So I've been working on a redesign of the site and it's now up for testing.  (Edit: Now live!)

I know some of you don't care to see changes here, but an improved overall site design is something that for various reasons I needed to get done.  My plan is to leave the test version up for about a week, implement whatever improvements I can in that time, then make the switch.  Please chime in with any constructive criticism of the new design - only a few aspects are set in stone, so please be specific with any likes or dislikes and I'll do what I can to address them.

A couple of notes on the forum functionality of the test site...  Upon logging in to the test site's forums (you can use your usual login and password) you'll be redirected to the current forum site.  This is a bug of the testing phase - if you click back and refresh you should find yourself logged in to the test forums.  Also note that you can't post topics or replies on the test forums, only browse.

The smartphone version of the site isn't done yet but will be when the site goes live.

I'll be occupied for most of the weekend but come Monday I'll start responding to feedback and making what additional tweaks I can.

I like it! My only nitpick is that I wish the updates sidebar was not visible when browsing the forums. Unlike the current version which uses the entire browser window the new board feels squished by the sidebar because of the vertical margins. Maybe have it slide in from the left/right on hover?

I won't have much time this weekend but I'll test on my phone when I'm able.  So far it looks good, I was really hoping that this version of the forums would have an Ignore feature.

Nevermind, it helps to read the full post. 

/*********

I got this when I tried replying, I'm replying now from the live site:

"Bad HTTP_REFERER. You were referred to this page from an unauthorized source. If the problem persists please make sure that 'Base URL' is correctly set in Admin/Options and that you are visiting the forum by navigating to that URL. More information regarding the referrer check can be found in the FluxBB documentation."

Chrome/37.0.2062.124 m

***********/

hehehe

"You don't know what you go till it's gone."

I view this site only on a computer monitor. I strongly prefer the forum look as it is now. I think this is the best looking and most unique forum in terms of layout and color scheme on the internet; The current forum categories being on the x-axis and readily available is better accessed than them being located in one clickable area that unfolds them in a vertical chart. Side-by-side: The color scheme in the newer layout is less distinguished and duller which I think makes for less pleasure. The quote and reply buttons look large and unstylish compared to having them be a blue text encapsulated within the user's post message box which conveys neatness and stylized spaciousness. I disagree with having the sidebar take up as much space as it does in the new version. The front page is unnecessarily longer on the y-axis and forces scrolling which it didn't have before.

It seems like the layout is conformist with other web designs. (Is this being geared to cater primarily to cellphone users due to the change to more vertical scrolling than a wider horizontal one?) It seems like a Facebook timeline change in that it no longer seems that unique. I got used to that.

I love the new design. Gone is the outdated feel. I tried it out on my Nexus 7, too. Main page looks good in every browser I checked (Opera, Firefox, and Chrome) except Dolphin, with which the only gripe is that it, for some reason, cuts the "The best of VGM etc." in half (between words 'soundtracks' and 'since') and makes a new gray line for the two words below the STC "logo". It looks awkward.

The one thing I dislike is that the submenus unfold when hovering on them. This is not possible on touch devices and causes problems, or at least inconveniences, not least because people surf more and more with tablets and phones. Hovering has proved to be a major pain in the ass on many sites. I hope the usability isn't sacrificed at the cost of sleek look. But other than this, I really liked my first sightseeing tour in the new environment. Great work.

A new look already? Our current look's just over a year old. Even so, I generally welcome the changes. There will be an adjustment period, of course, but we've been through that before.

Most of my notes pertain to the forums, since I spend most of my time on this site there. I like the icons representing the different sub-forums. I'd recommend a disc over a music note, as it'd match the physical objects of the other sub-forums, but I wouldn't call that a problem!

To me, the individual posts in a thread almost look like posts in a blog as opposed to a series of replies in a single thread. I guess it's a combination of the site itself's redesign, the big buttons underneath the individual posts, and a change in terminology ("comment" rather than "reply"). Having that comment/reply button at the end of each individual post as opposed to simply at the top and bottom of the thread seems a bit superfluous, too.

I've noticed that the "Last edited by" annotation is no longer visible. I'd like to see this return, as the content of a post can change both frequently and dramatically from the original post to its revision(s).

