Forum suggestion thread

Hi UD.

Since we decided to branch out a bit and make some new forum categories, I think it's high time this forum got a facelift. Let's face it, while this forum does its job, a few of the graphics are a little mismatched/missing altogether, and I want this site to be a hub for a lot of people. We need to make it look good to keep things flowing. Some of the things I want to do are:

• Change the banner OR change the default forum theme to match each other
• Fix the "Calendar" button to match the rest of the theme
• Add to and update our usergroups for any new clans we decide to add
• Add a few new widgets to spice things up (more on this as I find out exactly what this entails)
• Put in a system to allow users to edit the calendar to make planning events for Vindictus easier

I may also send out a newsletter to all our current members and say something along the lines of GET BACK SO YOU CAN PLAY CA/VINDICTUS WITH US.

If you have any further suggestions, post them here, and if we decide to change it then I'll add it to this list. All completed will be edited into this post and a subsequent message will be posted for notification purposes.

I just recolored the logo, so if you like this then we can change it. Otherwise, we can make a new one.

I wouldn't mind changing the forum up a bit but I'm not sure what we would stick into the news letter and I really don't like having red as a color in the forum since it's a little glaring (unless the only thing that is red is the banner).

I really like that red! Could we see a few different colors?

Daraku9 wrote:

I wouldn't mind changing the forum up a bit but I'm not sure what we would stick into the news letter and I really don't like having red as a color in the forum since it's a little glaring (unless the only thing that is red is the banner).

As for the newsletter, it would be something like sending out a notice to inactive users that UnDefiable. is branching out and is still active, just to try to get a few of them to come back. I only called it a "newsletter" because that's what it's called in the administration panel.

I'm not changing anything other than the banner, since our current theme's primary color is red (see the navbar at the top, which is mainly what I would design around). Everything else will stay the same.

ninjaian14 wrote:

I really like that red! Could we see a few different colors?

I'd prefer to keep it red like it is, since if that doesn't match the theme then we'll need to redesign a new banner from the ground up.

Ahh, ok Well I like that red for the banner so it should be changed like that to match the theme. Do you think you could make a glow button overlay for all the buttons? For example: Like when you put your mouse cursor over a button it glows (a.k.a. all it really does is switch to another image that makes it seem like its glowing). I can easily get the images of everything for you on the site if you don't have them, Invoked said a while back that she lost all them images for the buttons or something like that and thats why the Calender tab that was there was still in the old form, idk. But now that is see that its a new tab called events, I assume that you still have the button images

I would really like to contribute with making the forums better looking (like actually doing the coding and stuff). I do know what I am doing.

Off-Topic: Is there a way I can change my Forum name to NinjaIan15 or ProPlayer, I dont like it as ninjaian14 its outdated?

Um, as far as the glowing overlay goes, you don't need to switch to another button image - just make the glow effect a semi-transparent image that displays on top of the button only when the mouse is in that box.

NinjaIan15 wrote:

Ahh, ok Well I like that red for the banner so it should be changed like that to match the theme. Do you think you could make a glow button overlay for all the buttons? For example: Like when you put your mouse cursor over a button it glows (a.k.a. all it really does is switch to another image that makes it seem like its glowing).

fishythefish wrote:

Um, as far as the glowing overlay goes, you don't need to switch to another button image - just make the glow effect a semi-transparent image that displays on top of the button only when the mouse is in that box.

I wish we could. That would look nice.

Unfortunately, this forum setup was designed for people who have little-to-no coding knowledge and therefore we're quite limited in what we can actually do to make the forum look nicer. When I change anything image-wise on the boards, all I'm actually doing is uploading the image to a hosting site (all of which are entirely separate from this one, hence terrible loading times if you've noticed that) and then putting a link to that in the options. So, if there's no option for mouseover effects, it's impossible for me to do.

NinjaIan15 wrote:

I can easily get the images of everything for you on the site if you don't have them, Invoked said a while back that she lost all them images for the buttons or something like that and thats why the Calender tab that was there was still in the old form, idk. But now that is see that its a new tab called events, I assume that you still have the button images

The Events tab was actually a custom-made button I made last night. The old images were lost and I needed a placeholder for the Calendar button until I can find a new one. There wasn't a "C" in the other buttons, and since I didn't have the font to match the other ones, it's just a little copy/paste Photoshop trickery.

