New Website!

[mousEtopher]

I like the new site, much more functional than the old one. Did you decide to take out the users online on the side or will this be coming back? I think this is important for new people coming to the site to see that the game is active. Even just something simple like Users Online, don't think listing all the players is necessary.

It still exists on the inner pages that have a sidebar. I agree it's important to have on the homepage, just haven't figured out where to work it into the new layout. Maybe in the nav menu with the number of online users like you said, and the option of showing the full list on click.

Users Online button that could take you to the server.war2.ru/status page would be pretty cool

Oh yeah, I was thinking of that as well. Maybe embed that directly into a page of the site and link it from one of the menus? Not sure yet.

[GaNzTheLegend]

"Maybe in the nav menu with the number of online users like you said, and the option of showing the full list on click. "

That should suffice.

[O4L]

This is looking great! Glad to see the war2 tv you were talking about. That feature has a ton of potential for new players on the server! Great time to be a warcraft 2 player.

[Delete mine too]

Good work keep it up!!

[iL]

This new site is great!
Simple minimalist design, should be especially perfect for some socials and tablet devices.

And yeah, iL thought they should be clickable too. The entire icon section is still kind of up in the air; I may make them clickable, or restyle them to look less like buttons, or remove them entirely.

I think you should do something with that as soon as 2 people have the same feeling about clickable.
It makes people sad when they have instinct to click something and see it's not clickable.
Especially as the next page contains the same design for clickable buttons.

Also, maybe to show more than 8 recent forum posts, how do you think?

Also agree that users online should be added somewhere.
I think i need to redesign that advenced status page to make it narrow, any offers about that?
It's up to you, mousey, since you're the main with design things.

It took 2 minutes to change the background.

As i understand, that should be some kind of correlation between different colors onpage. You can't just change one of the colors, otherwise the page will loss expressiveness or something like that...
You always have to keep some kind of correspondence between colors...
I'm not a designer, maybe mousey can explain that better than me.

But me can change the forum theme to something else...

Forum redesign just isn't a priority I'm afraid, it'd be a ton of work on its own + the fact it's a platform I'm unfamiliar with theming. It's also fundamentally eye candy, offering no substantial benefits or improvement. And, when the new forum was started the general consensus was that a simple, plain theme was preferred to a heavily customized one.

I think we don't need some custom design, but we can easily find some different theme for smf.
The main problem is compatibility with some cutomization we use for the forum.
And another problem is "we fear changes", as mousey said and i agree with her.
This forum looks as similar as possible to warcraft occult, some people like that design, some - want to see the new one.

I think could be a good idea to make a poll about redesign the forum?

[I hate naggers]

a poll with different themes&screenshots would be gooder than a general "do you fear changes". In the latter only blid would vote yes

so like:
'yo punk witch them u want: 1 2 3 4 5'
and in the first post there would be screenies of theme samples (1 being default - current)

[Nox]

I will take a pool yes, occult was a dead forum and we was not used it so much compare to here.

The probleme is how the difference is too big between color forum and color game.

When you are on the client, almost everything is dark, when you came to forum everything is bright.

So when your alt tabbing between game and forum it's became really bad, difference is to high and will be dangerous after a couple of months, if you dont believe me ask an expert about eyes.

We cant do this with our eyes over and over, thats pretty bad for eyes healty.

[mousEtopher]

I think you should do something with that as soon as 2 people have the same feeling about clickable.It makes people sad when they have instinct to click something and see it's not clickable.Especially as the next page contains the same design for clickable buttons.

Ah, you're absolutely right on that last point. Okay, I'll mess with it. They're probably going away unfortunately since I just can't justify a huge prominent section of links in the middle of the page, directing people away from the desired action. Unless anyone can give feedback on a similar layout that looks less button-y? e.g.

http://i.imgur.com/XBnSdNP.png
http://i.imgur.com/joqNkl6.png
http://i.imgur.com/0GDDje1.png
http://i.imgur.com/zv9VX0m.png
http://i.imgur.com/raZQiQZ.png
http://i.imgur.com/88J98ZN.png

(None of those are clickable.) I see this style of icon + text blurb often in modern design and personally don't usually interpret them as being buttons. Maybe it's a generational difference in perception?

