Improving mergenine: orange style

Discuss aspects of the community itself and talk about the people and ideas that make this place work.
User avatar
The Konami Number
Posts: 586
Joined: 2008.09.19 (12:27)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/Atilla

Postby Atilla » 2008.09.27 (03:39)

Rather than creating a whole new style, I think I'll work on improving this one. Feel free to help out.

So! First up:

In order to give the skin a bit more contrast, could we change the background for posts to the colour 19063b, put the title gradient (attached) in the section with the username and post subject at the top of each post, and the bottom gradient (also attached) in the section with the edit and quote buttons, at the bottom of each post? The result should look something like this, which I think is a lot nicer.

Also, the online/offline images are awful (and orange). If anyone wants to make replacements, that would be great. Make sure they're either different colours, or that the online one is brighter than the offline one. That doesn't seem to be the case currently and it irks me.

EDIT: In the list of other things which should be easily fixed, I just noticed that it's difficult to see the borders in nested quotes, because the background and borders are almost identical shades of grey. Make the borders lighter, please. It might also be better to make the title text for quotes white or light grey, rather than the current dark grey, but that's less of an issue since it's still quite readable.
Attachments
bottomgradient.png
(153 Bytes) Downloaded 836 times
titlegradient.png
(187 Bytes) Downloaded 837 times

User avatar
Average Time to Take Breakfast in Equador
Posts: 640
Joined: 2008.09.27 (03:11)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/geti
MBTI Type: ENFJ
Contact:

Postby Geti » 2008.09.27 (03:50)

t'would be nice to have some orange rather than purple, and a little more contrast. i like the hashing though, not smooth gradients..
id make it so that everything is square, not rounded, as the only things that seem to be are some of the select images.
i think it may be better if instead of making the post area purple, you made it the same as the text-fields backgrounds, although maybe with 3px gaps between the lighter colours.. i really like the text-based everything of the new forums though.
i might get to work on the online/offline things.
spoiler

"I'd be happy for a lion if it hunted me down and ate me, but not so happy for it if it locked up me and my family, then forced us to breed so it may devour our offspring." - entwilight <3
How do you know that God didn't intend for humans to be the animals' caretakers? He might be appalled that He gave us these animals to use and we're fucking eating them. - Tsukatu
4th - DDA Speedrunning Contest.
One Hundred Percent Vegetarian

deviantArt Profile - 1BarDesign
God knows if i'm back.

User avatar
Ego Lancer
Posts: 303
Joined: 2008.09.26 (06:13)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/PsychoSnail
MBTI Type: ISTP
Location: The Gaming subforum

Postby PsychoSnail » 2008.09.27 (04:04)

Geti wrote:t'would be nice to have some orange rather than purple
Yeah, I'm currently using the FiProBlack style, and I like it - it uses orange and black/grey as its main colors, which looks pretty nice, not to mention that it keeps it consistent with NUMA.

Oh, by the way, why is it called mergenine: orange style if it's mainly purple and black?
spoiler

Image
Opera innovates, Firefox emulates.
Last updated: September 27th, 2009


User avatar
La historia me absolverá
La historia me absolverá
Posts: 2228
Joined: 2008.09.19 (14:27)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/maestro
MBTI Type: INTP
Location: Beijing
Contact:

Postby 乳头的早餐谷物 » 2008.09.27 (04:18)

Atilla's suggestions for adding more contrast are definitely good, but I agree that some orange would work well.
M E A T N E T 1 9 9 2

Image

User avatar
Hawaii Five-Oh
Posts: 921
Joined: 2008.09.26 (05:49)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/condog_111
MBTI Type: ISTJ
Location: Melbourne-ish

Postby Condog » 2008.09.27 (04:22)

PsychoSnail wrote:Oh, by the way, why is it called mergenine: orange style if it's mainly purple and black?
For irony's sake? To mess with our heads? It's a name, it doesn't have to describe the subject correctly, or even at all.

Great work Atilla, although I think it would look better with faint diagonal lines instead of a solid gradient. And as maestro said, some orange would look nice.
Image

Ice Climbers are awesome. Deal with it.

User avatar
La historia me absolverá
La historia me absolverá
Posts: 2228
Joined: 2008.09.19 (14:27)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/maestro
MBTI Type: INTP
Location: Beijing
Contact:

Postby 乳头的早餐谷物 » 2008.09.27 (04:24)

Another thing: the alignment of the user names and data. Either have it all left-justified or have it all centered, because at the moment it's uneven.
M E A T N E T 1 9 9 2

Image

User avatar
The Konami Number
Posts: 586
Joined: 2008.09.19 (12:27)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/Atilla

Postby Atilla » 2008.09.27 (04:45)

It was initially orange (like, everything which is currently purple was the same shade of bright orange) and we changed it to purple because we thought it looked better.

