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Pretty and useful, or worst thing ever posted to the intartubez?
Published on February 19, 2008 By Zoomba In WinCustomize News

Over the weekend we rolled out a pretty big upgrade to the infrastructure that powers our forums and articles system across the entire Stardock network.  To go along with this we put out some layout and code fixes for the forums to hopefully make them easier to use/read and faster to load.

After ironing out the major kinks yesterday (speed issues, broken images, quote issues etc) we're starting down the road of restoring the list of temporarily lost features.  So we feel we're in a good position at the moment to start getting your reaction to the changes, specifically the visual changes.

So this week's poll we'd like to hear whether you like or hate the changes.  And please leave any comments you have on the changes on this thread.  We're going to be taking all feedback into consideration for improvements as we continue to work on the site.


Comments (Page 3)
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on Feb 19, 2008

We're looking into additional file formats for avatars (pngs?) For blending, would adding a border around the avatar help?

Png - yes, borders - no....

on Feb 19, 2008
I agree that it's a bit early to run a poll. Haven't been around much lately and I just logged on today and was overwhelmed with the new look, so much so I had to implement the wayback machine to remember what the old forum looked like!

In comparison the difference is that there are some additional bits of info like member number and who's online. Of those two I only find the online icon useful. Aside from the new style the most significant and positive difference is that by comparison the layout is better organized; the technical info to the left (with the odd exception of the time stamp remaining above the post) and the content to the right.

All in all I'm comfortable with it, and I find no major negatives about the change. If I vote today I'd say it's ok. So, I think I'll wait a bit longer, at which point I would probably have come to like it.

on Feb 19, 2008
Almost forgot; love the breadcrumb drop-downs. Unless I'm sadly mistaken, I'm pretty sure that's new to the forum area.
on Feb 19, 2008
Things look and work better every time I visit. You're doing a great job.
Site can still be a little slow for me. Specially posting.

For the most part I like the layout (profile pages too).

The alternating color scheme I could live without unless I could change the colors. Pastel blue makes me queasy.

png support for avatars would be cool, but I'd like to see the "start at last read post" thing fixed first/


on Feb 19, 2008
png support for avatars would be cool, but I'd like to see the "start at last read post" thing fixed first/


I second that.   


Overall, I like the look and the new layout. Speed is somewhat mixed; threads seem to load faster but twice now when opening the site at first load, it took a long time for the main page to come up. I'm talking go get a glass of wine and lollygag a bit and upon returning, the previous page (Google, in this case) is still showing with the progressbar stuck in the gate. Just as I'm wondering 'Did I really click on my favorite for Wincustomize?', the page finally loads.  
on Feb 19, 2008
"Pick a drink to skin with!"


White Russian..hands down   
on Feb 19, 2008
White Russian..hands down
Great choice.





  vStyler abides 
on Feb 19, 2008
Zubaz :

Next poll: "Pick a drink to skin with!"


You forgot the Nectar of the Gods !! Tut! Tut !


.
ALMonty : THAT Avatar is the most original one I have EVER seen       
on Feb 19, 2008
Thanks Mike  

Actually I prefer Absolute and 7up with a lemon  
on Feb 19, 2008
Now thats 'Tangy !! BTW : I Logged out then logged back in and the forum has gone back to the old version ... IE7 XP PRO SP2
on Feb 19, 2008
er .. now I have the new version again .. (10 minutes later then my last post !! )

I'm sure it will be ok eventually ... I would love to be able to pick skin colours for the forum ,that would be well good !!

Its certainly interesting watching stuff get worked on by the team there.. I am quite impressed ...
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