Forum Changes

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Oh, if you don't like it, just make a thread on how to block it.

I have to admit I'm finding it annoying, but come on - It's not the end of the world.

[David E. Gervais]

This new format is fine, but it does need a tiny tweak.. the column width for the press release needs to be about 6-8 pixels wider. Why? because the right edge of the graphic background is being cropped. (and yes I find a cropped pic to be much more annoying than hanving the column there.)

Oh, and no pressure, but it would be at least nice to see how my background pic looks in action, but that choice is entirely up to you. (the bugler one is the one I would go with, it makes sense since these are 'announcements of sorts.)

Keep up the fantastic work, Cheers!

EDIT: I just did a mock-up and the column only needs 4 extra pixels in width. (see attached sample)

[tesco samoa]

i love the new shrapnel games on the blue. Very Nice. As for the new site... looks good. Would be cool if you could move the stuff around

Mind you I have not really been here lately as much as would like.

[NullAshton]

Idea... Why don't these headlines be a scroller across the top of the screen?

[geoschmo]

You know, I must say I'm starting to come around on this left menu thing. I don't know if it's because it has David's Bugler pic now, or if it's just a matter of time and getting used to it, but it's starting to look much more natural to me. When I compare this to other websites I visit a lot, espn, cnn, etc, the left menu idea and having a common look accross all pages of a site are fairly common. Heck, for that matter, we do it on PBW, and take up a lot more space then this does.

If we must have the left menu though, let's go all out and put more nav buttons on it. If there were more nav buttons I think that peoples first impression of it wouldn't be that it's just more "ad" space. What about all the nav buttons from the left menu on the home page? Buttons to take me to the various game pages? How about buttons to take me to different game forums within the bulliten board here? If I could navigate the entire Shrapnel site from the left menu without having to go back to the home page at all that would be fairly useful, and quite cool actually. And you could still have your press releases in the left column under the links like they are now, they'd just be a bit farther down because there would be more links.

NullAshton said:
Idea... Why don't these headlines be a scroller across the top of the screen?

Yeah, that's been mentioned a couple of times in this thread already.

[Mindi]

geoschmo said:
You know, I must say I'm starting to come around on this left menu thing. I don't know if it's because it has David's Bugler pic now, or if it's just a matter of time and getting used to it, but it's starting to look much more natural to me. When I compare this to other websites I visit a lot, espn, cnn, etc, the left menu idea and having a common look accross all pages of a site are fairly common. Heck, for that matter, we do it on PBW, and take up a lot more space then this does.

Thanks for this. We are trying to make our sites more uniform and consistent with one another. There will be changes to the blog as well in the future to acheive this common goal. And thanks to David for the pic!

If we must have the left menu though, let's go all out and put more nav buttons on it. If there were more nav buttons I think that peoples first impression of it wouldn't be that it's just more "ad" space. What about all the nav buttons from the left menu on the home page? Buttons to take me to the various game pages? How about buttons to take me to different game forums within the bulliten board here? If I could navigate the entire Shrapnel site from the left menu without having to go back to the home page at all that would be fairly useful, and quite cool actually.

Actually that was exactly what was in the original template plan; however, we determined that the navigation on the front of the site is much wider and would take too much width away from the forum. When we decided to go down to one row of buttons, we at first put up some of the buttons we felt were most needed from previous feedback. Since then we have added a button that goes to the game pages, as well as the one to sign up for the newsletter. There will probably be more navigation added in the future.

Yeah, that's been mentioned a couple of times in this thread already.

That's not going to happen, because for everyone who doesn't like bars on sites, there will be just as many if not more that don't like seing something that is animated (scrolling, blinking, whatever).

[David E. Gervais]

Wow! I feel almost famous. I'm glad you like my background pic, and the pleasure was all mine. Thanks for using it.

Note: The column width is still short by 3-4 pixels, the right-hand drop shadow is missing on the graphic. (I'm not trying to be picky, just pointing out a very miner bug.)

Cheers!