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Barbelith just changed on me.

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13:41 / 29.03.04

Tom> If you click on your own user name when you're logged in, you get taken to the page that lets you change your registration details - it was the same on white/gold Barbelith.

13:52 / 29.03.04

I suspect a lot of you won't think to go there so I'm linking here to prod you!

Well, if the last three topics/forum were displayed...

Also, the time/date stamp cell being displayed with the page body bg color instead of the overall row bg color is a bit jarring visually. Not so much in the convo but in Art/Fashion for example the contrast between the two is pretty high.

14:22 / 29.03.04

Re: images... there's quite a big white space gap down the right hand side at the moment. How about some sort of long thin image as a background to the page, top right no-repeat? Nothing big, either an abstract image or something simple, that could change colour by forum. (This would of course necessitate loading a new image each time you went to a different forum, but if it's small enough that wouldn't be a problem.)

I like this idea.

I *think* I might like the new look better if we could shift the main text a little closer to the center, too, but I'm not sure that'd make a major big difference.

14:27 / 29.03.04

I see the main text in the centre - it's the expanse of white to the right that bothers me a little. I like the front page very much though - reminds me of cassata.

14:29 / 29.03.04

I'm becoming less keen on the font as time goes on. Maybe my eyes just hurt from being on the PC too long today. I'd like something a bit rounder. Sans fonts are all very stylish, but it's hard to scan them for big blocks.

14:45 / 29.03.04

i'm pretty sure i like it. it will take some getting used to, though. my mind feels fucked!

14:49 / 29.03.04

Yup, it's visual cassata, KCC, and I love it! Could even be a packet of lovehearts, that front page. Looks sleek and spare and Scandinavian.

Must go off and investigate the functional changes, having had an unexpected Monday thrill from the new colour scheme.

Well chuffed.

15:06 / 29.03.04

I mostly like, but have one minor gripe - the big bold list of moderators at the top of each forum. Slightly irritating, can't quite put my finger on why. I think it just stands out a bit much. You've got this nice smooth design and a big black squiggly mess right at the top. Like a dense wig of pubes on top of yer vanilla ice-cream. Could it be non-bold, or smaller, or moved elsewhere, or made neater somehow?

15:15 / 29.03.04

Yeah, actually that does make the mods seem like hot shit, too.

15:35 / 29.03.04

I love the design. It's fresh, interesting, "sexy" as someone put it.

But compared to the last one? Man, it's terrible. A 50 - 50 mix of the two would probably be the best.

Nah, Tom. Change it back.

Morlock - groupie for hire

15:43 / 29.03.04

The White is trying to extract my brain through my eyeballs. And the page numbers are a bit fiddly for us ham-fisted types.

Other than that it's rather swish. Nice job! Excuse me while I explore some more...

Lazlo Woodbine [some call me Laz]

16:16 / 29.03.04

Well shag me sideways if this ain't half fab!
Bit of a shock mind, all this colour being intoduced to my generally colourless fictional existence.

Goodness Gracious Meme

16:24 / 29.03.04

but the mods *are* hot shit. it's either this or stun-guns. oh yes.

Firstly, thanks for obviously having done loads of work on this.

Goods - clear, clean, easy to read/navigate, on my slow connection *much* quicker to load. Love the colours in general, i'd make it brighter, but thats personal taste and I suspect not general. Front page is lovely, very stylish, contemporary. As i said elsewhere, reminds me of Warp-era Designer's Republic, especially in the palette.

Bads- not being able to hop between fora without going via the frontpage, which if it isn't going to have recently updated threads, seems pointless. Why? Not being able to see last few posts when replying is just annoying, especially if one's responding to an in-depth post. Again, is there a rationale for this?
Still think there's too much grey, and too much blank white space. Looks drab, like an official document. Perhaps a little *too* stark, some illustration/shading/background might be nice.

What kind of feel are you trying to get across?

Whisky Priestess

16:35 / 29.03.04

Sort of a Conran Shop, Habitat, trendy cocktail bar kinda vibe. Tres pastel. Tres chic. Tres now.

16:37 / 29.03.04

I'm finding myself less tempted to click on various fora when I don't know what articles/threads are top of the queue.

This could be a big problem. Hmm. I'll check if I feel this way in a couple days.

17:15 / 29.03.04

It all seems very...professional, somehow. Like the 'corporate magick' Barbelith. Yuppie terrorist, Mason Lang, Hexus...

I kind of like that.

19:40 / 29.03.04

Yes barbelith, the new colours do make your ass look fat.

19:44 / 29.03.04

I think individual posts on threads should have a white line between them, like on the home page. Or at least, I'd like to see what it looks like. I think it would be better, when they're all in a stack.

19:55 / 29.03.04

I don't like it. Pastels and big white spaces just isn't my bag. Baby. Add to that the reduced functionality and I can feel myself getting a little irritable. But don't mind me, I'll get used to it in a couple of years. And then Tom will want to change the damn thing all over again, won't he? Grrrrr.

19:57 / 29.03.04

I think its still in a state of flux at the moment. I do love the little edit post thinggy. It reminds me of those bulletinboards adds with the phonumbers you can just rip off.

