Want your feedback!

[Kirthag]

There are several themes with our forums, some are customized, others came with the forum software.

Below are snaps of the themes available now. We like to cull this selection down from 3 to 5 available themes. Will make it much easier to manage!

so.. onward with samples!


[Fluid] Stratics Quark
This is the theme I typically use as I like the contrast. This theme is "fluid", meaning it will respond to window resize and mobile devices in a smooth manner.



[Fluid] Stratics Antiquark
A very light theme, bright with okay contrast for lettering (shades of grays on white). Special colored items really jump on this theme. Very light, but is fully responsive (fluid)


[Fixed] Stratics Antiquark & Stratics Quark
Both are the same as their above responsive versions (coloring and such), but these have a maximum fixed width so will not adjust to wider displays.



UO Classic
Another responsive theme, altho some areas of the template do need some tweaking for full responsiveness (specifically ads). Styled to match the "classic" feel of the UO.Stratics site.




All of the other themes included are generic themes with generic coloring and such. You can sample each theme by making a selection at the bottom-left of the page:


The themes mentioned in the poll are the ones we are looking at keeping available, while all the others will be disabled so as to streamline future updates and changes to the forums.

Whichever ONE the community likes the best will be the DEFAULT theme. You will still be able to change if you wish, the default will be the one the general public sees.

So, please pick your one favorite! If you have suggestions for your theme pick, then post below. Once you vote, you cannot change it. This poll will stay open until March 21, 2015.

 

[kelmo]

huh... I never knew what the difference was between fixed and static was. Thanks for that.

 

[Smoot]

I voted classic, but i prefer a dark background. mainly voted for it because its the only one i can read and the avatars look the cleanest / most non-intrusive.

I dont have any ads so cant comment on their placement.

 

[Zuckuss]

It's Classic hands down for me.

 

[kelmo]

I really like the dark, it suits me well.

 

[Miri of Sonoma]

I don't really like any of them...some are too dark, the others washed out. I use the UO classic one so I voted for that one,

 

[DJAd]

Classic.

 

[FrejaSP]

UO classic for me too

 

[Yadd of Legends]

I believe Classic was the default when I logged in this morning. I liked it then, and I still like t best after looking at the others

 

[old gypsy]

Classic, yes!

 

[Lady Michelle]

uo classic

 

[DJAd]

Any of the light ones look neat. I can't stand the ones with black backgrounds with ligher text. People end up using silly colours to write posts and it hurts my eyes!

 

[Riyana]

Quark. Can't stand the bright ones.

 

[Captn Norrington]

Fluid Stratics Quark. Other ones are too bright.

 

[Larisa]

Yeah the bright ones hurt my eyes! :/ I use [Fluid] Stratics Quark

 

[Victim of Siege]

*puts on his Ray Charles Shades* yah, Fluid Quark, them others make Stevie Wonder say "that's bright"

 

[old gypsy]

Well, let's see... far-sighed (even with glasses), astigmatism, poor eye-muscle coordination, plus beginning cataracts... for some reason the dark background causes me a lot more eye strain. If the default is the dark, I'm glad I'll be able to switch to another option!

 

[Bazer]

love em all, but heart goes for Classic

 

[Smoot]

only 41 votes?

 

[Flutter]

only 41 votes?

I didn't answer because I don't understand the question.
It says cull from 3 to 5, I am sure that's just a typo and it's being culled from 5 to 3.
That said, isn't this just a user-side skin type thing? How does it make it easier to manage?
Then you mention "other" themes but I only see the five you mentioned. Do I need some sort of update?
I noticed a few posts about people's themes being changed when they logged in. I did not have this happen. Did I miss something?
I honestly would like more themes to play with instead of less.

 

[petemage]

Well, that's my take on the changes to the board navigation. No offense intended, just trying to be honest.

Before the latest changes the top navigation items were like "Stratics general", "Wow", "UO", "SotA" and so on. I had UO bookmarked and could see all UO forums along with there post counts on one page. Everything besides UO was pretty much dead land, because it is a pain to keep up with changes across this top most navigation.



Now that UO moved up the ladder to this place, guess what? Everything besides "General" has become dead land to me.

On the mobile this things are a bit harder to click and most time not worth the effort, just to notice 5 of the tabs offer no new posts.

Further the page does not keep track which tab was lastly selected. So on mobile (again ) the very simple use case below fails.

- Go to Stratics
- Select "Professions" forum
- Scroll down to the "Spellcaster" forum (you have to scroll on those narrow screens in any case)
- Go read a topic in the "Spellcaster" forum
- Hit normal browser "back" button

Expected:
- Go back to Professions forum, scrolled down to Spellcaster forum area

Actual:
- Go back to General
- Scroll up to tab navigation
- Click tiny "Professions" again
- Scroll down again

This tab based global navigation is a desaster. It was before, but it didn't affect UO as long as you bookmarked only the UO tab. Nobody even read Stratics central on the old navigation, for that very reason.

Hope you understand my point. I can live with only reading UHall though.

I doubt the xenforo designers intended that little tab based navigation to be abused that far. It was not the choice of the current staff in the first place, so please consider removing it all together if possible.

 

[Kirthag]

Well, that's my take on the changes to the board navigation. No offense intended, just trying to be honest.

Before the latest changes the top navigation items were like "Stratics general", "Wow", "UO", "SotA" and so on. I had UO bookmarked and could see all UO forums along with there post counts on one page. Everything besides UO was pretty much dead land, because it is a pain to keep up with changes across this top most navigation.

View attachment 29992

Now that UO moved up the ladder to this place, guess what? Everything besides "General" has become dead land to me.

On the mobile this things are a bit harder to click and most time not worth the effort, just to notice 5 of the tabs offer no new posts.

Further the page does not keep track which tab was lastly selected. So on mobile (again ) the very simple use case below fails.

- Go to Stratics
- Select "Professions" forum
- Scroll down to the "Spellcaster" forum (you have to scroll on those narrow screens in any case)
- Go read a topic in the "Spellcaster" forum
- Hit normal browser "back" button

Expected:
- Go back to Professions forum, scrolled down to Spellcaster forum area

Actual:
- Go back to General
- Scroll up to tab navigation
- Click tiny "Professions" again
- Scroll down again

This tab based global navigation is a desaster. It was before, but it didn't affect UO as long as you bookmarked only the UO tab. Nobody even read Stratics central on the old navigation, for that very reason.

Hope you understand my point. I can live with only reading UHall though.

I doubt the xenforo designers intended that little tab based navigation to be abused that far. It was not the choice of the current staff in the first place, so please consider removing it all together if possible.

Thanks Pete for your feedback.

I am going over User Experience and having to make some very hard decisions regarding many of the boards.

You are browsing on a mobile, thank you for that info! Droid, iOS or Windows? Are you using the device web browser or are you using Tapatalk?

 

[petemage]

Thanks for considering it. I really enjoy all the other boards, but it's always hard to fight against human lazyness I guess there are three kind of people: Those who no matter what click all tabs, those who no matter what only visit on tab or only uhall, and then people like me passviely changing habits because somehow it takes a little more effort for doing the daily things here.

It's Android with standard Chrome for me.

Further I would like to thank all you staff for listening to us players a lot lately. I can feel the pain with some of us

 

[Kirthag]

Thanks for the info. I'll keep in mind the 'droid setup in my UI testing for Stratics.
I may just have to create a more responsive template - but it will take a wee bit of time. Meantime, the best I can offer is to use your mobile device during the day after bookmarking your fave forums (might have to make a few bookmarks) but do your cruising of the boards from your desktop or laptop when you get home.

You can also get Tapatalk and subscribe to certain boards for updates. I use that on my cellphone for hot threads i want to track, while using the iPad to browse & read more indepth. Of course, my typing and responding is almost always done on the desktop. my devices tend to auto-correct a wee bit too much for my sanity.

 

[Kirthag]

Thank you everyone that responded!

The default theme for the forum is the UO-Classic theme.
The "Fluid" themes will stay on as options for community members who are logged in.

You can update your style preference after logging in, hovering over your user name and then clicking the "Preferences" link in the popup:


Then, at the very top of the page that display, you want to choose the theme you prefer to view the forums with:


I will be culling the Available Styles list to the following:
UO Classic
(Fluid) Stratics Quark (the dark one)
(Fluid) Stratics Antiquark (the light one)

This will help us when making major updates to the forums by lowering the number of files that need updating.

Thank you all for participating and posting your feedback! Look for more polls and feedback threads as we progress!


From all of us volunteering at Stratics - Thankies!