this site could look better

habilis

habilis

Ministry of Re-Education
I know it's just a board. I know it's just a forum. But the Mac is also the industry standard machine used by designers and graphic artists worldwide. I think it would be cool if this site reflected that as well with some spruced up, modern, Sci-Fi Channel style design elements.
 
Or there could be at least different color schemes to which choose from .... letting a few problems still 1 ) the clickable items (smiles and postrepys etc) are only 1 set = those should look good on all schemes.. 2) the banners are on the same server than the rest of images = smiles and postreplys etc.. so trying to make the site better looking not seeing the banners will block also all smiles and otehr gifs. Maybe the logo and the darkest brown could be different.. Besides ... OS X does not run on Lisa ... :)
 
not that i am the one who handles this dept, but i wan to say that i would never want a forum to look anything like those. content is the most important part of a forum. i'm using dsl and i had to wait for grapics content to load on those sites. i can imagine how 56k users would experience them. and i never ever want to hear sound when i come to a forum.
personally the current theme is my favorite of all ScottW has done since i've been here. it's simple, easy on the eyes and loads reasonably fast. the color scheme is that of jaguar and the graphics are retro - bringing the past and present together nicely.

i've been to forums where the site owners wanted to show off their graphics abilities and i didn't really like the looks. for instance i wouldn't want the sci-fi theme suggested earlier. i'm not that into sci-fi and this certainly isn't a sci-fi site. better to be a bit bland and find something tolerable and functional for all then to try and be too much and end up with too little. ;)
 
... are those flash ones suggestions? i closed the pages in 4 seconds each .. i dont want to wait to see what a flahs site can offer to COLORS...
:confused:

flashs are slow, they are besides in the wrong contest in a forum. But ... having a couple of color schmes as alternatives would probably not be bad. E.g - having EXACTLY the same as current but an orange instead of the dark brown could look different (and the icons and other colors would still fit to the rest) - and then maybe some kind of turqueise (chinish blue?) and some kind of light but toned blue could do as well ... = different themes changing only that dark brown up and down in the page.

[nothing more. i played with some templates once .. actually only added smiles and had to switch all colors to fit the new smiles.. intelligently messing 2 and half days with the main template. never do that]
 
GRRRRR. I'm not saying this site needs Flash per say. It doesn't need Flash at all. It was that design style that I'm talking about. It's called future-beautiful, it's cutting edge, it's clean, crisp and bright. macosx.com can be cutting edge without being too complex looking or too slow-loading.

I like giaguara's idea of fully customizable colors. That would make this site really fun to look at. why not?

The main problem would be finding someone with enough spare time, top-notch design skills, and deadication to work pro bono.
 
Hey, to change *ONE* colour in the schemes does not take long! the longest thing it takes is to find the hexa color that looks good! Orange would look nice and not being bad with the rest of the current theme (i am suppsosing the logo, banners, icons, smiles etc remain as they are) - and also some other colors ... maybe even grey apart from those above mentioned... once the hexacodes are known, just log in to admin panel, there styles / templates (i guess, i've done this only in woltlab .. more or less should be same); create new styles (or templates); copy the previous exactly there, and then change only the head color (err, how is that called in there .. and probably the backgr. of tables (in case they are those thin lines separating fields, they would look nive on the other color too) ; .. and then save with appropriate names like "orange" "turquoise" "green" "blue" "grey" .. i could search for some tonalities that would fit otherwise in the theme sooner or later, i'd just like to see a bit more orange [oh yes, the Californian sun is a much better choise I know.. ]
 
Too busy for a forum. I want to read, not watch animation.

But I must admit it is good for some one who is use to playing games.
 
I'd prefer if the system was Slashcode based.
I look around the web, and I hate "bulitin boards" or "blogs"
Nested comments, moderation, etc. is the way to go.
but I survive.
 
First off, the above picture on our site is not a Mac Lisa, it's a Mac Plus/SE whatever.

Secondly, what annoys me about Mac sites is they all look alike. I realize we are all members of this big cult and everything, but Steve says, "Think Different" and that is what this theme is about.

Best of all, it captures our beige history, with the name of the site being the current and future OS for Mac... so it provides a nice contrast.

I might do some tweaking of colors one of these days, but it will be very minimal and will not vary from this color scheme very much.

Scott
 
I think I found a style that we could all agree on (yeah right). No seriously though I really like that blue scheme that Giaguara made. but if you take a look at the image, see how the boxes have a diagonal 'cut' on them. A simple little addition like that could make this site more distinguished from the millions of other forums out there.
this_style_is_cool.jpg
 
i think i am the only person who liked the last theme (the deep blue one) because i was the only one who could read it :D

maybe we could do the dark side of aqua kind of theme?
 
I will admit that the site does not have a lot of bells and whistles but i see nothing wrong with it. It is simple and to the point.
 
Why don't the admins install different themes and let us choose what we want? Quite a few of the forums around have an option in the users preferences to change the theme on their own.
 
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