Skin Testing - Changelog

[AR Husker Fan]

Good point on the resolutions^.

A few more things I want y'alls opinions on

- Board Index/forum display:Bold thread links,etc now normal weight - I like this

- Only forum titles ('Husker Football', 'Woodshed', etc) are red; others are black - I like it, but...has the font changed? Something about it looks odd, and out of place compared to the forum description text. I prefer the red, but I prefer the older font.

- Underlines on all links are off by default and appear only on hover - I like it.

- Forum titles larger and roomier instead of bold and underlined - I need to clarify. I like the new font, actually, that you see on the titles when you are in the actual forum. What I don't like is the forum titles as they are displayed on the main page.

- Less contrast between alternating rows in thread/forum list - I like it.

- "Branding" area (logo/countdown) Messed around with logo (more on this further down)

- Sidebar:Put the ESPN scoreboard on the bottom instead. I think I like this MUCH better, but might be just me. It's definitely the odd man out of all the widgets on the sidebar and doesn't feel right as the leadoff hitter. - My concern here is that the scoreboard is one of the nicest features. I admit it's kind of out of place, but what I'm thinking is that we leave it as it was. I've only seen one person complain about it's location. I have to admit, moving it makes the Announcements more visible, and I like that, but having the scoreboard front and center is VERY handy, and I'm afraid that folks will forget to scroll down for it.

- Misc (less important): polished the post editor some, and the search pop-up some. Let me know if there are problems with this but it should be relatively minor changes.

Hopefully, this looks less clustered. On links, there's a couple places where links should NOT be underlined on hover. Unfortunately, these have to be added to an exceptions list of sorts to behave properly, so keep your eyes peeled for links that are either underlining or not underlining when they aren't supposed to. - I noticed it most on buttons, such as Add Reply and Manage Topic Poll. That's where it jumped out at me, but personally, that's not a big deal. Ideally, I'd like to see the underline gone on hover for buttons, but...

Also I've been trying to figure out what to do about the top ('branding') part of the page (the area with the temp logo and scoreboard). As is, there's a bit of an "under construction" feel to it, which isn't good even for a temporary situation. I replaced the temp image with plain text, which I think works better as a fill-in while we are banner-less. And then (as an experiment) decided to throw up a background of a few former Huskers ( ) as background to see how that works. Purely experimental. One thought is we could have the same text image as a logo up front, while rotating different Huskers in the background depending on season (football/baseball/etc). - I like the idea, but remember that UNL does not approve of us using current players or coaches. I don't think we want to do that, for that reason.

***SNIP***

My replies are in red text, above.

 

[knapplc]

I like moving the scoreboard down. It seems out of place up top because it doesn't flow with any other element on the page.

Are we paying to use that scoreboard?

 

[AR Husker Fan]

No, it's one of the many widgets that ESPN offers for free to web sites, blogs, etc.

 

[knapplc]

If we're not paying for it, I would like it moved lower. The conversations in the Status Updates are going to drive more traffic to the site than the scoreboard.

What we really sell at this lemonade stand is the interaction between Husker fans. amirite?

EDIT - they don't happen to have a horizontal scoreboard, do they? If so, maybe we could put it under the banner? Or right under the Sports section of the forum?

 

[zoogs]

AR:

- None of the font faces have been changed actually (I went back to Tahoma). The forum titles used to be bold and now they aren't. It's the same font as the forum description text, although there's some bold text in some of the forum descriptions. I'll change it to bold in a bit and let you see what that looks like, although I think that would be a little overkill with the bold. Solely matter of opinion though.

- The forum titles when you are in the actual forum (i.e, against the red bar) haven't been changed at all, except there used to be a text shadow that's been removed. The text-shadow never appeared in internet explorer anyway, as IE doesn't support that bit of CSS.

