[Fireymarbles]

albino, on Aug 13 2006, 10:36 PM, said:

If BLACK on WHITE is bad for some people, and WHITE on BLACK is bad for others, what about GRAY on GRAY?

I wholeheartedly agree.

[Mystress]

albino, on Aug 13 2006, 04:36 AM, said:

If BLACK on WHITE is bad for some people, and WHITE on BLACK is bad for others, what about GRAY on GRAY?

It has to reflect the Myst series in general, doesn't it? Who says it HAS to be just Myst? Maybe there could be different skins for different games?

Or maybe someone could do multiple skins for different ages? Hmm....

I'm just here to throw some ideas onto the plate, as I'm not that savvy with graphics on the computer.

[CAGrayWolf]

albino, on Aug 13 2006, 03:36 AM, said:

If BLACK on WHITE is bad for some people, and WHITE on BLACK is bad for others, what about GRAY on GRAY?

Love the color ... but this might intefere with my avvie.

Mystress, on Aug 13 2006, 07:30 AM, said:

It has to reflect the Myst series in general, doesn't it? Who says it HAS to be just Myst? Maybe there could be different skins for different games?

Or maybe someone could do multiple skins for different ages? Hmm....

I'm just here to throw some ideas onto the plate, as I'm not that savvy with graphics on the computer.

Having skins for each of the games would really be cool. I'm not positive have many skins can be used as option, though I seem to recall it was an option in the ACP with a setting for what is allowed. Been about a year since I looked at the ACP, so not totally sure.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are we not able to DL the IPB software that we can practice/experiment on and create a skin(s) to submit? I would be interested in doing a skin myself.

[Fireymarbles]

Mystress, on Aug 14 2006, 02:30 AM, said:

It has to reflect the Myst series in general, doesn't it? Who says it HAS to be just Myst? Maybe there could be different skins for different games?

Or maybe someone could do multiple skins for different ages? Hmm....

I'm just here to throw some ideas onto the plate, as I'm not that savvy with graphics on the computer.

It's an interesting idea, but speaking as someone who has in the past admin'ed a forum where we attempted to do several highly intricate skins, I would say it's inadvisable. Admittedly most of our problems stemmed from having a graphic designer who wouldn't listen to the words "not EVERY surface has to be a busy textured image", but suffice to say it really didn't work out too well at all.

CAGrayWolf, on Aug 14 2006, 06:52 AM, said:

Having skins for each of the games would really be cool. I'm not positive have many skins can be used as option, though I seem to recall it was an option in the ACP with a setting for what is allowed. Been about a year since I looked at the ACP, so not totally sure.

IPB is fairly open-ended (even in 1.3.x) about what you can do with skins- essentially you have "skin sets" which are a package of files containing information about all the visual elements of the forum, and you can have as many of these installed as you want. You have one which is the default, ie all guests viewing the board will see it with this skin, but you can also do clever things like make certain groups use certain skins (I think), apply certain skins to certain forums and subforums, and stuff like that. In my experience all that stuff is worse than useless, as all it does is make visual elements inconsistent between different users, thus making error reporting and handling incredibly hard, and also if you have different skins on different forums then you have to load a whole new set of images each time you go to a different skin.

However, having a whole load of different skins is most certainly possible. Whether or not it's advisable is something I'll leave up to Chucker, but it's not at all difficult to do.

Quote

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are we not able to DL the IPB software that we can practice/experiment on and create a skin(s) to submit? I would be interested in doing a skin myself.

Not anymore- this used to be allowed back in the days of IPB 1.3, but nowadays you have to buy it, although there was one version of 2.0.0 that you were allowed to use freely provided it was just a trial and you registered it eventually.

[chucker]

Fireymarbles, on Aug 14 2006, 08:37 AM, said:

However, having a whole load of different skins is most certainly possible. Whether or not it's advisable is something I'll leave up to Chucker, but it's not at all difficult to do.

Preferably, all themes would inherit from the same skin, and would mostly differ in the color scheme and some of the imagery used (e.g., one scheme could have a "Tay" — not the person — theme to it).

[albino]

Most well designed layouts tend to have rather little graphics, which means there really isn't that much to theme. Using the book metaphor would hardly make the theme a Myst (as in the game) only theme, but rather a theme for the whole series, as it is one of the predominant themes of all the games.

I guess the banner could rotate, there could easily be several versions with images from all of the games...



I suspect that there are communities and webboards dedicated to making these kinds of themes? Does anyone know of a link to some kind of gallery of free ones? Maybe the easiest solution would be to take a finished one and just change som small things to make it more Myst-like.

[Fireymarbles]

albino, on Aug 15 2006, 03:19 AM, said:

I suspect that there are communities and webboards dedicated to making these kinds of themes? Does anyone know of a link to some kind of gallery of free ones? Maybe the easiest solution would be to take a finished one and just change som small things to make it more Myst-like.

Yeah, but I think the competition sounds a lot more fun.

[chucker]

albino, on Aug 14 2006, 05:19 PM, said:

I suspect that there are communities and webboards dedicated to making these kinds of themes? Does anyone know of a link to some kind of gallery of free ones? Maybe the easiest solution would be to take a finished one and just change som small things to make it more Myst-like.

I'm afraid hiring a designer unrelated to the Myst fandom would result in something very generic. I'd much rather have someone from MC design for MC.