I think we don't need some custom design, but we can easily find some different theme for smf.The main problem is compatibility with some cutomization we use for the forum.And another problem is "we fear changes", as mousey said and i agree with her.This forum looks as similar as possible to warcraft occult, some people like that design, some - want to see the new one.I think could be a good idea to make a poll about redesign the forum?

Could even let people go search themes and submit any free, compatible ones they'd like added, then have a vote on which one to add. I still don't think it's a priority atm, but if you want to oversee & implement the idea then by all means.

[iL]

(None of those are clickable.) I see this style of icon + text blurb often in modern design and personally don't usually interpret them as being buttons. Maybe it's a generational difference in perception?

Definitely it is, sometimes i see am an old dinosaur in all these new trends...
I also tried to click such "buttons" on some big sites, and that maked me sad that they are not clickable.
But this round "buttons" looks like a good place to touch it by finger on touchscreen...

Could even let people go search themes and submit any free, compatible ones they'd like added, then have a vote on which one to add. I still don't think it's a priority atm, but if you want to oversee & implement the idea then by all means.

I don't think we should spend much our (your) forces and time for that, just 5 min to install all the required themes and to add theme switcher somewhere.
Maybe also need to add "that guy" and link to server.war2.ru in each header. More 10-15 min for each theme...

Not sure about some possible problems, like we need to reinstall mods and languages for each theme. Need to check that.

Then we even don't need any polls, just to add other themes and keep this one by default.
Everybody can select any theme he wants.

[mousEtopher]

Well that was my point, task the users who want different themes with going out & researching/finding suitable themes + take a vote on which ONE theme to install = less repetitive work for us. We have very few forum members, and even fewer who have expressed an interest in alternate forum themes, I just don't see the value of us going to the trouble of finding & installing multiple themes, modding each of those themes for compatibility, and having to sync all future mods to all those themes just to give a handful of people the illusion of meaningless choice. One light theme + one dark theme seems practical & reasonable.

Hell, maybe make it even simpler and just pick a dark version of Curve?

http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2033
http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2065
https://userstyles.org/styles/55513/smf-curve-dark

[GaNzTheLegend]

Something like this but war2 theme would be awesome, I think this is what EQ has in mind.

[mousEtopher]

Not arguing that it wouldn't be cool, but huge amounts of time & work for pure eye candy. If anyone has the time and wants to do it, or wants to fork over some cash to hire a SMF theme designer, then feel free!

[Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart)]

Ah, you're absolutely right on that last point. Okay, I'll mess with it. They're probably going away unfortunately since I just can't justify a huge prominent section of links in the middle of the page, directing people away from the desired action.

Can you elaborate on this?  I don't really get it since three of the icons already have clickable links below (ladder, forum, ss) and secondly, it's only the middle of the page as in it's like halfway down the page when you're scrolling.  So it's like, when i first open the page, I see the youtube video, download link, etc.  Scroll down and i get to the rotating screenshot and the server description.  scroll down more and then we're at what you might call the third "bucket" (or bottom half of second bucket) and THEN you're at the icons.  I think at that point in the page, you've already seen the big hit items and you may want to now look at details, see how some of this stuff works.  so i think links there wouldnt be bad design at all.  just mo.

[Nox]

Not arguing that it wouldn't be cool, but huge amounts of time & work for pure eye candy. If anyone has the time and wants to do it, or wants to fork over some cash to hire a SMF theme designer, then feel free!

Actually i dont only want necessairly something like this, it will be crazy but, anyway, the beige background of the original website is perfect, you dint have to work you just have to put the one you already created on the website as background here.

sample template just new background.

Same color as russian background forum or ganz exemple.

Took 2 minutes.

[GaNzTheLegend]

Mouse is right, you want people to download the client, not look at some ladder page or something and get lost. There are links in the menu for people who want more details.