If you want orange instead of purple it might be better for you to work on the FiBlackPro skin, since it's already close to what you're looking for. Orange in addition to purple is a possibility, though I'm not sure how it'd work out.

Also, I did up some quick online/offline icons. Opinions?
Attachments
online_text_alt.png
(1.55 KiB) Downloaded 773 times
offline_text_alt.png
(1.68 KiB) Downloaded 773 times

User avatar
Average Time to Take Breakfast in Equador
Posts: 640
Joined: 2008.09.27 (03:11)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/geti
MBTI Type: ENFJ
Contact:

Postby Geti » 2008.09.27 (04:50)

i did some patterns for stuff like online/offline, but i lost motivation quickly, as you can see.
maybe could use lightened borders, but you can do that, right? ;)
attached.
Attachments
backpat3.png
3, probably online
(748 Bytes) Downloaded 767 times
backpat2.png
2, either.
(650 Bytes) Downloaded 770 times
backpat1.png
1 (probably offline)
(245 Bytes) Downloaded 770 times
spoiler

"I'd be happy for a lion if it hunted me down and ate me, but not so happy for it if it locked up me and my family, then forced us to breed so it may devour our offspring." - entwilight <3
How do you know that God didn't intend for humans to be the animals' caretakers? He might be appalled that He gave us these animals to use and we're fucking eating them. - Tsukatu
4th - DDA Speedrunning Contest.
One Hundred Percent Vegetarian

deviantArt Profile - 1BarDesign
God knows if i'm back.

User avatar
The Konami Number
Posts: 586
Joined: 2008.09.19 (12:27)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/Atilla

Postby Atilla » 2008.09.27 (05:05)

Stripey gradients, for those who wanted them.
Attachments
bottomgradient_alt.png
(352 Bytes) Downloaded 755 times
titlegradient_alt.PNG
(339 Bytes) Downloaded 757 times

User avatar
Hawaii Five-Oh
Posts: 921
Joined: 2008.09.26 (05:49)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/condog_111
MBTI Type: ISTJ
Location: Melbourne-ish

Postby Condog » 2008.09.27 (06:23)

Oooooh, I like those ones. Nicely done.
Image

Ice Climbers are awesome. Deal with it.

User avatar
The maximum possible score in one turn at darts.
Posts: 190
Joined: 2008.09.26 (13:15)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/runningninja
Location: The indefinite integral of the derivative of x

Postby runningninja » 2008.09.27 (12:25)

Really nice, Atilla.
I'm currently using Hermes, BTW.
Image

Ice Cold
Posts: 203
Joined: 2008.09.27 (05:04)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/turtles

Postby Turtle » 2008.09.27 (20:11)

I like those, Atilla.
Anyone think that maybe orange would make it too halloween-esque? Or is that just me? Although whatever color we end up choosing, a more neon style than the pastel purple we have now would look very cool.

User avatar
The Konami Number
Posts: 586
Joined: 2008.09.19 (12:27)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/Atilla

Postby Atilla » 2008.09.28 (02:21)

I was thinking that the title bars which currently use the black gradient could instead be orange. More of a light, bright orange, that is, not pumpkin orange. It'd be a bit of a break from the purple without making the whole skin orange. Not sure how well it'd go with the text, though... it might be a little difficult to read.

User avatar
Antagonistic Fencesitter
Posts: 347
Joined: 2008.09.21 (06:09)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/KinGAleX
Location: Australia, Australia, Australia

Postby KinGAleX » 2008.09.28 (03:01)

Atilla, those gradients you've used make the skin look twenty times better. I find it to be great in some respects, but just slightly tacky and "we got this from someone else's site" in others. Are you planning to release a full redo of the skin once you've addressed these small issues? I'd like to implement those gradients straight away, but don't know how.
Image
* Sig provided by Steve.
* Avatar manufactured by LittleViking.
More relevant images!

Image
Image

spect - There are more posts like this and it's like posting "I don't have any pie." in a Pie Forum.

