Geeklog Forums

Hi all,

I've started working on a new theme, and would like your feedback. Please take a look at http://geiss.getmyip.com/gl141 and give me your thoughts. At the moment, it is based on GL v1.4.1, but potentially, this could be a candidate for a replacement to the professional theme in the next release of Geeklog (if the core devs give their blessing :wink: )

Thx!

Eric 'Geiss' Warren

---

Synergy - Stability - Style --- Visit us at glfusion.org

Very nice.
OK, I know this is an ongoing discussion on the mailing list... but, tables?

Euan

---

-- Heather Engineering
-- No job too small

Change .pluginRow1, .pluginRow2, .pluginRollover so that their background colors are more distinct than #F7F7F7, #E7E7E7 and #FFFFFF. The difference between #F7F7F7 and #FFFFFF is just too subtle.

A pity you still use tables, but it looks quite nice. The background could be a bit less dark, # 333333 perhaps, or a gradient from # 000000 to # 333333?

---

Dutch Geeklog sites about camping/hiking:
www.kampeerzaken.nl | www.campersite.nl | www.caravans.nl | www.caravans.net

Thx all for your input. Please keep it coming!

Re: tables - I received word from Oliver the other day on the devel mailing list:



So tables won't be there for much longer. :wink:

Re: the other colors for plugin rows and background, I'll play around with your ideas and make some adjustments.

I am also wondering what people think about GL in XHTML instead of HTML transitional. Check out dengen's work at http://www.trybase.com/~sun/. They have converted the entire GL codebase to XHTML.

Thx again for input, and again, please keep it coming!

Eric 'Geiss' Warren

---

Synergy - Stability - Style --- Visit us at glfusion.org

Why is everyone hating on tables?

Me, just because it reduces flexibility. If everything is in well-planned DIVs etc. then you can create layouts/themes by just editing the CSS.
Otherwise, no real issue for me really.

---

-- Heather Engineering
-- No job too small

I've adjusted the above. You can see the .pluginRow changes by going to the stats page.

Thoughts?

Eric

---

Synergy - Stability - Style --- Visit us at glfusion.org

Nice background now. Better than plain black I think.

1) I think the grey background for the rightblocks section is too dark.
2) Not sure I like the colour of the menu links along the top of the page against the dark background - or perhaps that is just interference with the diagonal lines?
3) I think that you should remake the Geeklog logo to suit the background colour. Some artefacts in there.

Great work.

Euan.

---

-- Heather Engineering
-- No job too small

OK.

I guess I should learn this DIV stuff.

You are really good with this stuff.

Since we can apparently be picky....well, I think the blue color on the white areas is a little too bright. It is OK on the black. Or maybe it is the white areas that are too white?

Again I'm impressed with your work
Keep it up :shakehands:

Robert

---

Geeklog Polish Support Team

Very nice. I'll take one.

When I need to use themes in actual business settings, lots of dark colors bothers people. Light and airy wins the day. So, the charcoal border could be a problem for me.

Also, one thing I like about the current professional theme is that it runs to the edge of the screen. Call me old fashioned, but this new fangled look-n-feel that everyone is sporting that has the white space (wasted space) border around the whole site leaves me with precious little room for content on my 1024x768 displays. I know it gives it a more modern look, but then it crams everything together in the middle.

I guess I'll just have to catch up with the kiddies.

I agree that GL needs a new logo. I've been looking around at some open-source imagery, but haven't been able to find something suitable. Perhaps we need to sponsor a logo contest, and see if GL's creative community can provide some nice artwork that the powers that be could select from.

Eric

---

Synergy - Stability - Style --- Visit us at glfusion.org

Just an idea here but what about changable css like you see in hotmail where you can change the overall 'ambient' colour of the site.

---

Dazzy

I've done some more work on a new theme and would like another round of feedback. Browse over to http://geiss.getmyip.com/gl141/ to see the latest.

Things to note are:

- A new site logo. Thoughts?

- A collapsible User Controls tab (haven't styled the tab just yet, but you'll see the link to the right of the Welcome and Date text) which toggles hidden content via a javascript slider. My thoughts are this could be a great way to clean up some of the content on sites, giving them some aesthetic "breathing room". There is also an Extras toggle on the bottom that can be used for the same purpose (again, not positioned or styled yet, but right above the Copyright info). Thoughts?

- A static menu dividing the header from the rest of the page. This can easily be generated from the GL {menu_elements} code, or just hard-coded links in header.thtml.

Right now, I have both menus up, for the sake of discussion. I chose to repeat some of the links because I wanted to show what it looks like both ways. Since the top blue menu is generated as just links, and the bottom black menu is generated with list items, I couldn't easily just have both menus pull from the same {menu_elements} code.

What are everyone's thoughts on this new menu vs. the blue one above the site? Could the layout benefit from both menus?

Thx!

Eric 'Geiss' Warren

---

Synergy - Stability - Style --- Visit us at glfusion.org

I know this isn't really constructive, but this theme ought to be the Geeklog default. It's wonderful.

My :twocents:

A few things:

1. Can we have the links in the "Topics" box styled like the black links up top? I mean, like I've done at http://www.retroreviews.net/, only less sucky.

2. While the top of the page looks cool, the rest just seems very much like the standard Professional theme.

3. If this is gonna be the new default theme for 1.5, why the hell are we talking about this in the forum, and not on the home page of Geeklog.net as a featured story? Honestly, excellent coders though the core team are, they've just got no sense of showmanship. They don't know how to get people excited. :banghead: I looked at the mailing lists for the first time yesterday, and found some wonderful, fantastic stuff going on behind the scenes, stuff I didn't know about because it was hidden behind a link that said "Mailing Lists" instead of "What's In The Works." Why is it behind the scenes? With the stuff going on with Geeklog, the devs should have the public eating out of the palms of their hands, counting the seconds 'til the next release, with baited breath and no small amount of sexual arousal.

/off-topic rant

On the subject of this being the new default theme for 1.5 - do it. For the love of God, do it.

(edit - why the hell doesn't my pasting in http://www.retroreviews.net/ create a link to retroreviews.net?!)

---

Silly browser RPG: improbableisland.com!

And while I'm at it, and since I've only just noticed where this thread is posted since I found it on the GL homepage:

Why the hell is this topic in a forum called "Developers Only"? You may as well hang some razor wire and a sign out front saying "Those who don't know PHP will be shot on sight." This topic should be front-page news, Featured, with an open invitation for anyone to give feedback via the Comments. You, Geiss, should be saying "Look at me! Look at what I'm doing here, isn't it just made of awesome?!"

---

Silly browser RPG: improbableisland.com!

Sorry, when I mentioned the logo earlier, I meant that there were some specks in the background - I didn't mean to make an entirely new logo! Although the new one is not bad, as Dirk mentioned, the existing logo is already in use in other locations. Rather than mess up the branding, I'd resize/recreate the existing logo to suit the current background.

Otherwise looking good. I like the new static menu below the header and the expandable sections.

Euan.

---

-- Heather Engineering
-- No job too small