A few small changes.

[Hawk]

OK! Thanks! But you could have put that image on Aero, since I never use Prosilver.

Good luck with Prosilver.

[Gumboots]

Yeah but at the moment everyone sees Prosilver when if they're not logged in when they rock up. But hey, I can put that banner or any other one on Aero if you like.

Been thinking about Aero actually. The way it's coded is a bit of a mongrel, and frankly I'm not keen on supporting it. But the basic looks of the thing are a no-brainer to duplicate using Prosilver Dark as a basis. It's really just a matter of changing a few link, text and background colours. The translucent border on Aero are easy to do. So it's certainly possible to whip up something that gives the Aero look on a more easily supportable codebase.

[Hawk]

That's fine. You can get rid of Aero if you want. I kind'a like the PsDE anyway.
Make it easy and appealing to you. That's the important thing.

[Gumboots]

Well it can stay for now, and I've thrown that banner on it. What I'm thinking is that I don't mind having a range of different looks (in fact I like that) but it'd be good if they all shared the same templating. There are some things about phpBB templating that bug me, so I'm planning of throwing a few tweaks at it. If those can be kept one set of files then updates will be easy.

[Hawk]

Well it can stay for now, and I've thrown that banner on it.

Cool!

[Gumboots]

Just as an example of what I mean, here's a shot of something I whipped up last night in the ad breaks for Pirates of the Carribbean*. It's Prosilver Dark Edition, live on this site, with about 80 lines of CSS overrides running on top of it (in the Stylish add-on for Pale Moon). Something like this would be quite passable for an easily maintainable light theme.

Had a thought about banners too. They're just defined like this:

Code: Select all

.headerbar>.inner {
	background-image: url(Banner_1.jpg);
	background-size: cover;
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
	background-position: center 65%;
	border-radius: 7px 7px 0 0;
}

That allows them to scale with the screen width, and setting them as background images in the CSS cuts bandwidth and load times compared to an inline image. The groovy bit here is that phpBB sets a class on the body tag depending on where you are. The basic declaration shown above covers all forum pages, which means you always have a banner everywhere. Then if you want to have different banners on different pages you can just add them in, for any style, as it suits you, like this:

Code: Select all

/* For the in-forum/topics list page. */
.section-viewforum .headerbar>.inner {
	background-image: url(Banner_2.jpg);
}
/* For inside a topic. */
.section-viewtopic .headerbar>.inner {
	background-image: url(Banner_3.jpg);
}
/* For the post editor/replies page. */
.section-posting .headerbar>.inner {
	background-image: url(Banner_4.jpg);
}
/* For the user control panel. */
.section-ucp .headerbar>.inner {
	background-image: url(Banner_5.jpg);
}

With a minor markup tweak, it's even possible to set up individual banners for each forum category, or even for each board, if you want to go that far. Which is probably overkill, but it can be done, and it can be done just for the ones you can be bothered with, with the rest falling back to the basic banner. So expect random eye candy every so often, because I know I won't be able to resist having some fun.

Edit: I've just set up a stylesheet switcher for Prosilver Dark. This is not the "Quick Style" in the header that we've had for ages. It's an addition specifically for Prosilver Dark. That style comes with 8 different colour schemes (blue, green, grey, orange, pink, purple, red and yellow). I don't like all of them, but they exist and someone might like some of them.

However, the thing is I'm testing what's possible with alternate stylesheets in the one parent style. For example, I can easily define another sheet (like light_and_snowy.css) to run the code shown in the screenshot. This would give us a good range of styles without having to run an extension and without having to actually install multiple styles. If someone wants to change the look for whatever reason, they just click a button and it's sorted.

Check out the footer of Prosilver Dark, right at the bottom.

*I'm into highly intellectual cinema, y'know.

[Gumboots]

I've just added something else I like having: global "Go to top" and "Go to bottom" links. These are only on Prosilver Dark Edition at the moment.

If you hover your cursor near the left edge of the screen, at any height below the top menu bar, you'll see a half height bar with a double arrow in it. Clicking the upper one takes you to the top of any page, and clicking the lower one takes you to the bottom of any page. I find this very convenient.

[RulerofRails]

Looking good. I used to use the "Unread posts" quick link to check for new posts here without being logged in. Just wondering the reason why it disappeared? I suppose I need to login more often now. With the easier way to do that it's more manageable.

[Gumboots]

Oh that's because if you enable that thing then whenever you aren't logged in it shows everything on the forum as being unread. Which is kinda silly IMO. Especially with the way phpBB makes everything flash on and off, which bugs me a lot. I'd never used it anyway.

[Hawk]

The 'Go to Top' and 'Go to Bottom' links are cool, but having to hover over them to show them might make them kind'a meaningless for most folks; if they don't see them.

Also, I've always just used F5 (or the refresh button in the browser header) for a refresh. Does Ctrl+F5 do something different? It didn't seem to for me.

I like that light blue text for PsDE. What was the default color? I forgot already.

Looks like you're bringing the Hawk & Badger Railroad into the 21st century.

[Gumboots]

The original default was blue, but more intense. I found it a bit much, so toned it down some. I've been doing the same with some of the other colours too.

I like the top and bottom links not being visible all the time, but I might think about having them visible off hover. If I did, they'd be low opacity. I'd probably also change the shape, because they'd look daggy if they were permanently visible with the current shape. They'd probably have to be about half the current height to work well visually.

I've got the boards layout the way I like it though. Looks much cleaner now, IMO.

[Gumboots]

Ok, I made them as visible as I can tolerate them. Wotcha think of them now?

(I can always restyle them to suit myself in Stylish anyway, without affecting what runs on the forum).

[Hawk]

I think the side links are more effective now. Folks can see them and know to use them without them being to outstanding.
Looks good.

Are you planning on adding them to the other styles?

[Gumboots]

I suppose I could, although there's no guarantee how long they'd last.

Since this place has a critters theme going, I figured I should have a wombat avatar.

By the way, I added that WIP light style to the switcher in the footer of Dark. It's the button on the far right of the switcher strip. Still need a bit of detailing (buttons, selects, etc) but is coming along nicely.

Note that it's getting a bit of FOUC on page load at the moment, as the "snowy.css" is getting a slight conflict with buttonmenu.css, because for all this quick testing I've been using buttonmenu.css to hold a lot of declarations. Once I get everything rationalised the page loads will be smoother.

[Gumboots]

Got a green one roughed out. I'm really liking this one. Current plan is I think we'll end up with a light and dark version, in two separate installed styles, with four colour variations of each. That should keep everyone happy. They'll share the same templating and most of the same CSS, so maintenance should be reasonable. Once they're sorted I'll probably disable the default Prosilver, and set the light custom one to the site default.

[Hawk]

Even though green is my least favorite color, it still looks good.

[Gumboots]

You must have a real problem with grass and trees.

[RulerofRails]

Just to let you know that I have two logins visible in the Prosilver Dark Edition. I did try to press Ctrl+F5.

I sort of like the light blue option (first one), as in the screenshot.

Is the idea with light/dark being that for example the green text shade must be the same for both styles?

[Gumboots]

No it's just a way of having different looks. I'll just do the colours any way I like. Sometimes I like light styles. Sometimes I like dark ones. Depends on my mood and the ambient lighting.

I've fixed the double login forms. Only has one now.

[Gumboots]

OK, it is possible that some of you may have been trying to check the site while I was borking things.

I was messing around with Prosilver Dark, trying to fix the "flash of the wrong link colours" glitch when changing pages. Have got it fixed now, after much messing with cookies and CSS trickery. Can probably improve load times a bit more, but it's pretty good as it is.