Have you got 15 minutes to spare?

I dont think you're getting it, Will.

Should be "LFGSS - It's all about the beach cruisers"

home page is looking and feeling much nicer. good work.

is it done yet ?

;)

but seriously, as long as we still have live updates, subscribed threads, and twitter/rss it's all good for me

more the posts page actually...

New forum looks a lot better and loads way quicker on my kindle, not really worried about colours in my black and white world ;-)

I like it and so does my wife!

New forum looks a lot better and loads way quicker on my kindle, not really worried about colours in my black and white world ;-)

It works on the kindle? Weird.

Can you take a photo to show me what it looks like.

It works on the kindle? Weird.

Can you take a photo to show me what it looks like.

I'm typing on it right now....

will take a couple of photos in the next couple of days

/attachments/31398/attachments/31399
/attachments/31400/attachments/31401

There you go, both new and old forums

4 Attachments

Is that an old or new Kindle? I've been asking about them on the kindle thread and can't get a real answer! I need to know how the new PDF support is (zooming + not taking). I am sooo close to buying one.

New kindle.

And the home page looks sweet on it.

Is that an old or new Kindle? I've been asking about them on the kindle thread and can't get a real answer! I need to know how the new PDF support is (zooming + not taking). I am sooo close to buying one.

Theres a Kindle thread?

It is the new one - so haven't used it extensively.

from what I have seen from pdfs it really depends on how picture heavy they are, if it is mainly text you can convert to mobi format and display really well - if it is mainly pics and diagrams then some people are finding the need to zoom a bit time consuming.

Do you have a sample pdf of the type of thing you will be looking at? I can load it on and let you know how it is?

The 30 second delay is not part of the 'look'. For all I know it is built in to the new kind of template Big V is using and cannot be changed. The point of the dummy forum is so we can say what we do or do not like about it at this stage and as Big V works on it we can say what we do or do not like at each subsequent stage. Or that's how I see it.

The 30 second delay is a vBulletin default.

Let me explain once more so that it's clear.

The test forum is running a default vBulletin instance.

On the other hand LFGSS runs a massive set of customisations that are in the range of about 10,000 lines of code.

Anything that isn't related to the look and feel of the test site is a vBulletin default and I don't care about it. The only thing that I care about is changing the theme.

vBulletin by default has smilies, post icons, big ugly reply buttons, inconsistent navigation. Those are all still there until I get to them, but get to them I will because they're part of the look and feel, part of the theme.

vBulletin by default has things like the 30 second rule, has the reputation system with points and stuff. LFGSS does not.

The whole plan is simply this:
On the default vBulletin system, build a new theme.
Export said theme.
Import the theme onto the LFGSS platform.
LFGSS already includes all of the code customisations, and just needs a theme that makes it work everywhere.

So that's what's happening.

Nothing on the test site beyond the look and feel has any bearing on what LFGSS will function like. The test site is purely look and feel hacking, LFGSS will remain as is and will simply import the new look and feel.

More crap posts needed.

Testing the postbit layout currently, it's about half-done before anyone points out the flaws in it.

I just need lots of posts with new timestamps... I can't post them as everything I post is instantly jumped to, so it's never 'new'.

Really, it won't take you long. Just talk rubbish for a few minutes, knock off a few posts. And you're done.

not on here, you plum. on the test forum.

Dear oh dear, can't get the posters these days.

Can't cover up the cracks, this forum is a plaice in dire need of restoration

Positives-
Really like the colour scheme, the light blue and grey goes very well. as well as the white. Especially like the header. It's quite like the Strada logo. Very easy to navigate. Looks very good on the iPhone

Criticisms
Front page is messy, two different sets of links which is just a bit muddled. One clear and concise set of links would benefit this page. Subheadings also messy on IE. Basically, it looks very presentable (other than the two different pairs of forum links) on the iPhone, but on browser its not so presentable.

As a nice comparison, I think sub forum categories like this would be nice, if you could do them:
http://www.mtbe.co.uk/

Positives-
Really like the colour scheme, the light blue and grey goes very well. as well as the white. Especially like the header. It's quite like the Strada logo. Very easy to navigate. Looks very good on the iPhone

Working as designed :) Wayne should feel proud even though I've deviated a little from his design to make it work on different screen sizes.

Criticisms
Front page is messy, two different sets of links which is just a bit muddled. One clear and concise set of links would benefit this page. Subheadings also messy on IE. Basically, it looks very presentable (other than the two different pairs of forum links) on the iPhone, but on browser its not so presentable.

As a nice comparison, I think sub forum categories like this would be nice, if you could do them:
http://www.mtbe.co.uk/

I don't get what you're showing me on MTBE. Is it the forum titles and hierarchy that you don't like on the test site, or the presentation as a big list?

Did you comprehend that grey links contain threads marked read, and light blue posts contain unread threads?

Re: The header and footer.

The header is basically the Top 5 links, plus the login and logout.

The footer is all of the other links that people visit frequently enough to make it convenient, but not enough to make it part of the Top 5.

They're presented like that, rather than being hidden, because it works better for touch interfaces, search engines and large screens. It doesn't work well on small screened desktops, but it turns out we don't have many users in that camp... we have people with big screens (above 1024px wide) or who are mobile. For the users on small screened desktops, I agree that scrolling down fast would leave you with shitloads of links.

The design pattern is taken from sites like http://www.boingboing.net/ which have a few key links at the top, and then at the bottom have a links section in the footer with categories to make sense of them.

Yeah, the heirachy. Sorry, I don't have the right website vocab! I do like the footer. I completely appreciate that about people with 1024px+ or mobile phones, if you were actually baring that in mind, well done!

Yes it is perhaps the sparsity which is annoying at the minute, but I'm sure you'll find something to fill it with! I just personally don't like the fact the links are spewed horizontally down the page and think solely the footer will suffice and look better aesthetically. I do take your target audience thing into consideration though, it does look much better on my iPhone, currently on a work computer which has a small screen so will have to check it out on my home PC. And yes, the link colouring is all very well done, I do like the colour scheme.

Keep up the good work!

Is there an option to change the colours? Black on white ftw and ease of use.

Is there an option to change the colours? Black on white ftw and ease of use.

Not yet.

I'm making this one style work properly, and then I'll launch it.

Within a month of launch, I hope to have made a sister style for the dark on light crowd (everyone who accesses from work).

OK, I'm getting closer now.

I've moved onto user control panel to fix the obvious and big problems in there.

However it would be good to know what people think.

So far I have done the first drafts of:

• The home page
  
• The forum listings (and implicitly the search results)
  
• The thread page
  
  

Big changes beyond all of the obvious is that the quick reply box has become a very simple box. The WYSIWYG editor weighs over 100KB as it stands, and that's crazy. It's also made up of about 15 requests for files to the web server, which is also crazy. And it didn't even work properly on all devices.

So as I want that particular reply box to not slow the pages, to be universally accessible and usable, I've removed the fancy schmancy editor from that.

Also... the 'edit' button currently takes you through to the edit page. I'd like to bring that back at some point to edit inline, but this is unlikely going to be before the Cycle Show.