new site layout/design

[Dyne07]

I'm currently on a computer at school. Firefox is running it fine here, so I don't know why mine hasn't resolved the problem for itself. When I get home I'll see if it's still doing it.

But yeah, the design that my browser at home was caching did feel shinier/glossier to me than the design I'm seeing now (the actual design). I think that Mover may have been commenting on that.

[Prime Mover]

Rudo and all, my appologies about that "if the designer is doing his job" comment. That was meant as a general design philosophy comment about webdesigners being able to unify and standardize their work, and was not supposed to be actually directed toward any of this team, but obviously it came across that way. I understand that you have a lot of additional legistics (legacy code and whatnot) to deal with that I didn't consider. But I must say that I was pretty shocked when I opened up the source and saw <table>.

I can't decide if I like the placement of that body background gradient or not. Now that I see that it's sort of a horizon line, with reflections for the RPGFan logo, it looks pretty sweet, but at first glance it does look sorta like a mistake... a line going through the middle of the RPGFan logo. So now I like it, but for first impressions, it might look a little messy.

[Losfer]

...and the general Mac over-shininess of everything...

You don't really think this layout has more shine than the last, do you? There was a metallic gradient or super high-gloss shine in the background or on the corner of nearly every single graphic that comprised the layout. Not that I dislike it, but it was literally EVERYWHERE in the old design; right now, we just have a shiny navbar, the horizon background and a (subtle) reflection under the logo.

Well, the old look was too Maccy for me as well.

Just sayin.

[Prime Mover]

Well, the old look was too Maccy for me as well.

Hey, I like Mackie... they make half-decent amature audio equipment at pretty good prices. I use my mixer quite regularly, thank you very much!

[Dyne07]

Alright, cleaned my internet cache out and now Firefox is showing it properly, and let me say again, I like it :)

And sorry Mover, for some reason I thought it was you who didn't like the mac style.

[Rudo]

Okay, I also had a scare at work today when I decided to try RPGFan with the Google Chrome browser.

I took a picture and highlighted the issues and most of them seemed to be exactly what some of you described in this thread.

Here's the picture:

http://www.rpgfan.com/userdirs/rudo/Chrome.jpg

I closed and reopened Chrome many times during the day and every time I checked it was always the same thing.  Then I simply did a "refresh" on the page and suddenly everything was alright!  This is just weird.  Don't know why it's doing that on some browsers.  I guess the good news is that it's not a problem with our site not being compatible so that's a relief :)

[Eusis]

I'd like to say two things about the current layout:

- I think it looks MUCH nicer in a browser window juuust wide enough to fit the page. I wanted to see if it looked any different in Safari, and while there weren't any beyond how the text looked (Safari softening here) having it fill up the screen rather than simply leave empty space at the sides was much nicer.

- I like how the ad placeholder looks, it'll be a shame to see that replaced with an ad eventually.

[Dade]

Wait.....Mike is alive?

Hrm...then who's buried in my backyard?

[Dyne07]

To be honest. I think I kinda like the main headlines better in the old cache image, without the background. The current two shades of green make it feel congested to me because there's no space between the headlines and the news feed.

Letting the headlines rest on black space gives a little breathing room between the two headlines themselves as well as between the headlines and the news feed.

Edit: But everything else is definitely better in the actual layout. The headlines resting on black space is the only thing I liked that was different

Edit Again: Tabs on my nav bar still flood over consistently. Probably just another problem with my browser, but here are links:

Home Page: Search Bar has now flooded off the nav bar and has created a new horizontal bar for itself directly below the nav bar.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v410/Orijin/RPGFanHome.jpg

Inside Pages: The "Forums" and "About" Links have likewise flooded off the nav bar.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v410/Orijin/RPGFanInside.jpg

[Jimmy]

Wait.....Mike is alive?

Hrm...then who's buried in my backyard?

Wait...Dade is alive?

I thought tubgirl finally ate him.

[D-Rider]

Wait...Dade is alive?

I thought tubgirl finally ate him.

He got eaten, alright...by that thing in his sig. :P

[Dade]

Wait...Dade is alive?

I thought tubgirl finally ate him.

He got eaten, alright...by that thing in his sig. :P

Yeah......

[PhoenixFire]

I'll just chime in and say that the old site was prettier, for all it's worth. More ads is one thing but when I first logged on I was mortified at how "ugly" everything was. One of the things I liked about this site was that it was so aesthetically pleasing, but now it's lost that... I can't put my finger on any specifics, but it just seems like the main page lost most of it's beauty with the change.

[Buddy]

I think the new layout is lame. No, I'm lying. It's pretty cool. It's less tiny.

[Lazlowe1984]

Its a nice update.I certianly like it