Test Out The New Design

[Jeffro]

I have the new forum design online and ready to be tested. In order to switch to it, scroll to the bottom of the forum and on the left hand side of the page, their is a drop down menu where you can select which style you want to be applied to the forum. Choose the Tavern Style and that will load the new design.

Right now, I need to figure out why the top5 stats box is sticking out of the side of the page but I have a good idea as to why. I also need to change the post icon set this style needs to use since blue doesn't match well. Other than doing some more color touch ups in necessary places, I don't see much wrong with what I've got going so far.

It's not an exact replica of the site, but I used the same colors. I'm curious to know if you think there is now too much red on the site because of all the links.

[Jeffro]

By the way, I could not take ALL of that red on the front page so I made the links on the right of the index black. That looks much better in my opinion.

[Cais]

I like the Tavern Style. It looks good on my iPod, I'll check my desktops later.

[andrea_r]

Much better. Loads faster, scrolls better, easier on the eyes.

[Cais]

Desktop updates:

IE8 (What can I say?!) works well but shows some broken graphics
FF3 everything looks fine
Chrome works well but also shows broken graphics

All the broken graphics appear to be at the corners or line ends, I imagine they are for layout purposes. Here are the images that are showing broken to me:

-/gfx_v3BrownGold/misc/_cor-top-lft2.gif
-/gfx_v3BrownGold/misc/_cor-top-rht2.gif
-/gfx_v3BrownGold/misc/_cat-top_lft.gif
-/gfx_v3BrownGold/misc/_cat-top_rht.gif
-/gfx_v3BrownGold/misc/_cor-btm-lft.gif
-/gfx_v3BrownGold/misc/_cor-btm-rht.gif

(replace the - with http://www.wptavern.com/forum)

The online status icon may not be working correctly ...

Otherwise I'm liking the look and feel, nice choice!

[Jeffro]

Yeah, I figured the quickest way to get rid of all the rounded corners would be to just delete the graphics but if IE8 is showing the empty spots, guess I'll have to delete the corresponding CSS for them.

[Jeffro]

Ok, I've deleted the offending CSS/HTML which was calling upon those images I deleted. Using the WebDev extension, I believe I have solved the broken image issue so it should look normal in chrome and IE.

[Ryan]

Wow, the new theme (forum and blog) look AWESOME! I like it a lot!

Big thumbs up :)

[Jeffro]

Thanks Ryan. I actually did some more tweaks the other night with the forum. Instead of using a light color throughout the entire design, I've applied a big vertical repeating images for the forum page background which has texture and various color tones which should make the entire design easier on the eyes. I've also taken the wooden background image and lightened it up so that it's not only more viewable, but it doesn't make the sides of the site look black and makes the middle of the design a bit more readable.

Of course, if you still don't like the bright colors, the old design is still selectable from the menu at the bottom of the forum.

[Shepherd Jim]

Kudos to you Jeff! The Tavern's looking mighty fine.