New theme feedback

[jeffinj]

Jelsoft, you guys have worked so hard on the new version so thank you so much. My first impression on the theme was not that great. To me everything cramped into very small columns. It's harder to read some stuff and it's looking more like phpbb3. Anyway, I love invision forum's theme because it looks more simpler, readable, colorful and stylish and I think they have done a much better job with their forum theme. I still love vbulletin as a forum software so I really want you guys to work on the new theme. To me the theme is an area where you guys have to work a lot, like really a loooot.

[yogesh]

The biggest qualm I have with this theme is the fact that it is tough to distinguish between signature and post, if the signature just has simple text and the post is quite small!

[young coder]

i agree with you

[boro_boy]

erm there is a big line separating lol

[Booth]

I prefer the old style post bits. For me, everything's great or at worst decent, apart from the post bits. It seems like the post bit has taken a big step backwards.

Also what's with the grey text in posts?

Verdana, colour: black please ;)

Also please don't leave the post headers as a grey gradient. This is making the default skin look extremely dull. Make it the same colour as the header so it seems more consistent.

[iardon]

Verdana, colour: black please ;)<br /><br /><br /> <br />

Ahhh... verdana+black is much much better. :-)

[Darkimmortal]

Agreed, Verdana is a much nicer font for forum posts.

Also the WYSIWYG editor seems to be defaulting to my default browser font (Calibri, Firefox 3.5.3)

[yamahapaul]

Jelsoft, you guys have worked so hard on the new version so thank you so much. My first impression on the theme was not that great. To me everything cramped into very small columns. It's harder to read some stuff and it's looking more like phpbb3. Anyway, I love invision forum's theme because it looks more simpler, readable, colorful and stylish and I think they have done a much better job with their forum theme. I still love vbulletin as a forum software so I really want you guys to work on the new theme. To me the theme is an area where you guys have to work a lot, like really a loooot.
I agree with all of these comments and to me the thing that stood out with VB against the others was the layout and design (I started out with 3.7), it looked cleaner, crisper and more professional than all the others, in particular phpBB. This new design, although all the intentions are good with new features etc etc, looks far less professional and slightly cartoony in comparison to my current 3.8.4 and is almost a clone of phpBB. My opinion is, stick with the older look and feel and continue along the CMS route for full integration with the better design ;)

[vauge]

I agree with all of these comments and to me the thing that stood out with VB against the others was the layout and design (I started out with 3.7), it looked cleaner, crisper and more professional than all the others, in particular phpBB. This new design, although all the intentions are good with new features etc etc, looks far less professional and slightly cartoony in comparison to my current 3.8.4 and is almost a clone of phpBB. My opinion is, stick with the older look and feel and continue along the CMS route for full integration with the better design ;)
+1

I agree with this wholeheartedly!!

[yamahapaul]

+1

I agree with this wholeheartedly!!
Thank you vauge :)

[Rasbelin]

[FONT=Verdana]Verdana, colour: black please[/FONT

Whoa! Honestly speaking that was the first line of text on these updated forums that I could actually read easily and without having to skim through where the message bodies are. :D But you make a valuable point, which I have to second.

[cfish]

I was very impressed when I saw the first screen shots in Kier's blog post (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?b=2360) back in April. This looked like a Forum leading the way in interface design, clear, readable and innovative. Sadly, what we have now is possibly not even a good as what we have in vB3.x. This is a shame because it will undoubtedly put off new customers. No matter how good the underlying technology and coding, people are disproportionately influenced by the way forums look. The one saving aspect of vB4 is that it may be easier to skin vB now but I would much prefer to have an excellent default interface to begin with.

As the OP has said "this needs a lot of work". Is Kier's original design too difficult to implement? I aknowledge that you guys are great with PHP but frankly, that's not enough these days; you need development team members who are experts in usability, interface design and graphic design.

[Dismounted]

Is Kier's original design too difficult to implement?
Implementing it isn't the issue. The style was implemented in early alpha releases. The problem lies in "it looks good, but doesn't really work". I'll use the de-emphasised postbit buttons as an example. I originally liked the idea - it kept the postbit clean and free of interference and "it looked good". However, when using the style, the buttons would pop up as you scrolled (the cursor has to be somewhere, right?), and there were a host of other usability issues. It just didn't "work".

That's not to say this style doesn't have its issues - it's still in an early stage, remember. But it "works" a lot better overall compared with Kier's style. That's also not to say Kier's style was completely rubbish too - I reckon some ideas should still be carried over (e.g. de-emphasising of what's unimportant, but not completely making it disappear).

[bigwater]

Honestly, this style gives me a headache. There's not enough contrast and I have to struggle to view it. No amount of wheel scrolling the size helps. It's just difficult to view. I've spent untold hours on this site in the past and never had a problem. With this style I get about 15 minutes before I have to take a break. I'm really looking forward to the new features, and know that the style will be much more customizable when we actually get our hands on the software. I'm not objecting to the new layout, but please guys, at least give us a couple of contrast options like most of us give our users so that we can actually read the site without getting a headache.

[orban]

Why is everything so bright? Gray text?!

Why is everything so cramped? The "user info" box, incredibly messed up. "Today 12:02pm" looks larger than the username?!

I don't even know where to start.

A green "tick" for online? Just next to the reputation "green"?

Oh my.

[MorningFlight]

I just ordered the Publishing Suite 4.0 upgrade - in spite of the crappy default theme. Template developers will have a hayday! I wouldn't dream of installing the upgrade until a usable theme comes along.

Gray text by itself isn't the problem. I use a dark gray font in my default theme now (see the attached). But SMALL gray text in LONG column widths with cramped LEADING on a WHITE background ... Seriously!?

35737