Various mostly smaller issues with forum

[monnef]

I originally thought that this forum version is kind of a pre-release, that a lot will be changed. But then I saw Jeremy (today?) mentioning this is a beta suggesting only small things are planned to be changed and it will be mostly fixes.

I am skipping issues like performance which was already mentioned many times and is being worked on. My points are mostly to the default forum theme.

Inconsistent design on many places. Just in this create new topic I can name many - combining flat design which has no shadows and no round corners; with more older looking gradient design with shadows, round corners of various borders radii (e.g. menu with home and forums vs. search bar above). Similar points to borders - flat parts have no borders, other parts have a lot of borders in various places (e.g. post editor). Colors don't seem to match, e.g. red/pink on top menu vs. "Tags +" text or "Post" button which are more plain red (also gradients vs flat on menu vs. buttons). On a main page there is a lot going on - light blue on big sections, weird borders and spaces on top ("Forums Latest Activity My Subscriptions"), inconsistent gradients and so on.

Many places where bitmap graphics is used and look pretty awful when page is scaled or on a HiDPI (e.g. smileys, top logo). I think all this should be replaced with vector crisply sharp alternatives.

Search icon in top search bar is partially outside of its button (probably a scaling issue).

Sometimes when auto saving post happens editor loses focus (maybe only first time? not sure, happened to me only few times).

Forum URLs should IMO be fixed. Main URL seems fine - www.exclusivelygames.com/forum, but sections are weird - http://www.exclusivelygames.com/foru...s-annoucements (double "forum" fragment).

I also think sections should be more granular, e.g. Video Games - PC - Windows, Video Games - RPG (or maybe even - PC - RPG? not sure if that isn't too much). It was brought up several times (e.g. sections by OS, platform, genres, sw/hw mods/utilities, finding gaming buddies, trading).


I hope these issues, suggestions and opinions weren't mentioned anywhere else, if that's the case, feel free to lock/delete this thread.

Also, the team, please don't take this personally, I only want to see this site, and by extension this forum, to be the very best .

[monnef]

Huzzinda Good points. I noticed the inflating of post height by social buttons earlier, but then entirely forgot to mention it in the post... 😫

[Huzzinda]

this thing is VBulletin can confirm by going to the bottom left of the browser and changing the "- Black Red" to "Default Style" the amount of screen size the post takes not being dynamic, or the minimum amount of space is like 5 times to big IMO.

TBH I don't think people are going to be dropping so much knowledge here that the Facebook Share and Tweet button are really required, if so they should be side by side and the little Dot on bottom left indicating if someone is online or not could/ should be moved to next the persons username or maybe next to the avatar

[dotnix]

I'd suggest Discourse as a forum software, i use it on multiple projects and it is FAR better both in performance and in functionality (such es embed, livestream embeds, dynamic generation, awards and achievements etc etc) than any of the competitors such as IPB /PHPbb/VBulletin and in my opinion it is more suitable for gaming forum, than whatever this current thing is.

[ImmersiveGaming]

Making things better is never a bad thing and I honestly think if this forum wants to dismantle the gaming activist it needs to be crisp and aesthetic