Fractalforums

yes, I changed the "guest theme" to yorky. It was a setting in the new seo-mod. didn't think twice. made sense to me, so that people who don't come from ff1.com will see the new modern look.
the dilber look is still set as the overall-default.
I didn't think of members using the site not logged in. I usually tick the stay logged in option. (no problem with the admin rights, you have to re-enter the password if you want to access the admin area. and at home no one touches my computer.

Ok, reverted guest theme to dilber for now.

obligatory: disagree on everything you say about design sock. what you describe is dilber. it's horrible and always has been. being habituated to an ugly 90ies look doesn't make it any more beautiful.
the readability in yorky is great. the colors are easy on the eye.
but that's why we offer the option to stick with the classic.
default for NEW members and guests in the future will veryvery likely be yorky.

obligatory: disagree on everything you say about design sock. what you describe is dilber. it's horrible and always has been. being habituated to an ugly 90ies look doesn't make it any more beautiful.
the readability in yorky is great. the colors are easy on the eye.
but that's why we offer the option to stick with the classic.
default for NEW members and guests in the future will veryvery likely be yorky.

The default will be whatever the members decide once we get enough here to make a valid poll.  It will very very likely be Dilber   

But I don't think the look of the theme has anything to do with it.  You keep talking about how Yorky looks, but I worry about it's functionality.

An asymmetric font is usually reserved for logos and advertising.  It's never used for articles in my experience, so it is not possible to call it easy to read.  Plus, there is so little contrast it fails another essential test of readability.  I'd make the font yellow or green.  Grey is too close to the background color to be acceptable to any but a narrow audience.

And then there's the whole hiding content without opening any drop down menu or scrollbars or even any way to know content is hidden.  Anybody who thinks that is good design is unaware of the very basic-most stuff about designing a website.

I get needing to hide some stuff given the limitations of responsive design, but the options to insert some way of keeping the hidden content accessible  (as with those 3 horizontal bars which indicate hidden content) exist, and to fail to use them is  ...  a failure?

I have no idea what is what., but my two cents is that the pale blue UI is nice and clear. I only use a laptop and the dark blue one  I find hard to read with my old eyes.

@ McLarekin:
And you will be able to use the classic design as long as you want. It's not going away.


@sock:
Too bad that the thread that was about presenting a new design that I spent a lot of effort and money into is now being used to discuss these issues that have been discussed so many times.
You now force me to also add my view here, or it will be unbalanced.
I had hoped to keep this out of this thread.
This is my last response to this as I really want to try to constructively work on things together with you instead of argueing over different ways to do something and which way is better.


First of all, I am aware of some of the drawbacks of yorky. Mostly the speed. And this is something we'll have to improve.

But I don't think the look of the theme has anything to do with it.  You keep talking about how Yorky looks, but I worry about it's functionality.

You have shown that you are not willing to actually test functionality(recent topics, image attachements, prefixes, yorky...)
You stick to your old ways and how you've always done things because you have grown to like them.
And that's 100% okay. That's why we implemented a choice.

But if you are not willing to actually TEST the usability of other solutions in reallife conditions, actually work with a new idea for a few days or weeks if it really is better.
This makes your opinion on these things.. negligible. (and we could stop discussion here)
Do you see me posting everywhere how much Dilber 90ies look and functionality sucks? Or how bad the functionality of recent posts is?

An asymmetric font is usually reserved for logos and advertising.  It's never used for articles in my experience, so it is not possible to call it easy to read.  Plus, there is so little contrast it fails another essential test of readability.  I'd make the font yellow or green.  Grey is too close to the background color to be acceptable to any but a narrow audience.

First: The fonts readability is great. I don't see how this font is asymmetric. I just know that I look at it, and it looks good and I can read stuff perfectly.
The contrast is really good, not too extreme, not soo low.
As you know I have severe vision impairment and am extra sensitive to bad contrast. So if I can read this well, I really don't understand how someone with better eyes can have a problem with it.
Apart from McLarekin and you, this is the first time I heard this - but we've had a lot of praise for finally having a dark, good readably and responsive theme.
Don't like it? Don't use it.

