After php and html fiddling galore I've posted the new design for the forums.  It's a bit cleaner than the current one with better navigation IMO.  Check it out for yourself!

http://altpop.com/stc/forums-new/index.php

One caveat is that logging in or even opening a page in the new forums will automatically log you out of the old ones, and vice versa.  Thus it's my recommendation for you forum regulars to change your bookmarks to the new URLs and just go with it

I plan to go with this new design sooner rather than later but want to give you guys a chance to try it out first.  By all means let me know what you think!

Addendum: I have added an extra stylesheet that is closer in style to the original forum design.  You can try it by clicking your Profile link, then clicking the Display link in the left sidebar, then choosing "STC-basic" in the drop-down box and clicking Submit.  Please have a look and let me know which style you prefer.

I only see a blank page... is that normal?

Sorry, silly mistake on my part.  Should be working now!

No offence, but I honestly have to say I prefer the old-style integrated interface over the new "generic" one, the latter just reminds me of 99% of all boards on the net (not a good thing for me as I never really liked them anywhere).

I also mean no offense, but I definitely prefer the current design. I prefer its layout and, if nothing else, the color scheme is easier on the eyes (and reminiscent of the old STC days). If you're set on keeping the new design, is it possible to still have the current design as an option? I know you like a simple, no-thrills board, but two scheme options is better than one.

Looks alright, but I definitely prefer the old style like we got now.

Add me to the group the prefers the current one!

Not really a fan of the new look, *bb forums all look the same and are pretty generic.

Stick with what's tried and true.

As long as I get the same content, I'm okay with either design.

There's just something about this current design that doesn't look as, shall I say, generic as the new one?

The current design screams to me, "STC!"

Sorry, Adam, but I'm going to have to join the choir here.  The current design is a lot more appealing than the new one.

That's true, and that's why I think the current one is nicer.

I quite like it. But then, if it works, I don't really mind one way or another.

I'm definitely loving the idea of removing the right navigation pane on the current forums.  Really gives you a lot more room to work with.  I also like your slightly new color scheme which gives it less of a yellow feel and does away with the alternating colors for the posts list.  I'm not digging the top part of the new design though, just something about it, looks way too fugly and busy I guess.  I did a little mock up in Photoshop earlier, kinda taking the best of both worlds and combining it into one design.

http://home.nycap.rr.com/mterry/stc.png

Thoughts?

-Mike

Same here.  I've already updated my bookmarks with the new design, so I'm totally cool with it.   

I do like how my user avatar pops up on the top when I'm logged in, and I agree with Mike about having the right-navigation pane placed to the top.  One thing that is irking me -- and this could be the most trite thing you'll ever hear, Adam -- was the "T" in Soundtrack Central always upper-cased like that?  It just looks..... off to me.

This looks like a happy medium. Although I could do without that large gap between the board categories and the header.

Well if it's open to discussion...I like the idea of Miker's suggestion, but I didn't see the quick navigation links/breadcrumbs to the parent forum categories..so if a revision is emminent, .that should still be in place.

Regardless, Content is key here Adam, and the forums continue to be a regular visit for me...The new design is just as well as the previous, for me..

Also because I forget, how come the parent site has not seen an update in years?  Are we forever directed to view other VGM review sites?

regards,

Funny, that's the first thing I noticed too.

Heh yeah, my mock up was just a quick cut and paste job.  Obviously I wouldn't want that gap there either.  What I'd want in there somewhere would be..

.. that!  But it'd have to be cleaner looking than the current "new" design that's up.  Maybe make the white box in my design a little bigger and throw the quick nav links, etc in that spot.  The cleaner the better.

-Mike

Hmm the negative reaction is a little disappointing.  I should point out that a new forum design is not a question of if but when, but obviously I do want to make the shift as comfortable for you all as possible.  Those of you who don't care for the new design, if you can give me any specific aspects you don't like that'll help a lot.

The top navigation is going to stay in some form or another, although I am open to changing the appearance around.  It just makes more sense to have the main nav at the top, and I want it to be a consistent navigation for not only the forums but the rest of the site as well.

Aside from that I get the feeling it's the extra boxes and colors some of you don't like about the new design.  I will try to work on a seperate selectable stylesheet that mimics the "open" look of the old design, although the basic layout will be the same as the new one.

Angela, the capital T in SoundTrack is something I put in at the beginning and kind of forgot about.  It is a little hokey I suppose so I will change it

Mike, that's awesome you went through the trouble of doing that Photoshop mockup.  If I get that new stylesheet up with the more open look I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts on it.