- Just my personal opinion on this, but what's handy about the scoreboard? You can see a few scores on gameday, and then scroll to see the rest of them. There's no utility in the offseason, and limited utility except on Saturdays. Compared to announcements and statuses, I think it's secondary. Perhaps if we made the sidebar only about as wide as the scoreboard itself, it would look less awkward on top - but it would limit how good the rest of the sidebar looks (as well as extending it vertically). Agree with knapp on this - at least for me, I don't come here really to check scores. It's nice if there's a scoreboard on the bottom, but having it front and center seems a bit unnecessary.

- I'll take out the underline on Add Reply, etc. Those aren't supposed to be there - it's just that there were a ton of links in different places lacking an underline, so I overrode all of them with an exception and now any link has an underline on hover by default. And the ones that shouldn't, aren't that way by design, it's just I haven't gone in to add an exception for them.

- "UNL does not approve using current players/coaches"; yeah, I recall that. Not that it matters, since it's a temp image, but none of those are current people in the program (McKeon, Sarah Pavan, Zac Taylor, Bill Callahan in Lincoln).

 

[AR Husker Fan]

If we're not paying for it, I would like it moved lower. The conversations in the Status Updates are going to drive more traffic to the site than the scoreboard.

What we really sell at this lemonade stand is the interaction between Husker fans. amirite?

EDIT - they don't happen to have a horizontal scoreboard, do they? If so, maybe we could put it under the banner? Or right under the Sports section of the forum?

Nope - that's what I'd love to see - in fact, I'd love to see a scrolling or marque type look, with the ability to pause. But, sadly, no.

 

[AR Husker Fan]

AR:

- None of the font faces have been changed actually (I went back to Tahoma). The forum titles used to be bold and now they aren't. It's the same font as the forum description text, although there's some bold text in some of the forum descriptions. I'll change it to bold in a bit and let you see what that looks like, although I think that would be a little overkill with the bold. Solely matter of opinion though.

No, let it be. We need to let everyone have a chance to look at the test skin and offer up what they think. We want to experiment here; I'm just offering up my take.

- The forum titles when you are in the actual forum (i.e, against the red bar) haven't been changed at all, except there used to be a text shadow that's been removed. The text-shadow never appeared in internet explorer anyway, as IE doesn't support that bit of CSS.

Hmmmmm...I wonder if it's a rendering issue on Windows 7, and the way it displays fonts? Oh, well - again, leave it changed so we can get everyone's input.

- Just my personal opinion on this, but what's handy about the scoreboard? You can see a few scores on gameday, and then scroll to see the rest of them. There's no utility in the offseason, and limited utility except on Saturdays. Compared to announcements and statuses, I think it's secondary. Perhaps if we made the sidebar only about as wide as the scoreboard itself, it would look less awkward on top - but it would limit how good the rest of the sidebar looks (as well as extending it vertically). Agree with knapp on this - at least for me, I don't come here really to check scores. It's nice if there's a scoreboard on the bottom, but having it front and center seems a bit unnecessary.

Probably me only, but I don't have a TV near my desktop, and I hate notebooks (can't stand those tiny keybords) so I don't have ESPN on when I'm on the Board. So, for me, it's handy. I'm guessing that for most people, though, you and Lance represent the way they'd look at it. However, this is one design idea that I think we'll really need to run by Chad and Eric. I think they'll be of the opinion that we should try it and see how the members react, but before we do it live, we'll check with them. The good news is that we can, temporarily, set the default skin to QB Test if we every want to run things by members, and easily revert back to the QB Sneak.

- "UNL does not approve using current players/coaches"; yeah, I recall that. Not that it matters, since it's a temp image, but none of those are current people in the program (McKeon, Sarah Pavan, Zac Taylor, Bill Callahan in Lincoln).

Sorry - I thought you were talking about how you wanted to handle the public skin, since you mentioned rotating players based on seasons/sports. Obviously, it's not a problem on the test skin, so have fun with it.

 

[zoogs]

Sorry - I thought you were talking about how you wanted to handle the public skin, since you mentioned rotating players based on seasons/sports. Obviously, it's not a problem on the test skin, so have fun with it.

Oh yea, was just throwing a random idea out there. If that is how the public skin is handled, it would have to be former players, I agree.