[christopherger]

I have heard from IT people who are on the compy ALL the time, coders, etc, that the dark background is easier on their eyes, and actually they have forumle protocls in their comps to re formulate everything they read to dark with light letters, i myself, having been a visual professional (VP? ) for almost 37 years, do tons of eye work and I just find the dark background really tough to read. Thanks Wolfie, I was not sure if I was alone in my peculiar eye tastes....

the skins thing might be wonderful if that can work out without too much work for our valient and wonderful admins (Chucker et al).....

i have also come to love the blue overallness and quiet elegance of our forum, but know there are as many voices and tastes as members.....soooo

thanks for the great uprade, the PM screen is nifty as are other things all over.

cheers

[Arianna]

christopherger, on Aug 15 2006, 05:59 AM, said:

I have heard from IT people who are on the compy ALL the time, coders, etc, that the dark background is easier on their eyes.....

Or perhaps for anyone who has to spend countless hours staring at their computer's monitor.
Especially for me, a white or light background definitely hurts my eyes and can even bring on my dreaded migraines. Not as bad as flourescent lights will, but very close.

[christopherger]

Well, I think we should try to be sure that your eyes are comfy with our forum indeed Arry~
hopefully the skins idea may be able to work out.

Arianna, on Aug 15 2006, 10:04 AM, said:

christopherger, on Aug 15 2006, 05:59 AM, said:

I have heard from IT people who are on the compy ALL the time, coders, etc, that the dark background is easier on their eyes.....

Or perhaps for anyone who has to spend countless hours staring at their computer's monitor.
Especially for me, a white or light background definitely hurts my eyes and can even bring on my dreaded migraines. Not as bad as flourescent lights will, but very close.

[Arianna]

Chris, yeah, I like the idea of having different skins to choose from.
At least this way, everyone can hopefully find something to feel comfortable with when viewing the forum.

At another board I frequent, I'm still using their Halloween skin since it's darker, LOL.

[albino]

I did a quick mock-up design... it's over in the Creations & Inspirations forum, here.

[Carter]

Can I use flash in the design of the banner? its the only place that would be flash based, everything else is going to be PNG.

[Tay]

carterhawk, on Aug 27 2006, 08:44 PM, said:

Can I use flash in the design of the banner? its the only place that would be flash based, everything else is going to be PNG.

I think it would be better not to, but you could make a version with it and without it (shouldn't be too hard).

Tay

[keshwyn]

Tay, on Aug 27 2006, 09:57 PM, said:

carterhawk, on Aug 27 2006, 08:44 PM, said:

Can I use flash in the design of the banner? its the only place that would be flash based, everything else is going to be PNG.

I think it would be better not to, but you could make a version with it and without it (shouldn't be too hard).

As somebody who regularly reads MC on a computer that does not have a flash plugin for its OS, I'd really appreciate having the option of NOT having a flash in the banner.

[Capella]

Please no flash.

[chucker]

I would strongly discourage using Flash, or any other "media plug-in", for that matter.

If your use of Flash (or similar) fulfills the following criteria, though, it may be considered:

• It must degrade reasonably gracefully. Users without Flash (or similar) should not feel second-class, nor should they be bothered by annoying alerts, warnings, etc.
  
• It must be light and non-distracting.

[Carter]

keshwyn, on Aug 30 2006, 08:16 AM, said:

Tay, on Aug 27 2006, 09:57 PM, said:

carterhawk, on Aug 27 2006, 08:44 PM, said:

Can I use flash in the design of the banner? its the only place that would be flash based, everything else is going to be PNG.

I think it would be better not to, but you could make a version with it and without it (shouldn't be too hard).

As somebody who regularly reads MC on a computer that does not have a flash plugin for its OS, I'd really appreciate having the option of NOT having a flash in the banner.

Just out of curiosity, but what OS is that?

[chucker]

The most common OS to lack Flash is probably Linux on PowerPC.

[moiety]

chucker, on Aug 30 2006, 11:20 PM, said:

The most common OS to lack Flash is probably Linux on PowerPC.

Yellow Dog™. The distribution of choice for masochists worldwide.

[jjoonathan]

chucker, on Aug 30 2006, 09:20 PM, said:

The most common OS to lack Flash is probably Linux on PowerPC.

Hmm, seems like its going to be a pretty small niche, what with apple switching to intel and all...

Though I agree, no flash or minimal flash would be best. Flash always manages to lag up my computer. I have never gotten that: flash goes to 100% CPU and starts skipping frames in a flash scene with a background picture and 10 snowflakes following sine waves down the screen, yet America's Army can easily handle hundreds of snowflakes in 3D with 4xAA and 6xAF which follow random (well, more likely noise) paths, and it uses about 80% CPU (on top of that from looking at its internals I can tell you its grossly inefficient in many ways)

[keshwyn]

carterhawk, on Aug 30 2006, 08:13 PM, said:

keshwyn, on Aug 30 2006, 08:16 AM, said:

Tay, on Aug 27 2006, 09:57 PM, said:

carterhawk, on Aug 27 2006, 08:44 PM, said:

Can I use flash in the design of the banner? its the only place that would be flash based, everything else is going to be PNG.

I think it would be better not to, but you could make a version with it and without it (shouldn't be too hard).

As somebody who regularly reads MC on a computer that does not have a flash plugin for its OS, I'd really appreciate having the option of NOT having a flash in the banner.

Just out of curiosity, but what OS is that?

FreeBSD. I work in a Unix environment at work, and that's where I do most of my forum-reading.

While there are (in theory) flash plugins for FreeBSD, but they really don't play nicely with my other software, so I don't install them.

[christopherger]

I suppose we could beta test the theme on various platforms to see how anything used works