Fury-Tech Forums v3 - What do you think?

[Tekime]

You have probably noticed a significant change in appearance here since you last logged in. I have created the new design for a couple of reasons. The most important are usability, security/maintenance, and a more appealing look.

I have also installed and tweaked so many MOD's for phpBB that the code was just getting out of hand. Updates were a pain. Hence taking too long and having idiots exploit the problem.

A couple of the big features in the new design are:

1. Less images, cleaner layout
2. Smaller header area, so the forums and topics are at the top where you want them
3. Quick-access panel on the right of the forum index for stats and accessing common stuff
4. The "Forums" option on the main menu drops down to give quick access to all the parts of the forum
5. Unregistered users see a welcome message and small ad at the top of the page - logging in gets rid of the entire area so registered users don't have to see a message, and never ever see ads on the forums.
6. All new button sets (still need to finish a couple minor ones)
7. All new codebase - fresh install of latest phpBB and re-apply latest version of the Cash mod (furions).
8. No more HTML signatures

A couple things that are now missing in the new design:

1. No more dark style!! Yep.. for now, anyway. I'm thinking about a minor offspring of this design with dark backgrounds, more like the old template, but same layout. Feedback welcome!
2. Profile CP. The advanced user profile system is GONE. It was, IMHO, a burden to the maintenance of the forum and didn't really do much of any good. I am almost done compiling a list of MOD's that I am willing to install, and I will post them in a poll here so everyone can decide what they would most like to see. I alos installed easyMOD so I can setup a number of MOD's in a matter of minutes, whereas before it took 15-60 minutes per.

Consider this change the first step in the version 3 release of Fury-Tech. I'll continue to tweak a bit on the forums, we can think of the best stuff we all want to see, and the final step will come when I'm happy with the status of Thundermist 2 (the CMS Fury-Tech will be on), and merge everything together.

Please let me know what you think of the new style. It seems pretty simple but it actually took me a lot of tweaking to get to this point. Simplicity, I have found, is one of the hardest things to achieve in design while still maintaining functionality.

Please note that HTML has been removed from signatures! Please take all HTML code from your sigs and just use BBcode. This will greatly improve things from a maintenance and security standpoint, I hope you understand.

Enjoy! (I hope )

[Technophile]

Sweet dude, I'm liking it! The extra stuff in the user CP was neat, but not really all that useful in the long run. 2 things I'm seeing right off the bat:

1) The new post indicators are not obvious enough. The dark grey alien head and black alien head are too similar. I have to really look to see which forums have new posts and which don't. I think the new post indicator should be a contrasting color to make it obvious. Maybe make it blue or put a glow around it or something.

2) Minor thing but when I click on "View more Emoticons", the contents of the window are layed out horizontally, but the window itself is sized for a vertical layout. If I resize the window, close and open it, it's still the vertical size. A minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless.

Looking pretty nice other than that though. I do like having the forum stats and stuff in the side bar rather than having it on top of everything. The extra little navagation thing is also going to be pretty handy.

It's funny, the simpler you try to make something for the end user, the more complicated it becomes for you.

[freshtokyo]

HOT! but where's my quick reply??!!!?! I'll keep my eye open for any mac probs...

[Tekime]

Originally Posted by Technophile

Sweet dude, I'm liking it! The extra stuff in the user CP was neat, but not really all that useful in the long run.

Sweet! We can always bring stuff back too, but a fresh slate feels good.

1) The new post indicators are not obvious enough. The dark grey alien head and black alien head are too similar. I have to really look to see which forums have new posts and which don't. I think the new post indicator should be a contrasting color to make it obvious. Maybe make it blue or put a glow around it or something.

Agreed... now that I'm seeing it work it's IMPOSSIBLE to tell.

2) Minor thing but when I click on "View more Emoticons", the contents of the window are layed out horizontally, but the window itself is sized for a vertical layout. If I resize the window, close and open it, it's still the vertical size. A minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless.

Yeah, that IS annoying. I had to fix that on the old style, too - shouldn't be too hard.

It's funny, the simpler you try to make something for the end user, the more complicated it becomes for you.

You can say that again!

fresh - quick reply will definitely be added.

Thanks guys - keep it coming!

[freshtokyo]

just from what I've noticed it's a SHITTON faster now too... I know that you trimmed some graphical elements out if it, but did you trim any code?

[Tekime]

Originally Posted by freshtokyo

just from what I've noticed it's a SHITTON faster now too... I know that you trimmed some graphical elements out if it, but did you trim any code?

Yeah, got rid of a bunch of useless HTML, and cleanup a lot of dynamic stuff that just wasn't necessary and was wasting CPU cycles. Plus some database cleanup that probably helped things a bit.

I'm also thinking about adding caching in to make it really rip.

[jaysaul]

Wow, the time you have to spend for this is daunting! Thanks.

I don't find access to one's profile.

Good luck in your never-ending task.

[Tekime]

Thanks jay. Your profile can be access through Forums dropdown on the main menu or the "User CP" link on the icon menu on the front page. The full profile CP is gone for now ... but all the normal stuff is available.

[Technophile]

Is it just me or does the logout button not work?

I love how it says "No new messages" in the same little box where it shows the button hints. Tight!

[Tekime]

Icons updated... I'll keep tweaking as needed.

Originally Posted by Technophile

Is it just me or does the logout button not work?

I think the logout button doesn't work, and for some reason it doesn't seem to be keeping me logged in when I close my browser either. I'll double check the cookie settings as it works fine on the test server.

I love how it says "No new messages" in the same little box where it shows the button hints. Tight!