User avatar
The Konami Number
Posts: 586
Joined: 2008.09.19 (12:27)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/Atilla

Postby Atilla » 2008.09.28 (03:44)

KinGAleX wrote:Atilla, those gradients you've used make the skin look twenty times better. I find it to be great in some respects, but just slightly tacky and "we got this from someone else's site" in others. Are you planning to release a full redo of the skin once you've addressed these small issues? I'd like to implement those gradients straight away, but don't know how.
Unfortunately, neither do I. I'll try looking at the code and see what I can work out, though. Alternative is sorting everything out, then handing LV or someone a list of instructions.

I also want to fiddle around with things a bit more. Maybe splash a bit of orange around, and work on a title image.

User avatar
Demon Fisherman
Posts: 1265
Joined: 2008.09.19 (06:28)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/
MBTI Type: ENTP

Postby blue_tetris » 2008.09.28 (14:22)

Atilla wrote:
KinGAleX wrote:Atilla, those gradients you've used make the skin look twenty times better. I find it to be great in some respects, but just slightly tacky and "we got this from someone else's site" in others. Are you planning to release a full redo of the skin once you've addressed these small issues? I'd like to implement those gradients straight away, but don't know how.
Unfortunately, neither do I. I'll try looking at the code and see what I can work out, though. Alternative is sorting everything out, then handing LV or someone a list of instructions.

I also want to fiddle around with things a bit more. Maybe splash a bit of orange around, and work on a title image.
There's gonna be a problem with "handing LV or someone instructions", unless that someone is a non-mod. We really don't have the time, expertise, or energy to dedicate to that. We're gonna be modding the big PHP things on the forums or leading up other projects. If someone wants to do a new style, they're largely on their own. You can find out how to package styles on http://www.phpbb3styles.net/ by downloading one of their samples. If it's packaged this way, all we have to do is drag and drop.
Image
The Real N Sex on the Xerox Space Pimp Online Super Fluffy Pack 1! Super Fluffy Pack 2! Super Crunchy Pack! Mother Thumping Impossible: 2005 MotY! Time is on My Side: 2006 PMotY! Survival map king! Best humor award! Best satire award! Best voice award! Inadvertently intimidating! Assholier than thou! Gdubs is totally back! WIS 14! Cyberzone creator! Clique creator! Most lines on IRC! Ventrilo moderator and regular! Certified Dungeon Master! Most modest person ever! ENTP! Incorrigible alcoholic! CHA 19! AMERICAN! Least pretentious! Elitist extraordinaire! Liberal libertarian! Incapable of experiencing love! Check Safe! Commodore of the Eldritch Seas! Archmagus of the Eleventh Hall! Sheriff of the Uncharted West! Godfather of the IRC Mafia! Pun enthusiast! Quadster! Challenging Dunbar's number! Wikipedian!Approves of 4th Edition! 1,000 Blank White Cards! radio_free_tetris! Migratory! INT 18! Doesn't know when he's being genuine, therefore cannot form lasting relationships with people! Really into black chicks! Even more into Indian chicks and Blasians! Hates moderators! Loves the C word! Tronster! Thinks we should play more Worms! Always wins iSketch! Owns a Wii! Plays as Pikachu in Smash Bros! Wrote literotica! Wrote anime fanfic! Sorta into Asians! Lived and loved the 80's and 90's! Chattiest sig! Cyberzone ][ creator! Operand of the Greater Space Pimp Continuum! Helped lead the forum move!Wizard Date! Participated in the blue_tetris takeover! Pithiest one-liners! Walkin' on, walkin' on broken glass! Seems to have an invisible touch! Economist! Mario hackster! Owner of the most complex D&D campaign setting! Micromanagerial! FREEDOM is all-American! Slowly distancing! Supports the Democrats! Supports the old GOP! CATO Institute fanboy! Penn and Teller fan! Large, in charge, and on a barge! Heralded by community as genius hero! Proud yet humble recipient of the Mare & Raigan Award for 2008! CON 9! Dave of Nazareth! Communist is annoyed with me! Not half bad at images! F.Y.I. I am a medic! It's a spook house, lame ball. Too bad! Space Pimp II: Rags 2 Bitches! F.Y.I. I am a spy! Entire team is babbies! STR 10! Sorta appreciating scythe and atob again, for new reasons! Played CS:S briefly! Welcome to Nebraska! Do you think you can Live! Heist! Portrayer of the mighty 88 Shells! Joyous proprietor of the future estate of Kablizzy and blue_tetris! It's Batmen all the way up! They brought crystals to a sceince fight; that's a good way to lose your cat! Even SlappyMcGee! I'm about to run out of either primates or sexually transmitted diseases! One-upper! Toaster oven clairvoyant Mythomaniac! That's the Magic of Macy's! Half of Half! Spend all my time making love, all my love making time!

