Themes/Skins

[Syn]

I liked Redsy the most but its forum display was a little too 'fat' for my tastes. I switched back to the default since it's the most innocuous of them all.

[Green1]

What is this fluffy bunny colors that has overtaken my Evul Laptop Command Center of Doooom™?

What manner of villainy has the power of the Hat imposed?

(looks nice)

[Buster's Uncle]

This here ain't one of the ones I had to tweek the hardest.  ISTR a few days burned adjusting this and that, mostly minimizing pagetop space, a little color-fiddling -I think I added all the gold, because this was meant as sky theme, not springtime- and I think I made the leaf read/unread icons for the root.

I don't know how anyone can like Redsy - I can't get to a single doggon bossman control there, don't have anyway to set to another theme from it - and can't even get at the admin panel to mod the POS so it works, minimally.  You kids and your phones get off my yard!

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, the lack of color and underline for links in Ostara sorta blows, and I'd deem the black of the quote backgrounds and sketchy legibility worse - but it's truly a lovely theme to spend the day in, and no other problems I've found.

[Buster's Uncle]

-Say, would anyone care to stump for a regular change of default to any other theme?  Anything but Redsy might be doable -retaining my veto, but I'll listen about any other- and would we be happy in SMAC or Firaxis, the most thematically appropriate, or are they both too trapped-in-the-90s?

-Like, Curve here, the traditional default most of us are in, has been my home for over six years, and like any good webs nerd, I don't much care for change - but I expect if I was a lurker, first sight of this near-generic SMF look would not impress favorably...

[Buster's Uncle]

Can I haz feedback?

[Syn]

I'm indifferent. I'm cruising with Curve regardless of what the default ends up being, in all likelihood.

Is Curve the SMF default? It's a pretty good default if so. I didn't get an impression of "this is the basic SMF theme" when I first visited AC2.

Obvious caveat that I tend to avoid SMF sites in general, so I wouldn't be intimately aware of the basics anyways.

[Buster's Uncle]

This is actually useful and exactly the more important aspect of what I was asking- a nets veteran didn't get that 'lame site' stank off the look.

This is the SMF default as of 2010 - sorta.  I've modded it to minimize top space -we're the anti-CFC that way- for maximum browsing efficiency and ease of use.  A flashy banner logo is probably carrying all the water a tight layout isn't, for first impression.  I no longer remember nearly all the differences from the original look...

I worry it looks generic and like we're half-butt precisely because I love it just the way it is after so many years my comfy home, and know I've no perspective...

Now, I fuzzily and vaguely recall when I first bothered to take a peek at sisko's little side-project forum in 2010 - and there was a faint Lame ping for me, absent changes I've put in since - mostly I saw he empty of it...

[Buster's Uncle]

It has struck me that there's probably an easy workaround for the one thing holding me back about making more themes at will - having to upload the image files for new Shop items four. teen. times. every time I make a new one.

-I bet I can find the same code in the .css or .php for each pointing at their own subfolder --- and substitute the address for the default's Shop image folder, and delete the individual folders.


I haven't done any nosing into this yet -which is probably gonna burn off a day- but anybody got any theme requests?

[Buster's Uncle]

Draz tells me this is doable, by me.


-But posting to note that I just borked the CivII theme doing a slight upgrade to something - it should be put right by early tomorrow, fear not.

[Buster's Uncle]

Fixed.

I hereby wish to formally announce that Wonderful British Wunderkind, my pal DrazharLn, has fulfilled my original design intent by putting bottoms on the borders of the postbits in the Civ2 and 6 themes.  It was a bit too far over my tech head...  If you like either theme, you should let him know that you like him that much more.


Now to try to get around to that Shop item thing today.  Busy busy busy, even if a lot of the reading that wouldn't look like work if you knew actually is...

[Buster's Uncle]

I've gotten all but three themes lined up as I mentioned three posts ago, with Draz' advice and help.  -And I'm SO close to solving the three remaining I can taste it.  -This is also better for the server, lightening the memory load by over 4.5MB previously wasted - over 7MB, counting the unused/unactivated themes I deleted this morning, and some junk we don't need yesterday.
 

If you're one of the two folks in Redsy, that's why the postbits are temporarily huge and over the posts...



A new theme takes, at minimum, three days, more like at least a week, of my time being really obsessive - but the roadblock that's been holding me back for years about getting inspired is very nearly gone...
 

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh - also?  I made an animated .gif logo for the Star Trek theme, Enterprise, and I've been remiss in announcing so for about two years.


Check out Enterprise - the logo rocks SO hard for fans of the real thing...

[Buster's Uncle]

I've fixed Firaxis and Redsy w/ the added benefit for the users in them that the Shop items users own now show in the postbits like all the others.






It'll take somewhere between a day and a week of my finite time, but the best fix I see for Astronomy is to copy the look onto a clone of the Default theme, Curve, and replace.  Astronomy looks like a bog-standard knockoff w/ simple change in colors and icons, but under the hood?  It's based on a much older default or otherwise differently set up, and a brute force solution to replace all that is what I've got to offer.  Will report later, no doubt.

[Buster's Uncle]

Incidentally?  I didn't delete Thanksgiving with the other turned off themes, having a vague plan to do the same as I propose to do Astronomy now - I suppose if THAT doesn't take forever or balk me too much, I'll probably maybe roll over to doing the same with Thanksgiving - which isn't great for Halloween's life expectancy, it not even being Uno's favorite and no longer being needed for a Fall equinox theme, Thanksgiving being a better fit for that...