep. So, for instance, there's no ability for users to change themes. 

So, any theme we were to move to would be THE theme. Moving this theme to North of Thera, btw.

Sarapis

Would people prefer a theme that is darker than the current white one? Who likes the white one? (I do, but I like pretty much any attractive color combo and could live with any of the ones Yrael posted, for instance.)

Darklyre

I don't mind white, but I think a darker theme is less eye-straining to read.

Sena

It was a bit painful to read at first, but now that I've gotten used to it the current theme isn't too bad. I'd still prefer a darker one though.

Delphinus

I'd prefer a darker theme, myself. Easier on the eyes.

Unrelated: Is anyone else's browser lagging massively when they scroll past those images up there? The screenshots.

Trilliana

@Delphinus yep, but only for a moment. 

I prefer a darker one myself, but I have stylebot going for mine as well- though it's not nearly as nice as those ones

Darklyre

Delphinus said:

I'd prefer a darker theme, myself. Easier on the eyes.

Unrelated: Is anyone else's browser lagging massively when they scroll past those images up there? The screenshots.

It's not just you. I'm using Firefox and mine is lagging like mad every time I scroll past them.

Sena

Unrelated: Is anyone else's browser lagging massively when they scroll past those images up there? The screenshots.

I wouldn't say massively, but it does lag some.

Jumpy

@Yrael and @Aetous How are you editing? For example, if you come up with one we like, how hard is it for you to just cut and paste your css changes to me?

Eld

Noticeable lag on the pictures. Would prefer a darker theme, but can live with the white.

Sarapis

@Yrael I'd love to see a theme along the darkness level of your second and third ideas above, but maybe some other palette alternatives. Put together a few more ideas perhaps? Thanks!

Yrael

@Sarapis Sure, I'll try some different combos. If there are any color schemes folks would like, I can pick some out of a photo or something.

@Jumpy I'm just using the css Stylebot thing that Aetous suggested on the other thread (awesome fun, by the way), I haven't tried asking it for any css back, but I can provide the color codes and it shouldn't be difficult finding what page elements they belong to. What's the interface for editing how the forum looks? Do you have straight access to the css file or is it a form where you fill out the colors you want? Also, does it support image backgrounds, or just solid color? I saw in the other thread that @Kresslack had put in a lovely textured background, which would be a nice option

I like both light and dark backgrounds, but solid black is a little too much for me. The first one I posted, you can barely tell that it isn't black, but I think adding a little color helps it balance better. I love me some white, but I do agree that it can be a little eye-hurt-y.

Jumpy

@Yrael We can override the current stylesheets but do not have access to them. Basically they give us an editor to edit a single stylesheet. If that makes any sense.

Glynn

Sarapis said:

Would people prefer a theme that is darker than the current white one? Who likes the white one? (I do, but I like pretty much any attractive color combo and could live with any of the ones Yrael posted, for instance.)

I prefer the default white theme. The vast majority of what I read, aside from MUD output, is black on white, or at least dark on bright background. I personally don't see the need to have the forum mimic MUD output, though I understand some people just like it that way. I don't know if that's just how the antialiasing/cleartype/whatever goes or what, but it's much easier to read dark on white at significantly smaller font sizes than I have to use for the MUD.

Kresslack

@Sarapis can your or @Aetous release the CSS Stylesheet so that we can use this as a foundation and ensure any custom themes released are compatible across the boards?

Edit: Actually, I found them ( I believe anyway ). Would it be all right if I posted them?

Iocun

Edit: Nevermind.

Aetous

@jumpy Really easy to get it - I've just been using the Stylebot plugin for chrome, which injects the CSS into the page (as well as giving a nice click and slider interface).  There is a button which allows you to get the generated CSS, so you should be able to just grab that and replace the forums default styles.

I can post what I've currently got, or @Yrael can, since hers look really good!

Jumpy

@Sarapis can decide what he wants, you guys can send me the css, I will put it in.

Yrael

Sorry my image uploads seem to dull your scrolling experience, I'm using tinypic because I don't want to sign up for/sign in to anything. It's slow as a paranoid snail in a salt maze. Other recommendations welcomed!

One more dark theme:

Pretty much the same in off-white:

Don't really like this one, but ehh:

Trying for fancy:

Trilliana

I like the last one @Yrael

Rakon

I like the dark theme of your last post @Yrael.

Also, for image hosting try http://imgur.com. Can I get the stylebot/css styling for that? 

Yrael

Rakon said:

I like the dark theme of your last post @Yrael.

Also, for image hosting try http://imgur.com. Can I get the stylebot/css styling for that? 

Sorry, I pretty much ditched it after I recolored the front page since I wasn't going to finish out the rest of the pages

If you want to try to recreate though, I basically just set all the fonts to either Century Gothic (for the sans-serif ones, but it looks like crap in bold, so you have to override by setting it to normal) and Palatino Linotype (for serifs), and stick in a background image of http://imgur.com/Hxc3s (thanks for the rec, works much better!)

Color codes - Links: #55c7c8, Headers and Metadata: #444444, Sub-headers and decor: #d18637, Content boxes: #202021 with 2px of black border to the right and bottom for the shadow, Text: #777777

Add some padding, fix line colors, and you're done. >__>

Sarapis

Kresslack said:

@Sarapis can your or @Aetous release the CSS Stylesheet so that we can use this as a foundation and ensure any custom themes released are compatible across the boards?

Edit: Actually, I found them ( I believe anyway ). Would it be all right if I posted them?

No issue with posting it!

Sarapis

@Yrael I'm liking the off-white ones. Let's try it and see how it goes. Could you send Jumpy the CSS you used?

Kresslack

Here's the general stylesheet: Click Here

If you wanted to use a pattern or image for the background(you can use any image but keep in mind actual pictures and the like will probably make the text hard to read), then you want to edit this part below:

body {
   color: #000;
	font-family: 'lucida grande','Lucida Sans Unicode', tahoma, sans-serif;
	font-size: 75%;
	line-height: 1.7em;
   background: #fff;
   margin: 0;
   padding: 0;
   font-size: small;
}

Replace background: #fff; with background-image: url('http://imagelink.jpg') ;

Edit: I also posted a quick instruction on how to use this once edited. For Chrome users, there are two ways. Right Click anywhere on the page, Stylebot > Style Element, and at the bottom click Edit CSS. You can just paste the entire thing in there and click save, this basically creates a new style. 

You can then view/edit/create new styles by going to Option > Extensions > Stylebot > Click Options. You can toggle different styles on and off, edit them, create, delete, etc. If you want to test your changes, just save and refresh the forum page.

Shibumi

I definitively love the dark theme. Besides, the dark theme is also more consistent with the new style of the web site, and of the new client as well.

Veldrin

Something I started working on, based on Kresslack's