That said, the site that hosts the Godmakers skin is called hitskin.com, and it doesn't have an image for a calendar button, hence why when we migrated to this skin, we lost that. There's no way to "find" the image, since it never existed in the first place.

NinjaIan15 wrote:

I would really like to contribute with making the forums better looking (like actually doing the coding and stuff). I do know what I am doing.

There's LITERALLY no coding involved, like I explained before. All I do is import a few images into a pre-defined form, and I have no other options as far as that goes. If you wanted to migrate the forum to something more easily accessible HTML- or PHP-wise, then that would be an option, but I personally don't want to take the time to do that.

NinjaIan15 wrote:

Off-Topic: Is there a way I can change my Forum name to NinjaIan15 or ProPlayer, I dont like it as ninjaian14 its outdated?

Fixed.

Ok, cool! SO what you said that if i could find a way to migrate our website to a HTML or PHP, that would be good?

NinjaIan15 wrote:

Ok, cool! SO what you said that if i could find a way to migrate our website to a HTML or PHP, that would be good?

No, I said it would be a waste of my time to migrate to a new forum just so you can have shitty mouseover effects.

Hahaha, I guess so. But I found this: http://editor.circlepad.com/cpTryOut/ and it is amazing and works great very fast and fully customizable!

NinjaIan, if you really want a forum CMS that supports PHP, HTML, BBCode, etc., do some serious Googling and you can easily find any number of free CMSs that aren't crappy example pages.

I know this forum is pretty computer-literate, so it's not a question of lacking people with the knowledge to code it. I agree with Tyleh that it's a waste of time to try and migrate all the forum content to another CMS for special effects, given the amount of usage this actually gets and how little it would actually improve the forum.

On a different note, I do like the new banner (and the blue one was fine too), but I flinched when I loaded the page and saw the different name colors. Maybe I'm just used to the old ones, but the new ones not only look like shit (the overall color scheme, I mean), but it takes me a minute to match the old colors with the new ones mentally. Could we change the name color scheme back?
EDIT: I know that the colors were changed around because of the addition of Vindictus, but because the top posters are all Combat Arms players, the left sidebar just clashes horribly with the rest of the site. By the way, what will the colors be for someone who belongs in more than one category?

And Tyleh, I'm not sure what you're doing to create the capital C for "Calendar", but I'd suggest just taking the lowercase c from "Search" and increasing the size.

fishythefish wrote:

On a different note, I do like the new banner (and the blue one was fine too), but I flinched when I loaded the page and saw the different name colors. Maybe I'm just used to the old ones, but the new ones not only look like shit (the overall color scheme, I mean), but it takes me a minute to match the old colors with the new ones mentally. Could we change the name color scheme back?
EDIT: I know that the colors were changed around because of the addition of Vindictus, but because the top posters are all Combat Arms players, the left sidebar just clashes horribly with the rest of the site. By the way, what will the colors be for someone who belongs in more than one category?

I apologize, but they are temporary until I can figure out a better system. I made them clash so I could tell what was what when I made the new groups, and I'm planning on fixing them when I get a chance. I had to drive back to college today so that's why there wasn't much effort put into fixing them tonight.

The ones who are members of multiple groups will get a chance to pick which one they want to set as their primary color. For instance, if you want what's currently the CA member color, then you can be in both groups, but if you prefer the blue color I'd just take you out of the CA group. There's no good way to set individual colors and be in both groups, unfortunately, so no group gets special privileges that the other doesn't have.

fishythefish wrote:

And Tyleh, I'm not sure what you're doing to create the capital C for "Calendar", but I'd suggest just taking the lowercase c from "Search" and increasing the size.

I'm tempted to leave it like it is. Less work on my part, no?

Forget about the site migration its fine how it is. Anyways I am turning out to be more of a Vindictus player now and less a CA member can we change my color to Vindictus like Daraku9 is ?

Yeah, it is fine the way it is, but you said something about Photoshop, so I was wondering whether you were doing a lot more work that is necessary.

If Tyleh mentioned Photoshop I instantly think that Ty was using it to change the banner color from blue to red.

