A New Look

Figured I'd post a quick look at the current state of the new design:



A couple of things to note about this design:

• It will use your forum login/password/cookie to determine who you are
• You will be able to select the theme (colors), font sizes, the size of the news box, the number of posts in the forum threads section, and what 'plugins' you'd like in the right column. Plugins will be things like 'Team Project Ranks', 'Top Forum Posters', 'Newest Members', and a handful of tie-ins with the Arachnid system for those projects that it supports. These will let you setup custom graphs for your homepage, etc.
• It should work pretty gracefully at 1024x768 all the way out to 1600x1200.
• It will eventually have a custom version for use on mobile devices (PDAs, phones, etc)

BTW, for those interested, this isn't a mockup, but the actual design rendered in Galeon. It looks nearly identical in IE.I've also got a fully functioning forum setup for this site using the latest v3 of vbulletin with a matching color scheme. Our current forum is v2 and there are some nice new features in the v3 code.

:thumbs:

Schweet! Thanks Dyy!

:)

:drums:

Looks awesome! :thumbs:

Nice :thumbs:

heretic

Very Nice. :thumbs:

Cheers,
Marc

I like(d) the good old green design very much!

But the new one looks great, what do I say, more greater, no, most greatest! :D

Good work Dyy! :thumbs: :cheers:

Hey Folks,

Your new Forum page looks great !

Fritz :)

So whats wrong with the old one ?

In no particular order, here's what I don't like about the current look:

• Colors are a little too muted. Looks good for awhile, but begins to look drab over time. Of course, any color scheme can start to look old if you look at it often enough, which is why the new site design is skinnable. ;)
• Not flexible enough for differences in horizontal resolution. We have people using everything from 800x600 to 1600x1200. We need something that scales well to large sizes but still looks good at small sizes. The ability to customize for personal preferences will also help in this regard.
• The navigation is terrible. It's too long, and too cluttered. The new design will keep only those options that are used the most frequently on the homepage. Individual project stuff for each project will still be available (possibly in a forum/site hybrid page) by clicking the 'projects' button on the homepage.
• The underlying code is pretty basic and doesn't extend well to non-pc clients.
• Doesn't allow any integration with the Arachnid stats stuff, other 3rd party stats stuff, the forums, or the Free-DC supercomputer. The new design will allow all of these things (eventually ;)).

If it makes those of you who really like the current look feel better, there *is* a 'Free-DC' traditional skin available. :D

Skinable! Better make a new forum IB :thumbs:

:tempted:

:evil:

:cheers:

For those curious to see what 'skinnable' means, here's the same page with the 'Legacy' skin:

Wow Dyy, I like the idea of the skinnable template even for the frontpage.

Great work man. :thumbs:

I am looking forward to the new website! Very nice layout, and the skinability is just fantastic!
Good work Dyyryath! :cheers:

Looking Good

sweet!:hifi: