New Forum Theme Discussion

[Wain]

Forum style / theme news - I know it's off-topic for this particular forum, but since most people read this thread it's a good place to post.

I want to switch the default forum style to a modified version of Prosilver (Dark Edition). The reason for this is that at some point I'll need to upgrade the board to new software and sadly the pycode theme is no longer being supported. The creator seems to have become inactive.

If you currently use pycode (the current default, dark grey theme) could you please go to your control panel and check out "Prosilver Dark Petopia"? Let me know what you think. I think it's pretty nice. The theme can be set by going to the little menu with your name in the top right corner, select User Control Panel -> Board Preferences -> My Board Style (menu)

There are other Prosilver Dark versions in the style options : blue, green and grey. Those are original colour variants that come with the style and I've added them as a point of comparison. So feel free to check those out too in case there's something in them you like.

Thanks!

[Vephriel]

Thanks for the heads up! I'll miss pycode, it was honestly perfect. I'll get used to this Prosilver one though, at first all the colours throw me off a bit after being used to the monotone of the others, but I still prefer a dark theme over a light one.

[Wain]

Prosilver Dark actually comes with a few different colour options for the headings etc. I chose green because of Petopia, but there's also blue, grey, and a few others. If I can set them up in parallel I'll do so and everyone can compare them and decide which they like.

I'm tempted to convert the main Petopia site to a similar colourish scheme, i.e. very dark with green headings and tints. I'm really not fond of the amount of (and shade of) green on there now, but it's been the Petopia colour for a very long time. Also, re-taking ALL the Petopia images to remove that green background would be wonderful but also a daunting task :/

[Vephriel]

Those sound like nice options! It's probably the sudden contrast but right now I'm finding the green text, blue links, and red 'Forum Rules' bar on this page are a bit clashy, but again, that was coming from a nearly monochrome theme so I can easily adjust I'm sure.

Oof, yeah. I don't blame you at all, I'm really partial to darker themes on webpages these days, and the original is definitely a product of its time, but I also understand not wanting to change it drastically when it's such an iconic look. And doubly so on the work it would take to redo the pet images.

[Wain]

Oh yeah, the red forum rules panel is horrendous. I’ll modify it tomorrow!

[Ana]

Dark one hurts my eyes. There still be a light option?

[GormanGhaste]

prosilver dark looks good to me! I use the quick links bar a lot, and it seems that when I've read all the new and unread posts there is a red icon. I'd prefer a different color, like maybe green for when there's unread posts and grey when there isn't, but it's a very minor complaint and something I wouldn't mind getting used to.

[Shade]

Prosilver Dark looks alright to me-however I am not a huge fan of the lime green text personally. Its something I would be fine with though.

[Quiv]

If you currently use pycode (the current default, dark grey theme) could you please go to your control panel and check out Prosilver (Dark Edition)? Let me know what you think. I think it's pretty nice. The theme can be set by going to the little menu with your name in the top right corner, select User Control Panel -> Board Preferences -> My Board Style (menu)

Seems fine to me. Like a few have mentioned, the color threw me off at first, but I can adjust personally.

[WerebearGuy]

As long as I can go back to Prosilver Special Edition, or at least something that's as accurate and faithful as possible, I'm fine with the change. Just please no minimalist design; it's got no heart to it, and it looks both cheap and hastily manufactured no matter how much effort is put into it. Keep the forums looking like they do now. As for losing the pycode colors, can't a new theme be made that just emulates it accurately?

[Wain]

Dark one hurts my eyes. There still be a light option?

Yeah, the light one will be no issue! Just the dark one needs to change.

[Wain]

As long as I can go back to Prosilver Special Edition, or at least something that's as accurate and faithful as possible, I'm fine with the change.

Prosilver Special Edition has a version for 3.3 (the new board software upgrade), so you shouldn't need to worry

Just please no minimalist design; it's got no heart to it, and it looks both cheap and hastily manufactured no matter how much effort is put into it. Keep the forums looking like they do now.

Does the black look too minimalist? I thought it was at a level that was pretty similar to the standard theme.

As for losing the pycode colors, can't a new theme be made that just emulates it accurately?

It's unfortunately just too much work to maintain. If I spent a lot of time I could get something that has a similar colour scheme to pycode, but I don't have time to keep updating that for every board upgrade. That's for people who understand phpbb board code well and it's their hobby or job. They haven't put a lot of work into making appearances easily customtisable by the end user, which is suprising. I have to hack each individual style just to do something as simple as display our logo instead of the stupid default one o.O

[Wain]

OK, I've worked out a way of modifying the theme for our own custom colours without having to hack their files too much. I can just add all the changes to one file

So I've modified the Dark theme a little bit and called it "Prosilver Dark Petopia". Please check it out and let me know if you're happy with the changes

I've:
- removed all the green
- set the forum icons to a teal grey
- made the rules box far less obnoxious

As a point of comparison, I've also installed some of the official Prosilver Dark colour variants as separate themes, so you can check them out too, in case there's something in them you like! I've added blue, green and grey and they should be obvious in your board theme selector. The theme also offers options for red, pink, yellow and orange but none seemed appropriate and I didn't bother adding them.

[Wain]

I'm also working on trying to make the forum titles look less compressed and fat. They're a bit squished compared to the pycode one and I'm not sure what's doing it :/

[Amyliz]

I like the new Prosilver Dark Petopia I think it will work just fine for me at least. Thank you Wain

[Wain]

I like the new Prosilver Dark Petopia I think it will work just fine for me at least. Thank you Wain

Thanks! It's an ongoing development, so feel free to mention anything that you think looks odd or bad

[Wain]

I'm also working on trying to make the forum titles look less compressed and fat. They're a bit squished compared to the pycode one and I'm not sure what's doing it :/

Fixed. It turns out the theme was inheriting a different version of "Open Sans" font than the Pycode theme. It's a Google web font and I didn't know it was possible to mess it up, but there are a lot of people with the issue. The fix was easy, so more of the theme fonts look like they do in Pycode now.

[Vephriel]

Really liking the new updated one, the cool greys and dark tones are very pleasing to read!

[Quiv]

Yeah Prosilver Dark is better for sure. All the natural colors (things like the group membership color) seems to contrast well enough. I dig it!

[Valnaaros]

I'm really liking the Prosilver Dark Blue. It is quite nice