User avatar
The Konami Number
Posts: 586
Joined: 2008.09.19 (12:27)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/Atilla

Postby Atilla » 2008.09.29 (05:02)

How's this? I've included some orange as per request. I actually think the orange goes nicely with the purple background... better than it did with black.

Strangely, the title image appears to be dictated by the actual page code (in the div_id="logodesc" section) rather than the style CSS. This means I can't centre and size my image without screwing around with the index (index.htm in the base folder has the alterations I made to do it for the screenshot), so you might have to do that manually. Or someone who actually understands this stuff might have to figure out a work-around.

Also, I can't find where you'd put a gradient for the top and bottom row of the posts. I'm not sure if you can do that without affecting all tables, the way this is set up... still, I think it looks a *lot* better with the colours. I've used smooth gradients because the striped ones looked *really* odd, mostly because they didn't quite match up at the column borders. I might make a more subtle pattern if people want it, but personally I quite like the smooth ones.

There are a few other things that could probably be changed or improved, but I think it'll be easier to actually get what I've done implemented, and then identify the problems that way. It's difficult for me to single-handedly test every possible page without having an actual forum. And I think what I've done so far is still an improvement.

I've left the colours for the groups alone, since I'm pretty sure it's much easier to use the admin CP to change them, especially given our non-standard groups. If the admins could do those manually, that would be great.
Attachments
m9orange.zip
(283.36 KiB) Downloaded 198 times
forumtest.PNG

User avatar
Hawaii Five-Oh
Posts: 921
Joined: 2008.09.26 (05:49)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/condog_111
MBTI Type: ISTJ
Location: Melbourne-ish

Postby Condog » 2008.09.29 (05:25)

Atilla, that looks stunning. The header is absolutely amazing, and the whole look is comes together so well. Really great work, I hope Dave approves. ;)
Image

Ice Climbers are awesome. Deal with it.

User avatar
Semimember
Posts: 15
Joined: 2008.09.23 (18:10)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/AlliedEnvy
Location: Houston, TX

Postby AlliedEnvy » 2008.09.29 (10:54)

Atilla, I've uploaded your style as m9orange. It's a little wonky in the top banner.

I had to rename it in all 4 .cfg files. If you make any changes and reupload it, would you do that, too?
      __
     /\ \   _ _ _          _ ______
    /  \ \ | | (_)        | |  ____|
   / /\ \ \| | |_  ___  __| | |__   _ ____   ___   _
  / / /\ \ \ | | |/ _ \/ _` |  __| | '_ \ \ / / | | |
 / / /__\_\ \| | |  __/ (_| | |____| | | | V /| |_| |
/ / /________\_|_|\___|\__,_|______|_| |_|\_/  \__, |
\/___________/ Any sufficiently advanced kludge __/ |
     is indistinguishable from careful design. |___/

User avatar
Hawaii Five-Oh
Posts: 921
Joined: 2008.09.26 (05:49)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/condog_111
MBTI Type: ISTJ
Location: Melbourne-ish

Postby Condog » 2008.09.29 (11:04)

AlliedEnvy wrote:Atilla, I've uploaded your style as m9orange. It's a little wonky in the top banner.
That's more than a little wonky for me. It's been compressed horizontally and stretched vertically, whoch pushes the rest of the page down.
Attachments
M9oranges.png
Image

Ice Climbers are awesome. Deal with it.

User avatar
The Konami Number
Posts: 586
Joined: 2008.09.19 (12:27)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/Atilla

Postby Atilla » 2008.09.29 (12:07)

O_o

I can't even see the top banner in any of three browsers. There's not a space for it or anything. I assumed AE left it out due to technical issues.

Anyway, I *think* I found a mistake in one of the .cfg files which might explain it. All the other images are listed with *y*x, whereas I gave the banner *x*y. If you could replace the imageset .cfg file with this one, it should fix the skewed dimensions. The forum won't let me upload .cfg or .txt, so you'll have to unzip it instead.

