Hard hat area

[Ronin Storm]

Just noticed that KillCrazy has signed up here too. KC, welcome.

As you can probably tell, this layout is far from finished. There's stuff that's created that isn't displaying, but the main point of work for the moment is understanding how usergroups work in vB and so how I need to configure them.

Feel free to browse. Don't read anything into what you see, though, as it may change rapidly and radically as we discover new functionality or learn more about vB's functionality.

 

[Ronin Storm]

Just to confirm, this site is still under construction. I apologise if anything gets shifted around radically and messes up plans but we're not live just yet. Please consider anything you do as "preview".

That said, I don't believe anything critical will change between now and release except to add things or move them around.

 

[Fi$hy]

I'm impressed, couple of reasons:
1, Security has obviously increased for sensitive forums (THN BF2 for example) requiring registration with a group leader.
2, The Forum finally works with an Avatar for me!!
3, Even better!! ------ the TIME IS RIGHT!!!!!!!!! omg omg omg!! yay wooo *trails off*

one little thing though, how come we have to manually activate quick reply each time? can't it be on by default?

Incredible job guy's I'm impressed, and if you want any help doing whatever (mucking out the loo etc) I'm happy to help

 

[Ronin Storm]

how come we have to manually activate quick reply each time?

Ah, my young padawan, you explore your new world quickly.

In short, there are two ways to view threads -- linear (which you are familiar with) and threaded (ala slashdot). In order to know which post you are replying to you must click on the quick reply button on that post. This way, threaded users see threads. However, for linear users the post just appears at the end.

Make sense?

 

[Fi$hy]

Genius, utter genius.

Just to confuse things i've turned on hybrid mode, best of both worlds eh?

 

[Ronin Storm]

Heh. I ran in hybrid for a while, but decided that I preferred threaded. Trick with threaded is that you need to be sure to quote what you are replying to so that linear users know what on earth you're talking about.

It's super-quick to change modes just for a thread, though. Top-right of a thread are a bunch of options for that.

 

[Fi$hy]

Mmm I'm going to spend weeks obsessing over which mode I prefer.

One little glitch i've noticed is that the "Amber" colour mode or whatever, doesn't work properlly with widescreen (or at least not with my odd resolution of 1280x800. the forum doesn't stretch out and you get massive blank area's, however it works fine with the other mode (standard THN colours) which is odd. Tomoro I'll bugger around with more conventional widescreen resolutions and see what happens

 

[Ronin Storm]

doesn't work properlly with widescreen

Again, that's deliberate. THN_amber is a fixed width format. THN_blue is a scalable width format. THN_blue is pretty close to the basic vBulletin skin with our logo added, but THN_amber is Haven's first pass development of a vBulletin skin. I plan to have a go at skinning at some point too.

I've read studies that indicate that it is hard for people to read and concentrate on text that has very long line lengths, as would happen with a scalable width format. This fixed width layout has become a "commonly" accepted style to keep line lengths at a readable length. Even there, I think the line lengths are slightly too long and would drop them another 20% for optimal reading (think about how you read a book and how that differs to how you read a screen...).

Still, it is as it is. You might be able to convince Haven or someone to produce a scalable amber theme.

 

[Fi$hy]

Aha, that explains that one again.
(I think I'm going to stop poking holes, Ronin has an answer for everything lol)

Indeed, I think you're correct with the optimal line length thing, though personally for me, with such a large screen and small resolution it seems a bit silly to have massive spaces (though Amber is quite pretty)

Still impressed that someone's managed to finally sort / kill the time fairies

 

[Ronin Storm]

Still impressed that someone's managed to finally sort / kill the time fairies

That was all Haven.

Keep the feedback coming, though. Some things are deliberate, others aren't but have reasons, other things can be changed because that's just a default way they are/have been. Better to say than to think "ah, they've probably done that deliberately, oh well...".