Tyleh wrote:

The Events tab was actually a custom-made button I made last night. The old images were lost and I needed a placeholder for the Calendar button until I can find a new one. There wasn't a "C" in the other buttons, and since I didn't have the font to match the other ones, it's just a little copy/paste Photoshop trickery.

That's the section I was talking about. For photoshopping the banner, unless the file was saved locally and it's composed of a grayscale layer with the text and design and another layer with a semitransparent color filter, then you'd need to apply an anti-blue filter and then a red one. But honestly, Photoshop isn't necessary (although it's nice if you have it). I just use GIMP.

GIMP is literally the free version of Photoshop lmao

Nah, I'm pretty handy with Photoshop, so all I did was colorize the old image. Took about 30 seconds to do.

As for the Events tab, I didn't see the C in search, and the E scales easier than the C, which would've caused me problems anyway. I could've done it all in MSPaint, but what the hell, I have Photoshop.

The name colors should be fixed now. Some are a bit different just to keep differentiation between groups simple.

Can i be changed to Vindictus

I approve of the color changes to usernames. I don't want to sound nit-picky, but I think it could be improved slightly. For example, one of our primary colors is red, yet this is the color of banned members. To improve the coloring of the sidebar, if nothing else, here's a suggestion for colors, along with approximations of hex codes (I viewed each of them, but feel free to edit):
Administrator: Red (#FF0000)
Forum Moderator: Blue (#0000FF)
CA Admin: Cyan (#00FFFF)
Vindictus Admin: Purple (#9000C0)
Contributor: $ Green (#009900)
CA Member: White (#FFFFFF)
Vindictus Member: ...also white? Then we won't have to worry about choosing color if we play both games.
Banned: Gray

This emphasizes red and blue as our primary colors, with only the contributor having green (for money). Banned members get gray, which is a dull, boring color and frees up that vivid red for admins. If it's not too much effort, could we give this a try? You start with vanilla white, and earn color by becoming an admin or mod or something.
EDIT: Posts were made while I typed. I know we just changed the color, but I'm wondering if we could give this a try.

EDIT2: I like the current admin color and the Vindictus magenta. What if CA members had that teal color and Vindictus members remain as they are now?

As long as the Vidictus color stays as it is im happy

fishythefish wrote:

I approve of the color changes to usernames. I don't want to sound nit-picky, but I think it could be improved slightly. For example, one of our primary colors is red, yet this is the color of banned members. To improve the coloring of the sidebar, if nothing else, here's a suggestion for colors, along with approximations of hex codes (I viewed each of them, but feel free to edit):
Administrator: Red (#FF0000)
Forum Moderator: Blue (#0000FF)
CA Admin: Cyan (#00FFFF)
Vindictus Admin: Purple (#9000C0)
Contributor: $ Green (#009900)
CA Member: White (#FFFFFF)
Vindictus Member: ...also white? Then we won't have to worry about choosing color if we play both games.
Banned: Gray

This emphasizes red and blue as our primary colors, with only the contributor having green (for money). Banned members get gray, which is a dull, boring color and frees up that vivid red for admins. If it's not too much effort, could we give this a try? You start with vanilla white, and earn color by becoming an admin or mod or something.
EDIT: Posts were made while I typed. I know we just changed the color, but I'm wondering if we could give this a try.

EDIT2: I like the current admin color and the Vindictus magenta. What if CA members had that teal color and Vindictus members remain as they are now?

Ah, thanks for the hex codes. The only way I have of determining the colors in the admin panel is one of those boxes with a hue slider.

So, what I've done is:

• Admins are now RED.
• Forum moderators are now ROYAL BLUE.
• CA admins are now CYAN.
• CA Members are now TEAL.
• Vindictus Admins are now INDIGO.
• Vindictus Members are now MAGENTA.
• Contributors are now GREEN.
• Banned members are now GRAY.

The game admins should now be slightly darker than the members of their respective games, so that should be easy to keep track of.




Also, I picked up Dragon Nest last week and I'm considering heading up a chapter in that game. Is anyone opposed/interested?

Ah, this color scheme looks much better. Although if you want the higher ranking members of a game to be darker, you might want to switch CA Admins and CA Members.

I still need to get around to starting Vindictus, which looks pretty good. How is Dragon Nest? The only person I've heard from who's played it is NinjaIan when he beta-tested it.