You may have noticed things look... different. It all started so innocent. We needed to update a couple things, and we did. But while we were doing that we thought, "oh, why not address this part too? And that part? And this other one?"
Next thing you know we're feature creeping and the whole skin is getting a makeover along with some layout changes and more consistent typography and color usage. We've been wanting to do this for a while, so it's not a completely random change. Just unplanned timing.
Either way, we hope you like it. We feel it's a bit more modern in style, cleans up a few weird placement issues, and hopefully brings more focus to features that will help you more quickly find the information and interactions you want. It also better sets us up for bigger changes we're planning in the long-term.
The major changes we made, in no particular order:
- The header shrunk in half. This moved the leaderboard ad closer to the content, but it also brought content higher on the page and provided a better framing. It gives us more flexibility in the layout as well because now that ad can be moved around without leaving an empty space. Not that any of you like ads. :)
- All header styles are consistent. Using the Bootstrap 3 framework as a guideline we standardized sizes and shapes for certain elements.
- Increased whitespace. The site should feel less crowded and more breathable.
- Consistent font use. We're now using our 3 fonts - Ubuntu, Open Sans, and Helvetica - in a consistent manner across the site.
- Colors. Consistent and hopefully better pairing. Some articles still need some updates and these may change more over time, but it's a start.
- Layout changes. Nothing major, but various changes were made across the site to improve the display of information or clean things up.
If for some reason you prefer the old style, you can still access it. Click the Change Theme link at the bottom right of the page just above the footer, and you'll see your theme options. The old one is GDNet 3.4.1 - this is GDNet 6.0.
We'll continue to make improvements as needed. A thread about the interface change was started at https://www.gamedev.net/topic/684037-new-interface/. Let us know if you see anything that doesn't look right, or if you'd like to see further changes!
I like it!
But FYI in case anybody is in the same boat as me: I had to change to the new theme manually, it didn't automatically switch over.
Also the switcher is bottom-left (not bottom right).