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March, 2025

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Theme Facelift

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msg
Posts: 1108 - Karma: 3,269
Alright so ever since I first found newschoolers the first thing I thought was that the theme was lacking. Now that the world standard of monitor resolution size is probably sitting at 1920x1080 (or at least 16:9), i thought I'd try mock up a new theme to fit the new 'widescreen' feel. the current one feels a bit squashed.

I know that this isn't really a pressing concern for the development of ns...but still, here's my contribution.

P.s the media uploader is a hassle to go through, doing it through imgur is far easier. i'm also going to bed
11 years ago
22 10
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Blake.P
Posts: 9894 - Karma: 3,585
its good how it is...
11 years ago
4 1
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-RB-
Posts: 1226 - Karma: 944
This. Plus the one you made really isn't much different.
11 years ago
1 1
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msg
Posts: 1108 - Karma: 3,269
while it's good how it is, I honestly think it seems a little dated.
11 years ago
1 1
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22736 - Karma: 76,974
How would this degrade gracefully for mobile?

Responsive design planning is an absolute must in today's internet age.
11 years ago
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.Rybak.
Posts: 9017 - Karma: 9,869
says the person who joined in november 2013.

k
11 years ago
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22736 - Karma: 76,974
As well, you need to think about people with smaller monitors as well. Its got to have a plan to degrade gracefully and function on a lot of different sizes.

The extra are super sweet on a massive monitor (I rock a 27" apple thunderbolt) but as soon as I disconnect it your design would get tricky. Never mind the guy on the 11" macbook air.

I love what you're doing, but it would need a lot more thought to multiple sizes. That is half the problems we face when doing this shit.
11 years ago
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msg
Posts: 1108 - Karma: 3,269
I fail to see the relevance of how long I've been here. I'm talking in the general scheme of the internet, not the lifespan of ns. but ok

@bishop, I can see the advertisements shifting and becoming horizontal to solve your mentioned problem. This way they can slot above the forum box and one below it. I'd say that'd fit for a square ratio.

The current mobile layout works very well and suits such devices. I suppose that could remain unchanged, or altered minimally.
11 years ago
1 1
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nutz.
Posts: 3150 - Karma: 6,717
I think you're wrong, the design you made honestly looks way older, and more like a mobile site for a phone withe a wide screen than a desktop site
11 years ago
1 1
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.Hugo.
Posts: 17360 - Karma: 28,488
Your version sucks. A dropdown menu to get to my threads and messages? Fuck that
11 years ago
3 2
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msg
Posts: 1108 - Karma: 3,269
sorry mate

@nutz what makes it so?
11 years ago
1 0
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22736 - Karma: 76,974
The square would be way too big for the mobile experience in the forums, though you're right it could collapse to a 300x50 persistant forum unit. Not bad yes.

You definitely couldn't use the big ads like that though, as on a smaller monitor you'd run out of forum room super fast with the massive ads. Plus, we couldn't run background skins, and any time we did that it would have to be adaptive vs. static ad sizing. This makes it very hard to have the entire ad sales force out there hawking units, as each package would have to be done custom per client. Its very convenient for our site to fit within the specs laid out by GrindMedia, so that campaigns can run across all sites without too much changing.

I'm not saying that its a bad idea to go elastic width - and hey if we were starting from scratch I might even go for it. However, that change is way too drastic, and it would take so much time for us to do we'd have to skip out on a million other improvements that in my mind are more important.

Also you'd be super shocked at how much people hate drastic change. The best change you can do is always the most simple. Launching something like that would have everyone completely flip out... happens all the time. Hell once I switched the order of ski gabber and non-ski gabber in the 2nd tier nav, and there was practically angry mobs outside of the office.

Good concept, but go more subtle.
11 years ago
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msg
Posts: 1108 - Karma: 3,269
Makes perfect sense. I have no doubts that people would begin to riot, there's an angry bunch on here...
11 years ago
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