New Site Color

[rrrucke]

Ok...Here goes my first post to the new site. Sorry it must be a small complaint but already I'm sick of the green. Why was this color chosen?? Can we select something that looks more CsC friendly? I feel like someone puked all over my screen. Let me know if there is someway for me to change my colors to be more eyeball friendly.Thanks,(And please do not take any of this as a personal jab)Regina

[SmartieParts]

It was chosen because:

[*]I like it

[*]It received the best feedback from the test site... blame the fact that an extremely few number of people bothered to help test.

[*]Because smarts are "green" and I thought it fit.

To fix:

[*]Change your monitor settings! Because really, its a pretty nice green I think! Or...

[*]Down in the bottom left of the screen is a drop down box. Current choices are "Go Green", "Classic Blue", and "Classic Grey".

These are called "skins" and we may add more as time goes by. Some people had asked for it to be exactly the same as before and that turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. But also, if we're updating the site - I felt we should make a bold move and not stay the exact same.

There are some choice now, and there will be more later (maybe much later though if nobody helps). I hope one of them works for you.

- Steven

[Awesys]

You can choose your theme with the dropdown box in the bottom right. It says "Go Green" but you can select classic blue or grey right now.

[SmartieParts]

There's a chance I screwed up and the skin drop down is only available to Administrators. If a non-admin can confirm they can change their skin, I'd appreciate it. - Steven

[Tom P.]

There's a chance I screwed up and the skin drop down is only available to Administrators. If a non-admin can confirm they can change their skin, I'd appreciate it. - Steven

Yes, it works. I just changed it to the blue skin.Tom

[SmartieParts]

Thanks Tom.keith - the default stays. If people think its "hokey" they can change it... if they don't know they can change it and can't figure it out or find this thread... then they can deal with "hokey". Its 100% completely subjective and we can't please everyone. The classic blue and classic grey are the same as 5,000,000 other forums out there because they are the defaults provided with the software. I think that's worse.People are MORE than welcome to help out finding a new skin! It won't happen right away because its quite a bit of work, but if we can come to some consensus on which one is best, we'll do it.Option 1) Go to www.invisionize.com and browse through the skins (we are using version 2.3.x of the software). Don't bother looking at the dark ones - they cause too many problems, and despite whether people think they look cool, dark backgrounds have been proven to be less readable and cause more eye strain (I remember that from web design 101)Option 2) We collect donations and hire one of the MANY skinning professional services out there to make us one that is unique to our site. It costs a few hundred dollars, but some of them create really terrific work and its only a few dollars each if there's lots of interest.Option 3) If there's someone technically skilled enough in both graphics and PHP development, there are tutorials at www.invisionize.com (and elsewhere) that explain how to make a custom skin for this software (Invision Power Board v. 2.3.3). Go nuts!By the way, as you will see if you take the time to look at Invisionize... this skin (called Envy by its maker) was part of a large skinning competition and did very well. So beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I'm comfortable by that fact alone that most people are going to like the new look. And really, subjective cosmetics is not a high priority for me right now. - Steven

[deezle]

I feel like someone puked all over my screen.

I'm with rrrucke and smartzuuk---I find this shade of green really offensive and would like to see something that is easier on the eyes as a default. It's not a shade of green that one usually sees, even in nature. IMO I don't think that the smart, nor this site, need to make a statement with a color that jumps off the screen---they both command enough attention on their own merits.Also, I don't think the two or three people that commented on the color in the test site are a significant sample.Just my opinion.

[IMSMRT]

maybe something more in a "stream green"?

[ValgardForkbeard]

I will stick with the blue for now. I usually like greens, but the one here is not one of them. A nice emerald green, or maybe a British racing green ...MG

[SmartieParts]

People are MORE than welcome to help out finding a new skin! It won't happen right away because its quite a bit of work, but if we can come to some consensus on which one is best, we'll do it.Option 1) Go to www.invisionize.com and browse through the skins (we are using version 2.3.x of the software). Don't bother looking at the dark ones - they cause too many problems, and despite whether people think they look cool, dark backgrounds have been proven to be less readable and cause more eye strain (I remember that from web design 101)Option 2) We collect donations and hire one of the MANY skinning professional services out there to make us one that is unique to our site. It costs a few hundred dollars, but some of them create really terrific work and its only a few dollars each if there's lots of interest.Option 3) If there's someone technically skilled enough in both graphics and PHP development, there are tutorials at www.invisionize.com (and elsewhere) that explain how to make a custom skin for this software (Invision Power Board v. 2.3.3). Go nuts!By the way, as you will see if you take the time to look at Invisionize... this skin (called Envy by its maker) was part of a large skinning competition and did very well. So beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I'm comfortable by that fact alone that most people are going to like the new look. And really, subjective cosmetics is not a high priority for me right now.

