Forum Update

auto-man

It's rather simple on vB to add alternative themes and accessibility options.

As for reasoning behind fixed width, utter tosh! No other large forum does this other than select vB templates or the cheaper free PHPBB forums. If you want the forums to be as sexy as the site you risk compromising vB security as we all know vB does not go well with HTML and leaves gaping holes.

Simple solution. Keep the site as the site and the forum as the forum.

That's what my preferred forum does. Maybe worth trying to recruit someone that understands CSS to enable full screen with utilisation of the side columns.

eslick

ok sorry martin gone back to the old version and 5 mins later the white is just to bright, see my last post. logging out for the night as its giving me a headache

MSE_Martin

OK folks we've got the point about fixed width. Worth noting its one of the major complaints is the look of the forum that means many new users bounce.

So we have improved it we think for new users (the stats will tell) and given existing users a choice.

torbrex

It doesnt matter which option I choose, the head is still bigger than the body so that I need to scroll to access the drop down menu and go button, the 'search the' box overlaps the forum drop down arrow and the drop down menu for the forum is still jumbled up.

I am not getting the squashed up symptoms that others are reporting.

My screen settings are at 1024 by 768, I am on XP pro using ie8

Vejovis

Thanks for the info on changing to stretchy. but it's still too narrow

edit: never mind, it changed after the reply posted.

endora

auto-man wrote: »

I think the logo looks a little cocky, pompous maybe.

A man smirking with arms crossed doesnt do it for me.

I agree with Auto-man! We need an image that makes people feel welcome, more like 'open arms' rather than crossed arms!
:-)

smeeth

I think it looks much better as it is, the old style was old and dated.
Even on the forum, the fixed width is great, no more madly scrolling to find the edge of a post!
Well done MSE!

wnoktnwbr

The most important part of a forum is the posts. I personally prefer fixed width websites, however there is a point where it's too small and I think MSE crossed that. You can't restrict the width so much and then add extra stuff at the side. If you wish to go down the fixed width route please make the focus the posts, having distracting stuff at the side is a problem. 20% of the restricted view is not related to the thread I'm viewing.

Having a choice is nice though, so kudos on that. I've switched back to stretchy, although I'd be happy with the fixed width if a) the background wasn't so white (doesn't work well for long periods of reading on a big screen) and b) the side bar didn't exist in topics.

As a side note I run a forum larger than MSE that is fixed width and we removed our side bar to give posts a full 1000px display and we've never had complaints

Tixy

Another issue - if I go to edit a post it loses the formatting, so any line spacing, even new lines started squish up into a block of text. Windows 7, Firefox 6. Example of this in my post above on this thread #42. was easier to read now all squished.

DVardysShadow

MSE_Martin wrote: »

Hi guys

Im done with the fixed v stretchy decision. We think its great and are sticking with it. Yet we've provided an option for those who don't like it - so its the best of both worlds.

Im not going to sit here and rebut - if you don't like it - use the stretchy version - that's why we did it!

Except your users don't like it. And almost by definition, users are right, to fire up an old IT controversy.

I can see that for mobile devices something may be required. It is not beyond the wit of web developers to use different style sheets according to device - or select within style sheets according to device - or even put 2 different front ends on the forum.

And as for the newspaper sites, firstly the Guardian uses a smaller font, so you read more on one of their lines than on one of yours. And secondly, as journalists, they do paragraph things properly. A newbie poster who can't paragraph on this layout? With a 10 screen paragraph? Coming soon enough.