New forum design

[aurora]

Not sure if this topic fits in this category, anyway ... i am a little uncomfortable with the new forum design. I know it should reflect the mood of the game, but for me it's just to dark and that's not because of personal taste but because i have difficulties with this. The gray and red small texts on the black background are really hard for me to read and overall it just feels not good for me. This might be because i have a visual impairment. Would it be possible to let users adjust the theme? So you could leave it as it is now but allow community members to choose a different theme for their own login environment? Thanks ...

[Blinkin]

I kinda agree on this. I like the new design although I would prefer the old one because it's more easy to read. In fact for my feeling the whole thing seems to be too 'large'. If I use my browser to zoomout the whole page just one step (FireFox) it feels a lot better (except for the letters because they'll become to small).

It might need some tweaking.

[Hotzn]

Same here. Forums are darker now and therefore in line with the theme of TLD. But they have become a little more difficult to read. And the letters seem bigger, the screen displays less than before. At least that's my impression.

EDIT: Using Opera on a PC. On my mobile the readability is much better.

[Scyzara]

I concur. While I like the new look of the forums a lot in general, the letters really seem a bit to large. 

[Shadrach]

I like it - it's dark - like the game ... and my soul.

But yeah I can understand some might find it harder to read than black text on white, so it should be possible to change the look.

Also like others say, the text, and size of page elements, is huge, probably because I run with display scaling on so Firefox scales fonts to be larger, but there should be a way to select font sizes as well, if possible.

[EricTheGreat12]

 

4 hours ago, Shadrach said:

I like it - it's dark - like the game ... and my soul.

4 hours ago, Shadrach said:

Also like others say, the text, and size of page elements, is huge, probably because I run with display scaling on so Firefox scales fonts to be larger, but there should be a way to select font sizes as well, if possible.

Text is pretty big on my end, but I'm using Chrome

[Simone Else]

i agree too its seems too zoomed in.

[JAFO]

Functionality-wise, the Notifications system is partially broken, and it's very annoying.

Before, all new notifications when you clicked on the bell icon at the upper right of the page would be highlighted, so it was easy to scroll down to the oldest current notification.

Now, no highlighting is applied at all, and I have to manually count down the number of entries that are shown overlayed on the bell icon. Irritating as hell.

[ChillPlayer]

I don't like the dark theme either, it's too underground-ish and it also does not remind me of TLD. Yes it has Dark in the name but other than that, the color I see most when playing is white, as in snow white. Maybe give users the option to chose their own color theme?

[Malcot]

I really like the dark colour scheme. I agree about the text (I'm on mobile). I think the issue is that the font is a condensed version with close tracking so not great for readability.

[SnowWalker]

22 hours ago, Blinkin said:

If I use my browser to zoomout the whole page just one step (FireFox) it feels a lot better

That's the first thing I did too. I use Firefox as well and as soon as checked into the new forum I zoomed it out right away. About 3-4 times.

[Karl Grylls]

The older lighter one was easier to read and the Forums were easier to overlook. I will try the outzooming, thanks for the hint.

[VinceCgto]

I like that they opted for the dark color scheme, similar to http://thelongdark.com. What I don't like is that this new styling broke some parts of the forum (i.e. black text on black background).

So I added my own styling with Stylebot. There are of course other ways to insert custom css into webpages.

Disclaimer: I haven't properly checked if the code doesn't break other parts of the forum, nor did I cross-browser test. You might need to tweak it a bit, I will keep tweaking this myself as well.

.ipsType_richText {
    font-size: 19px;
    letter-spacing: 0.2px;
}

.ipsType_richText font[color="#000000"] { color: #d9dce4; }

.ipsType_large { font-size: 24px; }

.ipsComment .fa-heart {
    line-height: 20px;
    font-size: 11px;
    padding-right: 0.3em;
}

.ipsComment .ipsReputation_count {
    vertical-align: middle;
    height: 22px;
}

.ipsDataItem_title { font-size: 22px; }

.ipsDataItem .fa {
    line-height: 20px;
    font-size: 13px;
}

.ipsDataItem .ipsContained_container > span:not(.ipsHide) {
    padding-right: 0.3em;
    vertical-align: text-top;
}

.ipsDataItem .ipsBadge.ipsBadge_icon.ipsBadge_small {
    width: 20px;
    height: 20px;
    border-radius: 20px;
    line-height: 20px;
    vertical-align: text-top;
}

.ipsDataItem .ipsType_medium.fa.fa-lock { font-size: 20px; }
}

code, kbd, pre, samp {
    font-size: 0.8em;
}

 

[JAFO]

25 minutes ago, VinceCgto said:

So I added my own styling with Stylebot.

Do you have a screenshot of it in action? That would be helpful.

[VinceCgto]

9 minutes ago, JAFO said:

Do you have a screenshot of it in action? That would be helpful.

Sure! I've posted the CSS in Stylebot here.

To get to this screen:

Stylebot button in Chrome > Open Stylebot > Edit CSS (at the bottom) > Paste the CSS here > Save > Enjoy!

Fixed the alignment of the icons here, reduced the font size here as well:

[slackhideo]

I don't want to sound like a complainer, but as I already said about the Faithful Cartographer update, design should prioritise functionality over visuals/beauty.
That's my two cents.

Also,

On 30/07/2017 at 1:38 AM, JAFO said:

Before, all new notifications when you clicked on the bell icon at the upper right of the page would be highlighted, so it was easy to scroll down to the oldest current notification.

Now, no highlighting is applied at all, and I have to manually count down the number of entries that are shown overlayed on the bell icon. Irritating as hell.

I could not agree more.

[tortuosit]

The waste of space has been there before and now it even got worse. Why in the good lords name don't they just use useful forum software like SMF... This forum got less functionality and less beauty. Because: Those 1.5x vertically stretched letters. It's utter crap. Distorting mirrors style. It does not look good and makes me prefer Steam fora. It's uncomfortable. It's only perfect for a recycle bin.

I guess Hinterland knew it and hid the new forum style launch behind the successful launch of Wintermute... well played.

Is this the prior forum software with that "Makes it worse" skin? (EDIT: It's the software) Hinterland, you should not pay them, they should pay you compensation, for the visual pain this forum software successfully delivers. The font is a crime.

[Miniwizard]

The colour scheme, I have no real issue with - though I did prefer the cleaner, lighter background. It was much easier on the eyes and had higher contrast.

However, it is really awkward to read large blocks of text in this font. Ideal for headers, slogans or short lines, but not for paragraphs of text.

[Patrick Carlson]

Thanks for your notes here on some functionality issues you are seeing. As I said, we'll be looking into them as we refine things. 

[Wish]

Vote of support here for the forum design, options, and moderation -- excellent job all around. Just like the TLD, it has a subtle black, white, and red theme.

An option for those with visual impairment would also be welcome.