DKC Atlas Forum

Hi Guys,

I've been tweaking a few aspects of the forum's design/layout over the past couple of days, and I'd like to know if you have any feedback regarding what I've done.

Please reply with any questions or comments below.

Good suggestion - I'll adjust the topic icon alignment to match your diagram when I get a chance.

Also look down here, the smiley seems to be cut off:

You may have noticed that I've fixed the post icon alignment.

I think the cut off icons, buttons, smilies etc. are a result of the PHP errors. They only seem to appear when the warning messages show up... so hopefully when I get that fixed, everything else will be a bit more stable.

Hi guys, how are the smilies looking?

I'm working on a new mobile-optimised forum theme, and am hoping to enable it as a 'default' for mobile devices soon. Currently I'm designing it with a dark colour scheme (good for browsing in bed at night!), and have realised that phpBB's standard smilies aren't designed to be displayed on a dark background; they look good on a light background — partially due to the off-white pixels used to 'smooth' their edges — but look horrible on darker backgrounds.

Example currently unavailable


To combat the jagged, ugly look of the off-white pixels, I've edited the smilies and tweaked the way they are displayed using some styling voodoo:


Note: If you don't see a difference — refresh!

Not perfect, perhaps... but certainly an improvement.

Everything looks good at my end, but I thought I'd better put the word out to see if anyone's encountering issues...

So, if anyone notices any strangeness with the smilies (the standard ones, specifically), first try refreshing your browser once or twice. If that doesn't fix things, please let me know. I'm hoping there will be no perceivable difference to how things looked before, but you never know what oddities will pop up with changes like this!

*Thanks to Simion32 for pointing out a minor issue, which has now been fixed.

The smilies seem fine to me. Even though this is the only time I've ever used them (excluding the DKC ones), they've always seemed perfectly perfect on my end of the bargaining table, which could mean I'm not a reliable source of information for your problem.

One must have a very keen eye for graphics to spot any problems at all...

Hey guys, you may have noticed I've made a few small changes to the personal menu links:



As well as receiving a friendly greeting each time you look at the menu, you can now click on your name to edit your profile — thanks to Stingerman06 for the suggestion.

The "Inbox" link has different text, but functions the same as it did before, while the "Settings" link has replaced the "User Control Panel" link.

Also, on the far right, the "Logout" link has been simplified to prevent confusion (and accidental logouts by users intending to view/update their profile information).

Hopefully these changes will be useful, but be sure to let me know if they cause any grief.

How about something like this? A bit more minimalist?



The things I'd consider changing would be:

• Making "Hi, " part of the username link, rather than on its own which makes it look a bit out of place.
• Having the username link to your profile rather than the profile edit section.
• Removing the "Topics you've posted in..." link entirely.
• Cutting down the inbox link so that it only contains the most relevant information.

I agree with Kingizor on his recommendations.

I don't know if the forum allows you to search the topics someone posted in directly. I suppose this needs to be added to the advanced search page instead of being a link. Or if the feature only works for the current user, it still belongs squarely on the advanced search page.

BUG EDIT: The Login/Logout link still says "Logout" even if you are not logged in.

Worthy suggestions, Kingizor — I'll make these changes soon.
Edit: DONE!

Good bug-catch, Simion — *fixed* — that was a silly and obvious mistake that I shouldn't have made.

Thanks to you both for the feedback.

Simion32 wrote: don't know if the forum allows you to search the topics someone posted in directly.

If you use the "search for author" field and display results as topics, the results should be the same.

Yes, I believe Kingizor is correct.

After receiving feedback, I've made another small improvement to the personal links; you can now choose to edit your profile by way of a new link that appears when you mouse over your name:



This should make it even easier to keep your forum profile up to date.

Thanks again to Kingizor for this excellent suggestion.

With all the BBCodes that have become available here, things were getting a little cluttered in the posting screen... so I've begun to tidy up a bit.

There are now less buttons to get lost in, and the remaining buttons are more organised. I've also added some aesthetic touches that ought to help us recognise buttons at a glance more easily.

Taking inspiration from the chat layout, I've implemented a More BBCodes select box, which allows some less-used BBCodes to be tucked away, but still remain accessible. I will be adding to (and improving) this feature soon.

Hopefully these changes will be seen as an improvement by all Atlasites.

Click "POSTREPLY" below to see the changes (refresh if needed), and let me know what you think.


Oh and one more thing...

I don't remember seeing [...]this[...] snip tag before...

Looks better, Qyz. Keep it up!

Indeed, this layout in more organized and clean. Needless to say, I like the new, efficient look. Well done, Qyzbud, well done!

Thanks for the positive feedback, guys — good to know the change is well-received.

Simion32 wrote:I don't remember seeing [...]this[...] snip tag before...

I believe it was available as a button before, but it might have only been available to me.

Either way, it's documented here, if you're curious.

I was wondering if anybody else missed the recent posts thing... I did usually click on that when I logged on. I don't want to ask to add it back on if nobody else used it, though.

These links are all available near the top of the forum index page: View unanswered posts • View unread posts • View new posts • Active topics

Is View new posts the "recent posts" thing you mean? We also have the "Active Topics" link on every page via the forum header.

I think it used to be right beside the settings button in the user panel thing when you log in.

Right now it says Hi, (username) * Inbox * Settings
It was right beside Settings before.

The "Topics I've Posted in..." link?

Yes! That's exactly what I'm talking about!

Ah, right... well, you can always bookmark that link? Or, perhaps I could include it somewhere more subtly?

After the "Active Posts" link might be a good place.

Active topics? Well, sure.

That will mean it's just on the index page — would that be good enough for you, Phyre?

Eh, I think I'll just bookmark the link.