All of the above I could adjust to, but I have to echo others and say that the drop-down menu for the forum might look better, but impedes navigation--especially on a mobile device. Perhaps that in addition to or in place of these drop-downs, being on a certain section of the site reproduces that drop-down menu as a horizontal menu underneath the main menu. For example, being in the forum section of the site would have the Latest Posts/Soundtracks/Marketplace etc underneath at all times.

As for the rest of the site: fantastic! It looks much slicker and much less cluttered. It's easier on the eyes and easier to navigate. Bigs hats off to you there. I think the colors of the website make things look brighter, even though it's technically darker. I prefer STC's signature shade of dark blue to the brighter one featured in the revamp, and perhaps a slightly darker background for the sidebars. Other than that, though, I think the site is leaps and bounds better in terms of both looks and navigation.

However, my mobile experience--using Chrome on an Android phone--has not been pretty. In portrait mode, everything squishes together. Things look better in landscape mode, but if something happens to be too large (such as the menu bar), things will spill over. I'll send you some screenshots if you'd like.

I haven't done any real testing, but I like the clean, modern design of the test site. Looks good.

Am I the only one that want's this site to go back to how it was in, say, 2009?

I like it, Adam! Nice little touches with the icons next to the forum posts so you can easily see which board they're on. I think it's great that even though we have a small-ish community things are still updated and our mod takes the time to keep caring for the site instead of letting it stagnate.

Thanks for the detailed feedback thus far, I really appreciate it.  And it makes me happy to see that the reactions are in general positive.

What I wrote about the smartphone version not being ready yet applies to tablets as well.  Rest assured that I'll account for touch interaction and lower resolutions in the final design, though once again I'll appreciate hearing how it works on everyone's respective devices.

I did actually try not sticking the sidebar at first but I just hate the way it looks with a huge blank space, and if there were no sidebar at all the main content line width would be wider than is generally recommended for comfortable reading.  I can certainly look into lessening the side margins though.

It's mostly just a design update this time around.  I would like to add a bbcode toolbar in the near future though.

Well I don't think there's anything great about the current color scheme, it's just what I came up with.  Frankly I'm awful at working with color so that is a large reason for the minimalist design.  I also think that quite a lot of other web designs out there are better than the current STC one, so if the new design is more conformist I'm not sure I'd consider that a bad thing.

Well spotted, that was an intentional thematic shift.   The old-school forum has largely been supplanted by the blog post-and-comment system, so I decided to make a shift towards that direction on this site as well, even though the functionality is essentially the same.

I think some members will find them useful.  I also think they help separate individual posts visually.

I'll be sure to look into that one!

Thanks again for the feedback.  If I decide to put the mobile version up for testing before going live I'll be sure to post an update here.

The redesigned forums should be much more mobile-friendly now.  I still need a few days to get the rest of the site mobile-ready, but any feedback on the forums in the meantime is most welcome!

(I realize the Latest Posts sidebar section is currently missing btw; that'll be fixed in the final version.)

Just put "report" far away from "reply" and "quote." 

And we're up!  I've done my best to not leave any loose ends in the transition, but if any part of the site is acting up let me know.  And I'm still open to feedback on the new design.  There are a couple things I'm not one hundred percent on myself so if anyone has suggestions don't hesitate to speak up.

I'm hoping the big exclamation point icon will do the trick.

One thing I'm missing on this new layout is quick way to check new/latest posts, feels so annoying to go into that Topics-dropdown menu. Otherwise feels like a nice facelift.

You don't have to use the drop-down menu, just click the Topics main menu item. Unless you're on a touch device, in which case you will have to show the submenu first.

It'll take me awhile to get used to this, but I have nothing to complain about. Nice work Adam

Well I have a HUGE complaint.

Using what is, admittedly, an older version of FF (28) I literally cannot click anything on the forums. The don't even show up as links and I can't select any text either.

I dunno what kind of voodoo magic is here, but I've never seen such a thing.

First suggestion is to consider upgrading FireFox.  I'm using the current version now (on Windows) and everything works as it should.

That said it would be good to know what the problem is, so if you can try disabling Javascript, reloading, and letting me know whether that solves the problem or not, it will help me narrow things down.