[deezle]

Colorwise, this one looks good (still somewhat green):IPBCSS and here.

Edited December 12, 2007 by deezle

[SmartieParts]

Man, beauty really is in the eye of the beholder I guess. That is just a very simple adaptation of the classic Grey - making it slightly more blue (no green in it). A bit boring though, no?I can add it - I don't think that would become our default though. But lets see what others say. Adding skins is somewhat simple, but if you want the following:1) Red links showing new topics2) The banner and logo at the top3) The "Forums" link in the top right menuN) Any future skin-altering modificationThen they have to be individually and manually edited by me. So I'm not going to just add every one under the sun :)I might suggest one of you start a new post somewhere listing some options and a poll and see what people come up with. The "go green" (aka Envy on Invisionize) is the one I found and ran with. I liked it a lot better than the two basic ones that come with the software. But I admit I didn't spend a lot of time on it (well, that's relative - considering I'm over 100 hours now into this project, I suppose I did spend a lot of time on the skins too) - Steven

[SmartieParts]

Here is a site for a company that charges to make custom skins: http://www.ipbforumskins.com/custom_skins.php

These guys "start at $200", which isn't so bad if we get something that everyone can be happy with!

There are loads of these kind of firms - search Google for "custom ipb skins"

- Steven

[MikeT]

I think it's OK, but I have chosen classic blue, because it's my favourite colour.

[SmartieParts]

maybe something more in a "stream green"?

You know... that's not a bad idea.If there was someone willing to take the time, it'd be cool to have different skins more-or-less matching the various exterior colour options of the smart. I can't see anyone arguing with that :)While its an easy suggestion to make - it would be by no means trivial to actually do. I'm no artist, and that is outside my comfort zone - so I won't do it. But if anyone has the time and inclination, I can probably give a few pointers on where to start looking as far as the "how" is concerned.Or, again, we can hire someone. - Steven

[Dang]

I noticed that the green looked much nicer on my XP computer than my Vista computer....for whatever reason....I liked the green on XP!Later! Dang

[SmartieParts]

Yeah... every monitor is different, and every video card is different. Doubtful its the operating system, but I guess you never know.Unless you have a Mac (yes... I'm praising a Mac) you don't really know what its going to look like from one system to the next. Then again, people see colors differently so from one pair of eyes to the next... - Steven

[Duck]

I absolutely love the green and grey!!-Iain

[Guest The Fishman]

I admin and own a few forums but I use phpBB instead of invision, I kind of like the green, I have a greenish colour on one of my forums.

[gotwavs]

I actually like all three of the the themes.

[rrrucke]

Ok...I checked out the blue and the grey skins. I like the blue better than the green but the forum colors to identify new posts isn't showing up red. Everything's in blue. Can someone help me??? Thanks, Regina

[FreepJam]

There's a skin that's a green similar to stream green.... could we use this one??If I knew how to create a skin, I'd definitely take a shot at it. But I'm not that technologically advanced

Edited December 12, 2007 by FreepJam

[SmartieParts]

Ok...I checked out the blue and the grey skins. I like the blue better than the green but the forum colors to identify new posts isn't showing up red. Everything's in blue. Can someone help me??? Thanks, Regina

Regina, the red highlighting is a skin modification I have to do manually for each skin. Now... I thought I had done that to all three! But when I first figured out how to do it, I was working with the default skin (the green one) so maybe it needs more work on the other skins if you're saying its not working. I'll take a look when I have time, but if you want all features to work (or at least the best chance of it) the best bet is to stick with the default skin.

There's a skin that's a green similar to stream green.... could we use this one??

Doesn't look too bad to me, but not if everyone's just going to trash it too... so, comments folks? - Steven

[Duck]

I was just gonna say - go ahead and ADD skins but don't remove them or swap things out -Iain

[garthD]

I quite like the green & grey combo, but not really bothered one way or the other. With a coversion/upgrade like this isn't time better spent working on the functionality and organization of the new site first. When that is all sorted, we can then vote on an colour scheme or decide to fork out some cash for a custom job???garth