20:09 / 29.03.04

Barbelith was the best lookin' forum on the web.
But this one is brilliant!
I miss the pictures though...

20:10 / 29.03.04

The look and color I don't mind but I'm reeeeeeally missing the top 3 threads listing when I jump onto Barbelith.com, otherwise I gotta bookmark each and every section to keep quick track. Which isn't much fun.

I literally feel like the wall of colors does more to turn me away the moment I get here than invite me to a hot cuppa and some discourse.

Content's why I like this place so much. Show it off.

Cheap. Easy. Cruel.

20:19 / 29.03.04

I liked the most-recently-posted-in three topics in the fora showing up on the main page as well. That way I could merely refresh and tell if there was anything new. It saved me a hell of a lot of time at work...

.

20:27 / 29.03.04

Well... Um... Yeah, I like it. It's unique, simple, clean. Great colours. But.

The old board was *great*, really well designed, light years ahead of anything else in terms of usability. I miss it. No chance of running the two versions in parallel? I mean the back end is the same innit? Can't we just whack the old board on as an alternate GUI? I feel a bit like this is an exercise in fixing something that wasn't broken.

In terms of the most recent three threads on the front of the board, quite aside from the convenience of seeing what was active, I think that it made the old board seem more organic, dynamic, alive, in motion. This one just seems a bit static by comparison.

Well whatever, Barbelith still rocks harder than virtually any other site on the web, good work!

21:07 / 29.03.04

Hoom. Just trying it in Linux and the font looks lovely. But, then don't they always in LInux? Still not keen on the white space (even if it is a shade of grey under KDE).
My short term memory limitations are still screaming out for a reminder of the last few posts as I have no idea what I'm replying to right now...
Look, everyone, just buy a copy of SuSe or something and you'll feel much better, honest.

yawn - thing's buddy

21:16 / 29.03.04

You've spunked some good web here, tom.

I say video nicey.

21:18 / 29.03.04

I mostly just lurk around here occasionally, so naturally I was more than a little surprised to see the change. Still, I think the new layout's incredibly visually compelling.

21:40 / 29.03.04

Feh. Any time information suffers for style, I get cranky. Its pretty and all, and the design is good, but what I want is to be able to see at a glance what all has changed on the board, who posted last to each thread, what's unread yet by me, a summary of waiting messages and mod jobs, the current color of Ganesh's trousers, and the location of the secret rebel base. And it should be monocrome in jumbled fine print with an obtuse text command interface impenetreble to all but aging geeks with sore eyes and the necessary education in cult media to decrypt the in-jokes they are all based upon. But I'm showing my colors a bit here, aren't I?

21:43 / 29.03.04

I'm with Marzarine, I like the look, it's all shiny which can never be a bad thing, but I also like to forum hop. Bring back the, erm, drop down bar (thanks o computer literate one) and I will experience complete contentment.

21:48 / 29.03.04

Okay, here is a screenshot of it using Konqueror.

I played with the stylesheet a bit locally and I think the issue is that the td element does not have a font-family assigned to it. Some browsers don't inherit elements in tables and so it's being displayed as the default (Times). Either that or there's some other sort of blasted DOM jiggery-pokery going on. Adding one seems to work, anyway.

Incidentally, somewhere in there someone's misspelled "sans-serif"; can't remember where though....

22:26 / 29.03.04

Cusm, I want to make one thing here really clear to you. Rebuilding a site of this scale is hard work and it's tricky and it won't be perfect out of the gate. The things you are talking about will be compensated for at some point in the future. When we designed the board the first time we put in those features and I completely understand that they are well-used and well-liked, but I can't sort out all the problems at once. I've been working on this for four weeks and I hope that in the end I'll be ironing out any issues, but functionality has not been sacrificed for design. Instead I've tried to fix some of the problems that the old design caused and in the process I haven't quite yet found the solutions to some of the new ones that the new design has caused. Be patient.

00:59 / 30.03.04

I really dig that you can click a link to be returned where you were after you moderate something (if it's new, not if you're agreeing/disagreeing). I think the old system took you back to the front page. Or maybe I'm remembering everything wrong, but I like that.

I find this color scheme to be a lot easier on my poor old eyes, as well.

01:15 / 30.03.04

I don't know...
I cast my vote in favor of the most-recent-thread view as well...

but life is change, yes?

wembley can change in 28 days

06:13 / 30.03.04

Why? Oh, oh why?

I find it much more difficult to read - I miss the bold/colour contrast with different text elements (such as date, username, thread descriptions), and I preferred the old font. I also find it a bit hard on the eyes. I also really miss the last 3 threads thing, although the upside is maybe the threads that aren't in last 3 won't get a disproportionate number of clickthroughs. I don't particularly want to be negative, but I found the usability of the old design more... usable.

But the rainbow thing is nice. I really appreciate the slim look, the return to content-is-king. Not that content was ever anything else on Barbelith. Keep working on it, Tom - we love you in all fonts.

Oh, and one MORE thing - it was nicer in a usability sorta way when you could read the thread while responding. Not that I can't just open new windows, of course.

09:41 / 30.03.04

Can I repeat for those that came in late that for the most part any functionality that has been lost by the redesign will actually be coming back in one form or another once I've had enough time to sort out the basics. Thank you for your ... patience.

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