Board style discussion

[preserve]

The board style topic said to discuss here, but it linked to the forum and not a topic, so I guess I'll start one...

I liked it just fine the way it used to look... is there an option for the old appearance?

I could point out specific things I don't like about the new feel - for example, I'm not a fan of the drop shadows, or the font used in the post body - but it's just personal preference.

People get used to how a forum looks and feels. Whenever a forum changes style, there is always an initial negative reaction. But people generally get used to it over time.

I guess I'll choose the color theme that I dislike the least, and hope that the new style grows on me.

[preserve]

I guess it's AllanStyle-SUBSILVER for me. It's the least garish and the simplest, and probably the closest in color to the previous style.

One of the thing I dislike about these newer phpbb themes (seen them on too many forums) is the larger percentage of space that they give to the Author column.

It becomes really hideous between their space-wasting diagonal online-status banners, and when you have a forum where people have ridiculously large avatars.

I thought phpbb had a user preference option to switch the Author column from the right side to the left side, but I can't find it?

[Chetwood]

Is this actually a new thing? It looks very similar to one I've seen quite some time ago on another forum. It takes some getting used to I guess, but I can live with it

[Woodstock]

My dislike for both themes is that the "unread messages" link is now buried as a "quick link" that requires two clicks instead of one.

"New" or "Unread" messages are probably THE most popular access methods used when reading a forum (or similar) website. One or both of them should be a visible link on the main page all the time.

[d00zah]

+1 for 'AllanStyle-SUBSILVER'... which, fortunately, exposes 'Unread posts' link @ top level... a must. Close enough to what I had previously.

[Lovely Rita]

My dislike for both themes is that the "unread messages" link is now buried as a "quick link" that requires two clicks instead of one.

"New" or "Unread" messages are probably THE most popular access methods used when reading a forum (or similar) website. One or both of them should be a visible link on the main page all the time.

I've just always made the "Unread" link my Bookmark/Favorite, no matter where's it located.
The change, with the Quick Links is similar if not the same as over at Handbrake.

[Woodstock]

I remember setting up a link to "new stuff" on a different site... It was quite a bit more dynamic than this, and going to "new" directly could take several minutes to load.

There are other differences.

On handbrake.fr, their forum/subforum layout allows you to view all the subforums as one "block". Here, you have to dig down an extra layer.

Compare these two views:

https://forum.handbrake.fr/viewforum.php?f=16
https://makemkv.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=13

On handbrake, I rarely use the "New messages" link, because of the layout.

[mike admin]

I'd say this is identical.

top view:
https://forum.handbrake.fr/
index.php?style=3

category view:
https://forum.handbrake.fr/viewforum.php?f=35
viewforum.php?style=3&f=13

Now, I obviously cheated by picking out a category without "active topics" on HB site. If this is indeed useful feature, it can be trivially enabled here.

[Chetwood]

I've just always made the "Unread" link my Bookmark/Favorite, no matter where's it located.

Same here.

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Another vote for AllanStyle-SUBSILVER being the standard. The current Gren-Style is absolutely hideous, but worst of all, it really is bad at conveying information. Icons are really hard to distinguish, making it hard to get a quick overview, and black text on a dark green background is just such a big no-no. Why Mike would settle on that for the standard is quite beyond me, except if he really *loves* dark green things.

[Sumesh579]

I think it looks decent.