Forum Name/Rules Update

[Dagger]

Love the new skin. Great work! It's really exciting to finally use something other than Geisha (my past choice). :love:

~Dagger~

[Rachmaninoff]

I may be a sucker for blue and intend to stick with the OB standard theme, but I do like the top image with a bit from The Great Wave Off Kanagawa. I actually have a decent scan of the full art image, though I don't remember if it was a woodblock painting or something else. Still I like that the best about the new theme, it really suits it well. Also, keeping the same background for the posts is perfect in my mind. I usually avoid darker themes since it always makes readability an issue, but this way... It's no issue at all.

[Ikillion]

[COLOR=#001824][SIZE="1"][FONT="Trebuchet MS"]I would make a statement on how Geisha goes so unloved but since this new theme is equally as dark, my rage suppressed itself.

Well played King.[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[James]

[font=franklin gothic medium]Geisha will be getting a much-needed makeover soon, I think. It will probably see some slightly more significant changes to table colours and stuff (as well as some image redesigns).[/font]

[Desbreko]

[quote name='Allamorph'][FONT=Arial]I just noticed this: on the Who's Online screen, the IM service symbols all have little white pixel-bits around their edges.

Nothin' serious, just an aesthetic thing.[/FONT][/QUOTE][color=#4B0082]That's 'cause whoever on the vB design team made those icons was stupid and used anti-aliasing on them. Which almost completely defeats the purpose of making their backgrounds transparent in the first place since, as you can see, they look like crap when used against a dark background color. I'll fix them sooner or later because that sort of thing bugs me.

Oh, and I wanted to let people who have quotes in their signatures know something: If the quote is showing up with the charcoal background color (the one used in the side bar) instead of the light gray it should be, just go to the Edit Signature page and re-save your signature to get it to display the correct background color. I have no idea why it happens, but I noticed a few instances of it while testing the skin and that's how I fixed it. So, you know, don't freak out if it's happened to your sig.[/color]

[Lady Asphyxia]

[FONT=Arial][SIZE=2]Ooo...Monochrome and swishy.

Heart.

I less than three you, Jamesy![/SIZE][/FONT]

[SunfallE]

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"][FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"][quote name='Rachmaninoff']I do like the top image with a bit from The Great Wave Off Kanagawa. I actually have a decent scan of the full art image, though I don't remember if it was a woodblock painting or something else. Still I like that the best about the new theme, it really suits it well. Also, keeping the same background for the posts is perfect in my mind. I usually avoid darker themes since it always makes readability an issue, but this way... It's no issue at all.[/QUOTE]The top image was the first thing I noticed, but then I have that scan too. It's very fitting for the new theme. ^_^ And I too love how the background is the same for the posts. I hate having to highlight the text to read someone's post, that and I'd hate to have to give up using color for my posts. XP

Anyway, one other thing I've noticed that seems a little off is the white section between each area's like the AV District and The Square doesn't quite line up on the right side. It's not that big of a deal though.

Overall, very, very nice. So thank you James. :catgirl:[/FONT][/COLOR]

[Aaryanna_Mom]

I have only one question about the new theme and that is to know if the previous one OB Standard will still be around for the duration. As much as I think the new theme does look nice, it simply does not agree with my eyes at all and is difficult to read. Nothing personal against it but I would be very frustrated if the easier to read OB Standard were to eventually be retired.

[Dagger]

[quote name='James']If you still want to use our previous blue theme, simply go down to the bottom of the page and select "OB Standard". Both OB Standard and Geisha are still selectable.[/quote]

:catgirl:

~Dagger~

[James]

[font=franklin gothic medium]Yep, as Dagger pointed out, we'll be keeping OB Standard as a selectable skin. In Edit Options you can choose to use OB Standard as your default all the time, so that you don't have to change to it each time you visit OB.

[/font]

[Aaryanna_Mom]

[quote name='James'][font=franklin gothic medium]Yep, as Dagger pointed out, we'll be keeping OB Standard as a selectable skin. In Edit Options you can choose to use OB Standard as your default all the time, so that you don't have to change to it each time you visit OB.[/font][/QUOTE]Thank you. I figured you were, but I wanted to be sure or at the very least let you know that I preferred it. It's a shame that the dark background and contrasting lighter color for the text doesn't agree with my vision since it does look nice. Though who knows? I'm due to have more surgeries next year on my eyes to improve my vision so I just might be able to read something like that comfortably once that's done. Anyway, thank you for answering the question, I appreciate it.:catgirl:

[James]

[font=franklin gothic medium]Light text on dark backgrounds is definitely more difficult to read than the other way around - that's why I've been very careful to keep OB Standard. I just hope Indigo isn't [i]too[/i] difficult to read for most people.

My thinking is that in the future when we introduce more themes, they will all have a trial as our default theme. So eventually you'll see a new default design and Indigo will become selectable like the others. This way we can easily feature new themes; otherwise I can imagine a lot of people just won't know they're there at all.[/font]

[Korey]

[FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"]Y'know I didn't even see the new theme until I logged in from a different computer, when I acutally logged in, it switched back to standard.

I think it's pretty cool...nothing against monotones, but to some of the members that wantonly use bright colors, like orange or yellow, this theme will be very disastorous for them....no reference to any specific member was intended. But I think the change is very cool, just waiting to see what new feature we can bring to it now and enhance it...I'm sure you and Adam have pondered some things around the water cooler, James. [/FONT]

[Aberinkula]

[COLOR="77656"]You mean, like being able to edit and customize the skins for ourselves? That would be really cool. Being able to put images and colors and whatnot instead of using pre-made skins. I'd just be happy if we could make our own banners for the top of the site, and even edit the colors of the menu bars and such. [/COLOR]

[James]

[font=franklin gothic medium]I don't think this is even possible with the software we're using.

Even if it was, we'd have to work out how to actually handle it. For instance, would we have to host all of the images? And we'd probably have to put in forms and such to edit all of those elements.

It's a good idea in theory but I'm not sure if it's physically possible with Virtual Bulletin.

Still, I think your desire for customization will probably be fulfilled with the next version of theOtaku.com. I have heard some good things about it.[/font]

[Petie]

[quote name='James'][FONT=franklin gothic medium]I don't think this is even possible with the software we're using.[/FONT][/quote]
[FONT=Verdana][COLOR=blue]I second this. With all of the forum software I've used (and there's been quite a few), I've never once seen a feature that lets the user customize the skin beyond selecting which one they want to use. That's probably for the best though because as anyone who has tried making a skin for a forum likely knows, it's not an easy thing to do.[/COLOR][/FONT]

[quote name='Premonition'][COLOR=#77656]I'd just be happy if we could make our own banners for the top of the site, and even edit the colors of the menu bars and such. [/COLOR][/quote]
[FONT=Verdana][COLOR=blue]However, in reference to this point, I can see something like what myOtaku currently has in terms of color customization being slightly easier to handle though I know of no software or modifications that allow it.[/COLOR][/FONT]

[Desbreko]

[color=#4B0082]I don't think [i]any[/i] forum software is set up to handle user-specific skin customizations. At least none that I know of. Making a hack for it also seems like it would be horribly complicated so I doubt there are any available.

People who use bright colors should be fine with the Indigo skin. Everywhere that people are able to specify the color of text they input, it goes on the same background color as the postbit here, which is the same color as the postbits on the other two skins. (Or it should. If you notice anywhere that this isn't the case, let me know so I can fix it.) The only exception is in quotes, which were made slightly darker to help differentiate them from the rest of a post. So anything a member posts won't be any harder to read regardless of which skin is used.[/color]

[James]

[font=franklin gothic medium]Yep, I thought it was important for post backgrounds to remain the same across all skins - otherwise people's carefully designed threads will look very different on different skins...and I don't think that's a good idea.

One of the big issues for the future also relates to how we'll handle Version 7 themes when we upgrade to Evolution. Being that the layout is totally different...I'm not quite sure. I think it will largely depend on what's technically doable at the time.

In any case, I hope that our constant improvement of themes (and development of new ones) is keeping the site looking fresh. The layout itself still works quite well and the recent upgrade to the latest vB has added some useful features that we never had before.[/font]

[Korey]

[FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"]Sorry if I meant anything my customizable skins, which in this case, I did not. I meant to say I can't wait to see what new features that OB is going to bring in general. I saw I was really vague about that in my previous post. As for customization for every user, I think there is wayyyy too large a fanbase on this site to have multiple images. Plus some users are just not that artisically inclined or capable of making skins that aren't complete eyesores. That was kinda harsh, let me rephrase....

Some users aren't as good as others in the field of graphic design. Myself included. I know a lot about Photoshop and I had a brief history with Paint Shop Pro, but I don't really think that lots of people would have the experience of others. It would be a neat idea in the pipeline, but as James stated, it would be physically impossible with the stuff we have at this point.[/FONT]