The image will still probably be off-centre, though, due to the afore-mentioned problems with the index.htm determining its positioning. And I have no idea why it's not showing up for me.
Attachments
imageset_cfg.zip
(1.03 KiB) Downloaded 178 times

User avatar
Semimember
Posts: 15
Joined: 2008.09.23 (18:10)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/AlliedEnvy
Location: Houston, TX

Postby AlliedEnvy » 2008.09.29 (15:38)

Done. Looks good.
      __
     /\ \   _ _ _          _ ______
    /  \ \ | | (_)        | |  ____|
   / /\ \ \| | |_  ___  __| | |__   _ ____   ___   _
  / / /\ \ \ | | |/ _ \/ _` |  __| | '_ \ \ / / | | |
 / / /__\_\ \| | |  __/ (_| | |____| | | | V /| |_| |
/ / /________\_|_|\___|\__,_|______|_| |_|\_/  \__, |
\/___________/ Any sufficiently advanced kludge __/ |
     is indistinguishable from careful design. |___/

User avatar
Phei Phei Pho Phum
Posts: 1456
Joined: 2008.09.26 (12:28)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/Pheidippides
MBTI Type: ISFJ
Location: New Jersey

Postby Pheidippides » 2008.09.29 (15:56)

AlliedEnvy wrote:Done. Looks good.
Very good. Well done, Atilla :)
Image
Follow me! @ninjarobotfeidi #nmaps

User avatar
Diagnosis Mohawk: Bahrain Cock Theory
Posts: 1405
Joined: 2008.09.23 (13:25)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/spawn_of_yanni
MBTI Type: ENFJ
Location: Pittsburgh

Postby Spawn of Yanni » 2008.09.29 (16:07)

I caaaan't really say I'm a fan of the banner as it is. But things are lookin' good, for sure.
Image
feline disrespect from behind

User avatar
Demon Fisherman
Posts: 1265
Joined: 2008.09.19 (06:28)
NUMA Profile: http://nmaps.net/user/
MBTI Type: ENTP

Postby blue_tetris » 2008.09.29 (17:36)

Astounding work. Atilla, good on ya for setting the bar on skinning.
Image
The Real N Sex on the Xerox Space Pimp Online Super Fluffy Pack 1! Super Fluffy Pack 2! Super Crunchy Pack! Mother Thumping Impossible: 2005 MotY! Time is on My Side: 2006 PMotY! Survival map king! Best humor award! Best satire award! Best voice award! Inadvertently intimidating! Assholier than thou! Gdubs is totally back! WIS 14! Cyberzone creator! Clique creator! Most lines on IRC! Ventrilo moderator and regular! Certified Dungeon Master! Most modest person ever! ENTP! Incorrigible alcoholic! CHA 19! AMERICAN! Least pretentious! Elitist extraordinaire! Liberal libertarian! Incapable of experiencing love! Check Safe! Commodore of the Eldritch Seas! Archmagus of the Eleventh Hall! Sheriff of the Uncharted West! Godfather of the IRC Mafia! Pun enthusiast! Quadster! Challenging Dunbar's number! Wikipedian!Approves of 4th Edition! 1,000 Blank White Cards! radio_free_tetris! Migratory! INT 18! Doesn't know when he's being genuine, therefore cannot form lasting relationships with people! Really into black chicks! Even more into Indian chicks and Blasians! Hates moderators! Loves the C word! Tronster! Thinks we should play more Worms! Always wins iSketch! Owns a Wii! Plays as Pikachu in Smash Bros! Wrote literotica! Wrote anime fanfic! Sorta into Asians! Lived and loved the 80's and 90's! Chattiest sig! Cyberzone ][ creator! Operand of the Greater Space Pimp Continuum! Helped lead the forum move!Wizard Date! Participated in the blue_tetris takeover! Pithiest one-liners! Walkin' on, walkin' on broken glass! Seems to have an invisible touch! Economist! Mario hackster! Owner of the most complex D&D campaign setting! Micromanagerial! FREEDOM is all-American! Slowly distancing! Supports the Democrats! Supports the old GOP! CATO Institute fanboy! Penn and Teller fan! Large, in charge, and on a barge! Heralded by community as genius hero! Proud yet humble recipient of the Mare & Raigan Award for 2008! CON 9! Dave of Nazareth! Communist is annoyed with me! Not half bad at images! F.Y.I. I am a medic! It's a spook house, lame ball. Too bad! Space Pimp II: Rags 2 Bitches! F.Y.I. I am a spy! Entire team is babbies! STR 10! Sorta appreciating scythe and atob again, for new reasons! Played CS:S briefly! Welcome to Nebraska! Do you think you can Live! Heist! Portrayer of the mighty 88 Shells! Joyous proprietor of the future estate of Kablizzy and blue_tetris! It's Batmen all the way up! They brought crystals to a sceince fight; that's a good way to lose your cat! Even SlappyMcGee! I'm about to run out of either primates or sexually transmitted diseases! One-upper! Toaster oven clairvoyant Mythomaniac! That's the Magic of Macy's! Half of Half! Spend all my time making love, all my love making time!


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 19 guests