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Gdnet Black (Alpha)

Started by superpig Jan 11, 2011 at 3:44 AM 60 replies 17.9k views

Original Post

Jan 11, 2011 at 3:44 AM

If you look at the bottom of the page, you'll see that there is now a little drop-down box that lets you change your skin (if you're logged in).

I've put together the very beginnings of a dark-based theme, for those of you who HATE THE LIGHT, SSSSSSSSS. It's more of a proto-skin at the moment, but it should allow you to read threads in a lot more comfort. I'll work through the other major pages and fix them as well in time, but I figured that some of you might like to start using it now. Be aware that it is under construction, so don't be surprised if you're browsing the site, and suddenly: POW, RIGHT IN THE KISSER. Er, I mean, the stylesheet.

So yeah. Enjoy. Let me know if you've got better palette suggestions, I'm not an artist and have really just picked shades at random most of the time.

One thing that would help me would be if anyone else is happy to contribute CSS rules to the skin. That way I can just copy and paste them in, and it'll all be done a lot faster.

(edit by Gaiiden)
Please everyone if you notice issues with the black theme, do not use the Feedback tab, but report them here so everyone can see them, offer corrections and superpig can also have all issues in one place for making edits to the theme.

way2lazy2care

Jan 11, 2011 at 4:04 AM

Approve so far. Can you apply similar to the reply box? Not a huge deal because you use it less frequently, but if it's trivial to implement it might be nice.

Oberon_Command

Jan 11, 2011 at 4:13 AM

Ah, much better. Though I'd prefer that the grey be a little darker, I'd say that this is much easier on my eyes.

Washu

Jan 11, 2011 at 4:15 AM

This should make quotes and code blocks nicer:
[attachment=944:changes.png]

.pln {
 color: lightGrey;
 }
 .pun {
 color: blue;
 }
 .kwd {
 color: #1CF;
 }
 div.blockquote{
 background: #1C1C1C;
 border-color: #6FA987;
 border-style: solid;
 border-width: 1px 1px 1px 3px;
 font-size: 0.9em;
 margin: 0px;
 margin-top: 0px;
 }

Luckless

Jan 11, 2011 at 4:20 AM

Thank you. This is so much easier on the eyes.

Only issue I see so far is you have a dark blue font for the "Share this topic" near the bottom of the page, right above the fast reply, which is really hard to read now. But other than that minor issue, everything seems fine.

InvalidPointer

Jan 11, 2011 at 4:26 AM

YAAAY! Now I no longer have to suffer. Upvotes abound!

dwarfsoft

Jan 11, 2011 at 4:59 AM

Definitely prefer this theme to the other one. I still think something needs to be done about the vertical space usage for the profile and awards though.

dwarfsoft

Jan 11, 2011 at 5:03 AM

Definitely prefer this theme to the other one. I still think something needs to be done about the vertical space usage for the profile and awards though.

Appears to be better now with smaller award icons. I did like how the old forums had the avatar in the top left of the box with the vertical bar with the user name coming out of it... Still, it's nice to see you guys improving things on the fly. Fantastic work!

BeanDog

Jan 11, 2011 at 5:05 AM

The post text is too low-contrast to the post background color in this theme; make the post background a little darker, and we'll be in business.

superpig

Jan 11, 2011 at 5:11 AM

I've dropped the background colour by a little bit, it should come through in a few minutes once the caches pick it up. We'll see how it looks.

I've also dropped post count display from the user info panels. I think it's a detrimental thing to display in a forum, because it causes people to post stupid off-topic stuff like 'OH HEY LOOK MY POST COUNT IS 1337 LOOOOOOOL' etc. It also has the benefit of reducing the space usage a little bit. Thoughts, anyone?

dwarfsoft

Jan 11, 2011 at 5:16 AM

Yeah, it is what lead to the post wars back in 2000/2001 IIRC

superpig

Jan 11, 2011 at 5:16 AM

Axed the 'Group: Members' line for people who are just normal members.

superpig

Jan 11, 2011 at 5:22 AM

Limited signatures to 100px. If they're taller than that, they should just get cut off.

frob

Jan 11, 2011 at 5:27 AM

This should make [s][color="#8B0000"]quotes and code blocks[/s] [color="#006400"]everything nicer:
...border-width: 1px 1px 1px 3px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;

Fixed.

I'm actually building my own custom .css to replace my old one in stylish for the site. The padding, margin, and font-size elements are by far my biggest complaints on the new site.

When I first started, I noticed lots of

< div ... height="way too much">content

. A few items had 20+ pixels of useless padding around blocks. The lines of text ads are one such offender.

Just pruning those down gives me a much more readable site. The white space bothered my eyes much more than the color scheme.

karwosts

Jan 11, 2011 at 5:41 AM

Code blocks are pretty difficult to read in black mode, just my opinion.

Dark purple and dark green on black doesn't really stand out very much, looks kind of weird.

Washu

Jan 11, 2011 at 5:44 AM

To fix news posts on front page...

.post, ul.activity li {
 background: #373737 repeat-x 0% 100%;
 border-bottom: 1px solid #CFE3EF;
 margin: 0px -10px;
 padding: 1em 10px;}

Washu

Jan 11, 2011 at 5:47 AM

Code blocks are pretty difficult to read in black mode, just my opinion.

Dark purple and dark green on black doesn't really stand out very much, looks kind of weird.

It was a quick hack to get them looking better.

If you have better suggestions, then contribute the CSS for them

leiavoia

Jan 11, 2011 at 6:00 AM

A few observations on colors and readable web text:

[Qualifications: i do this for a living. ]

[Caveat: Contains personal views; subject to opinion]

Black text on white background: This is the highest contrast you can get and the easiest to read... or so some people claim. This works good for print but not web. Obviously, the bright white is not popular around here and that's because were talking about positive (emissive) color. Translation: it burns your eyes.

White text on black background: You would think this would solve all the problems of the opposite, but it doesn't. It creates bad eyestrain for me.

Anything on midtoned background: congratulations, you've just cut the contrast down, which makes your eyes strain even more!

Best compromise IMNSHO: Black text (#000) on off-white or light grey (#DDD) works well for me. This is also the format of the old GDnet on my account settings. (Surprise!)

The current Black Alpha uses a midtone/dark grey for the posting area with white text. This is actually really hard for me to read. My eyes hurt less than staring at white, but strain more to see.

I would recommend a dark page background, but use a black-on-off-white scheme for the actual post content area.

superpig

Jan 11, 2011 at 6:17 AM

The whole point of this theme is to provide an option for those people who don't like black-on-white, though. Basing it around black-on-white text would somewhat defeat the purpose.

Alpha_ProgDes

Jan 11, 2011 at 7:02 AM

I like the deep black that shows in Washu's post. This gray-black is .... better than the bright default but not as good as the original black.

To add, original black background with gray-offset text would be great!

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