Talking about bad design but suggesting to make the main font green or yellow? I can only shake head about this.
But then again, you use dilber in pink mode... not much more to add.

And then there's the whole hiding content without opening any drop down menu or scrollbars or even any way to know content is hidden.  Anybody who thinks that is good design is unaware of the very basic-most stuff about designing a website.

I get needing to hide some stuff given the limitations of responsive design, but the options to insert some way of keeping the hidden content accessible  (as with those 3 horizontal bars which indicate hidden content) exist, and to fail to use them is  ...  a failure?

You've made this point on and off. Basically it says that you don't like responsive design, because of the way you browse. Never on mobile, and with a tiny screenresolution around 800*600 and than with added split screen to make it even worse. This is a configuration that probably less than 1% of users use.
Ok, if that's you're way, go with it, do that, use dilber. Everyone is happy.

One of our main points on the list for v2 was to make it well accessible for mobile devices. Which means to have a responsive theme.

What's the point in telling everyone now that you personally don't like responsive webdesign and don't even use it, because you don't browse with mobile?
Why spoil the fun for that majority who does?

Browsing ff1.com on mobile is a pain in the ass. ff2.org with yorky is absolutely great.






And a last thing on user polls. I'd love to just say, yes, whatever decision pops up, let our userbase decide. That would make things easy.

But:
Fractalforums.com has lost countless active members over the last years. Let me quote the answer of one of the biggest names in fractals that I contacted to understand why he left. This is what he said:
"The forum looks and feels like it's stuck in the 1990's. The reason I don't post there anymore is indeed because I feel it's  a little dead "

So many people have left for example to Mandelbulbmaniacs at facebook (with 9000members currently, adding 100-300 each month). We are left with some 150 members active at least once in the last 3 months. You want things to stay this way?

Those who could tolerate the bad/old design and functionality are still here.

The average age has probably risen drastically.
And you are now suggesting that we ask the small rest who stayed (despite or even because of the old design) if that old design should stay default for new and younger visitors. (keep in mind, everyone who wants can keep the old design! it's not like something changes for them.
But it makes a difference to new potential members (who like beautiful visuals of fractals) if the site looks like 90ies geocities design.
This is why (in my memory) we agreed to change default for guests&new members after all our users migrated. Making the transition easy, but also show the new, modern face to the newcomers.
Perfect, the best of both worlds.



A poll asking only the old "leftover" members will -by design- result in a totally biased result.
It might mirror the opinions of the userbase we have left.
But it will not take into account the countless users we have long lost BECAUSE of the refusal to improve over time.
And THAT is not a way how to do a evolution to v2 with the goal to get back to old glory and buzzing user activity.


We keep the old design as an option - so anyone who doesn't like the future is covered.
But we shouldn't force every new member to wear a mullet to enter, just because that is how things were cool in the period of time that you prefer and you just got used to it and don't want to change anything.
Many many people will just see the 90ies design, walk away and never give us a chance. That's a price too high to pay and is the opposite of why we upgraded in the first place.



oh well. another hour gone that I could have used to get things done here. But I had to state this. I can't accept that your anti-posts are plastered everywhere without any refutation.

I think the main issue is how spindly the font is.  If it was a slightly bolder font the light theme would work (make the font black too, not gray).  The default dark theme of gray font on purple is also not the best for clarity.

As an example, change this post to the light theme and then open this post in the old fractalforums in a new tab.
http://www.fractalforums.com/general-discussion/online-mandelbrot-object-cloud-computing()-energy-efficiency-and-speed!/?PHPSESSID=6d0b47d4f5b5b67322f864f1309859f2
Swap back and forth between them to see how the old bolder/darker font is clearer.

Maybe the issue is different people using different OS's or devices?  The default dark theme does look better on my Android phone, but on my Windows 10 desktop it is nowhere near as clear.

hey softology, thx for the constructive criticism. I understand your point in the white mode of yorky. any suggestion for a better font that still fits the more modern look?
dark mode on windows 10 looks perfectly readable here - but I'm open to switch to a better font if it improves overall readability.

I switched to light and then back to Dilbert theme. It better for reading spart posts;)
Well, design is atristic, but if you want to read about programming it is not so readable.