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New Forum Issue: Theme — Parallax Forums

New Forum Issue: Theme

DavidZemonDavidZemon Posts: 2,973
in General Discussion
As might have been mentioned here and there, one or two users aren't happy with the forum theme.

We now have a dedicated place to rant, and a dedicated place for Jim and Bump to read (or not) said rants.
As recommended by Ken, discussion on the theme only.
Responsive design has been mentioned many times. If we knew the name of this new forum software, we the community might be able to suggest new themes (or write one?).

Comments

  • DavidZemonDavidZemon Posts: 2,973
    I think a lot of people would like to see this theme given a shot. The live demo doesn't seem to be working unfortunately :(

    http://vanillaforums.org/addon/dresponsive-theme

    The author also mentions that it has a max width of 960 pixels. Seems odd to me. I bought my big monitor for a reason and now you're saying I can't use it? Hmmm....Anyway, it's a start!
  • tingotingo Posts: 87
    Yes, please give us a theme that adapts to the device (any device) we use to browse and participate in these forums.
  • BumpBump Posts: 592
    The Forum Software is "Vanilla Forums", this theme is responsive, currently there are only a few breaks for media query. The forum also uses, a currently purposefully stunted, media detect to figure out the type of device you may be browsing on.
    To observe this feature, if you're using a tablet or mobile device you will see a very basic default mobile theme that comes with Vanilla. More responsive versions of the current Parallax Theme will be deployed in the future to fit the most standard window sizes normally supported in the web-design realm.
    If something specific troubles you, please let Parallax know, through this forum or by sending a message to my inbox on the forums, or Jen J., and we'll take it into consideration as we continue to advance the functionality and usability of these discussion forums.
    I'm still reading through, but the only big complaint to the theme has been lack-of-decent-mobile theme and lots of white-space for the 1920x1080 monitors out there. Both fairly pretty easy to fix up. Maybe as I keep reading I'll see others, but please let us know.
  • SapphireSapphire Posts: 496
    Default font is too small and hard to read. Color is low contrast, should be black text not light blue.
    Easier way to post code (i.e. bb tags).
    Avatars too small.
    A "top" button at the bottom of each page.
    A help page with a listing of commands.
    A working posts counter (at least for some it works, other it does not)






  • DavidZemonDavidZemon Posts: 2,973
    @Bump,
    I do not like the purposefully stunted design. A proper responsive design should not be based solely on what kind of device, but also how big my window is. When I shrink the browser window on my desktop, a responsive design needs to respond and rearrange the web page accordingly so that I can still read content in the now-very-small window.

    bad_response.png
    482 x 406 - 57K
  • GordonMcCombGordonMcComb Posts: 3,366
    edited 2015-07-01 05:46
    I think Bump meant the media query was purposely stunted, maybe to limit browser issues until things get nailed down better. I'm pretty sure, though, that much of this has been hammered out in other cross-platform code, and when well-researched, there aren't a lot of surprises left. 
    For really basic implementations, there are some issues relying solely on the user-agent to determine device width, as there are with relying only on screen width in pixels (Retina-based displays).  As I recall, for the latter you also need to query DPI. And so forth. So it's best to do it right from the get-go.
    There is a problem with this theme related to the top menu. It's not in a responsive DIV (from the source it seems to be a class called Row), so when you shrink the size, it doesn't collapse. No sense getting hot and bothered over it, though, as I think we're all demanding a better theme anyway.
  • Cluso99Cluso99 Posts: 18,069
    1. The default font size and contrast are poor.
    2. Too much white space on my laptop screen. Yes it needs to resize automatically like the old forum software did.
    3. The default for threads needs to be date, not anything else.
    4. The default emailing out for each post needs to be off. I received emails 70+ today.
    These are things that should have been addressed before deployment. They are urgent.
  • GenetixGenetix Posts: 1,754
    Black text on white is very straining on the eyes especially when the font is tiny.
    Gotta love the legal disclaimer sized fonts on a desktop.
    :tongue:
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