Brandonk, I am not nearly a design-oriented enough person to go through the trouble of making a new forum design just for the heck of it.  It all fits into a larger plan   That said the direct answer to your question would be a combination of business and laziness on my part, but I am working on it!

Keep the comments coming!

Comments:

Tables, padding, and the borders. Sorry, it just looks like someone who just learned HTML and went crazy. The old design was minimalistic and functional which I admired and respected.

The gap between the board and header bugs me. I don't really need to see my avatar on the screen at all times. Soundtrack Central in this box is also redundant. If I want to remember where I am I have a title bar on my browser! Also it says soundtrack central above on the header as well.

Not a fan of the header at all. I have always hated these things (for example gamedev.net added an atrocious css menu a few years ago) because they don't make navigation any easier so this is probably just a personal issue.

Font sizes vary on some pages (topic list for example) which I don't really see a point to. There never was any difficulty differentiating between the sections because of the use of color.

The layout is so fat it no longer fits on my 800x600 CRT (yes I still use this frequently) without scrolling.

I'll try to pick it apart some more later

EDIT:
I'm getting these odd you do not have permission to modify topic errors when I try to post responses now.

The only place it says "Soundtrack Central" in the header is on the index page right?  I can remove that no problem.

I don't quite follow you here.  Without something of the sort you're not going to have any navigation at all.  Are you saying you prefer a sidebar to a top header?  If you're browsing 800*600 I would think you'd want the extra horizontal real estate.

What OS and browser are you using?  I've tested it at 800*600 on IE7 and Firefox on XP and it fits.

That is definitely not good at all.  If you can mail me the URL you're at the next time you get that message I'd appreciate it.

Okay as the edited message at the top says, I've added an extra stylesheet that is closer to the original forum design.  Please follow the instructions there (in the first post in this thread) to try it out.  More to everybody's taste perhaps?

Looks great to me. You know us, we fear change. Give it a week and people will love it. And then say they prefer it to whatever new look you come up with in a few years.

The new design is still too much on the high contrast side for my taste, even switching to the old style doesn't remove any of the inducted cluttering since the heavy colouring around it stays pretty much the same.

But matter of taste aside I dislike how the new site design forces the page width to around 800px. On the old style site (which I'm using again right now) one can decrease the width plentyfold, which is especially helpful for making long message paragraphs more readable.

Here's a quick draft. (Sorry for the width..) With the current color scheme (lighter blue, yay) and less borders, I think it's a little easier on the eyes than the new look.

Eh, it's ok, but I still like current design more.  In the current design, the lighter blue and the subtle gray backdrop behind the poster's name are both nice.  I don't particularly like the block menu at the top of the new design.  The whole thing kinda comes off as more industrial and less friendly looking than the current one.

Much obliged, good sir.  Keep up the great work.  ^_^

Made a few more tweaks.  The heading background blue is slightly lighter (much lighter than that and it starts to look outright "bright" to me), there are a few less borders, and the minimum width has been lowered to 600 pixels.

I've made it the default style for the new design since most people prefer a look closer to the old forum design.  Throw any further suggestions my way

It definitely looks better now. Maybe use some background color for every other row, though? Might look less bright then.

Right now, if you view the new forums and back out to the old ones, you get logged out.  Any reason why?

The fewer borders make it look much better already. A couple things left I'd change:
-The left side of the messages with the name/avatar currently has a rather ridiculous fixed width. I'd suggest to change it to the width on the old board or a comparable proportional width.
-The colour scheme is still on the cold side, I think the yellow-grey background colour of the old board's name/avatar side should be used instead the colder pink-gray background colour of the new one.
-I don't quite understand why the header menu uses so many different styles for links. There are links with border, without border or combined within one huge border. Also the links there use four different font sizes, as well as have two different behaviour on mouse hovering. On keyboard focus the mouse hovering look is not reused. More consistency there should look and feel better.
-The horizontal line at the bottom of every page is pretty superfluous. I'd remove it.

Odd as it may sound, I actually kind of like having that grey bar on the right side of the screen, with navigation at the top.  Now that I have a computer with a 16:9 screen, the new design makes the text a little bit too wide for me.  I know next to nothing about web design and all that, though, so I don't know if that's the kind of thing that you can do anything about or not (or even if you'd want to).

And yeah, I also like the visual variety of the current look.  The amount of different shades of grey and blue give it a bit homier look.  But the most recent version of the new design you've shown is a bit better than it was before! 

The only thing that bugs me is that the big "Soundtrack Central" at the top isn't centered on the webpage, it looks like it's centered over the Topics/Posts part of the page. OCD says "no".

Not always. For a while it wasn't there at all. Or was that the "d"?

That was the D, yes.