Love it so far. All is good on iPhone. Only suggestion I can make is can you possibly bold the last poster name in the thread views header so it visually pops?

Oh, found one issue on iPhone:

The submit/preview buttons in the reply page don't have their text aligned properly and the go back button in the revise post page is the square version vs. the rounded pill version. Not sure which is intended.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7vckrtqujzcaw … M.png?dl=0

Thanks for the pic, it seriously is worth a thousand words.  Are you using Safari?

The 'started by x' and 'by x' are on opposite sides than typical forums, and that makes it a bit confusing.

No, sorry.  I use Chrome on iOS.  Whatever latest version is (it updates automatically).

Well FWIW I did decide to update FF and it works fine. Though I tried the javascript suggestion and that didn't fix it.

Too many sites seem to break now if you stick with FF28 (which is less than eight months old). Today YouTube comments weren't working (they are now), links weren';t hyperlinked in emails from a certain website (they are now) and this site having absolutely no hyperlinks....I dunno what it is,

BUT ANYWAY, this works now. Not overly fond of the redesign, but then again I wasn't too fond of the last one either and did get used to it.

And one actual legit complaint -- there's no mention of the last post date in each forum on the main forum page.

Something about the original post time and the newest post time is confusing me.  Did you switch them from the previous layout?  My eyes are trained right now to look on the right-most column with the original posters name for the last post information and it's always confusing me when I click it and the poster is different.  If it was originally reversed, would it be possible to switch them back?  I could just retrain myself but it's wildly confusing right now and the only reason I can think of was that it just wasn't like that before.

Yeah, agreed. I clicked on this because I thought Adam had the most recent post. o_O

Suggestion: Move the "New Topic" button to the top of the forum, not the bottom (or mirror it so it's in both places).  It's a little silly to have to scroll to the bottom of the page of one of the sub forums to post a new topic.  It makes sense for "New Comment" to be at the bottom since the general assumption is you're reading a thread, but there's no assumption that you're reading an entire forums thread titles with "New Topic".

Also, to clarify mine and Zanes issue, it's only with the desktop version.  The mobile version doesn't have the column with the original posters name, just the subheading with the latest poster and time, so it doesn't have this issue.

vert1, jb, and Zane:

I did switch the previous layout, putting last post information on the left and first post information on the right. In theory this is the most logical and usable solution - regular visitors presumably care most about when and by whom the most recent posts are, and can now find that information right under the topic titles, without having to look over to the right column.

That said, I realize that what's best in theory isn't always the best way, especially if people are used to something else.  Still I'd like to give the current layout a go for a couple weeks, and if people aren't feeling it after that time then I'll seriously consider changing it back.

I tried fixing this - is it looking better now?

I'm pretty much phasing out the old forum index page really (it's not even in the main menu). Do the Latest Topics and individual forum pages not suffice?

Yeah, having a "new topic" button at the top didn't fit with the new layout.  Fortunately I put a "Create Topic" link right in the main "Topics" menu, so it's only a click away no matter where in the site you are.

The buttons are now both pill-shaped but the text is still not centered in the button.  Minor, but still an issue.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jypq1b0ccu9yu … M.png?dl=0

Dig the new design, Adam. Sleek and clutter-free. Thanks for all the hard work you put into it.

I've added a bit of Javascript trickery to improve image (and hopefully page) loading times.  I've done my share of testing but if anybody finds album images not working correctly please let me know.

Two things:

First, I've completely changed the forum URL structure.  Links should still work same as usual but if you notice anything amiss please let me know.

Second, I've added some tweaks to the quote-replying feature that should make it much more user-friendly.

That is all.

Just posting to let you know that for some reason the Topics button on Mobile is no longer working when you tap it, specifically on Chrome (latest version), iOS (latest version).  It doesn't link anywhere and the pull-down menu doesn't pull down.  Not sure what changed or if I just never noticed it was broken, but I went to reply to that BT thread on my phone and went to try to navigate to the Open Topics forum using the pulldown but it wouldn't work.

It does work from Safari (latest version) though.

If you need specific version numbers I can get them.

Thanks for the heads-up. I'm finding in Android Chrome that it's jumping to the main forum link without giving a chance to select the submenu. Not good in any case, I'll try to get it sorted in the next couple days.