Do you use tabs when browsing, by the way? (Unrelated to skin discussion) If you don't, it would be really quick to have ESPN and Huskerboard open in separate windows, and cycle through the tabs via ctrl+tab and ctrl+shift+tab.

I left forum titles as unbolded as requested, although I did try out the bold for a little while. I'm a bit indifferent. Might throw up a screenshot later for comparison. I changed it so that forum titles for read forums are dark gray to match the gray "HB" forum marker icon for read forums. If it's better that all forum titles are red, let me know.

 

[AR Husker Fan]

Yeah, I use tabs - just a matter of preference is all. For me, I just like having it up front and on top. Again, not an issue, and I'm not wedded to keeping it at the top. That's a design change I'd like to run by Chad and Eric if we decide to go that route, but I can live with it either way.

I LOVE having the forum titles with no new posts being dark gray verses red for those with new, unread posts. While the icon works, I think that both of them together makes it really easy to differentiate. That's a great idea.

By the way, folks, we can change to the same icon set that we're using for the test skin in the live skin with no problem - and still be able to change back any time. So - are we ready to do that on the live skin? I think that the icons for the test skin are a real improvement over those for the live skin. Thoughts?

 

[AR Husker Fan]

***SNIP***
- Underlines on all links are off by default and appear only on hover

***SNIP***

Found an instance in which the "underline only on hover" is a problem. When someone posts test that is hyperlinked, there's nothing to indicate it's a hyperlink. No underline, no different color, etc. An example can be found in THIS POST (and in the words "THIS POST") in this line. Threw me for a loop when I read the post - I was about to tell the poster that he'd forgotten the link when I realized that it was there - but there was nothing to indicate that the text was hyperlinked.

 

[zoogs]

Wow! Good catch, thanks!

I fixed it for the Add Reply buttons, and am experimenting around finding a good behavior for links in posts. So far what I've settled on is this: different color (green for now) and underline without hover for links in the post content. The green lights up a little on hover. Visited links are duller green. If we want to draw less attention to links, we can have them black (without underline), lighting up to a different color like green, with underline, on hover. That's assuming users would know if links are there so they'd put the mouse over it. Not a bad assumption necessarily.

For signatures, color is unchanged, and underlines appear on hover.

The reason for the green is to draw attention to external links a bit more. Since they are usually amidst blocks of unlinked text, keeping them the same color while adding an underline makes them look like emphasized text rather than links at first glance. Being small text, not having an underline makes it hard to distinguish the color, unless the color's really bright, which makes it an eyesore.

test link

test link

Compare visited vs. unvisited link colors by clicking one of the two above. Only works once until you clear your history.

 

[AR Husker Fan]

Why not blue? Most folks use the default colors of the browsers to indicate a hyperlink, and that's usually blue for unvisited links. That might make it more intuative for users.

 

[AR Husker Fan]

If we're not paying for it, I would like it moved lower. The conversations in the Status Updates are going to drive more traffic to the site than the scoreboard.

What we really sell at this lemonade stand is the interaction between Husker fans. amirite?

EDIT - they don't happen to have a horizontal scoreboard, do they? If so, maybe we could put it under the banner? Or right under the Sports section of the forum?

Nope - that's what I'd love to see - in fact, I'd love to see a scrolling or marque type look, with the ability to pause. But, sadly, no.

I just tried a crude experiment with the test skin. I copied the Scoreboard to the top, just under the HuskerNation banner, then altered the default sizes, which are 300 W x 387 H. Changed 'em to 600 W x 187 H. Didn't work. I was hoping it would resize to a horizontal that way. But, apparently, we need whomever coded the Flash to alter it. And since that was ESPN, ain't gonna happen. Although, now that I think about it, perhaps I'll leave them a message asking that they create a second class of widgets using a horizontal model.

 

[zoogs]

I thought blue was a little less aesthetically pleasing, being a colder color (and the default blue is ugly, and old-fashioned like a Blue Screen of Death. But we can do blue, too.

 

[AR Husker Fan]

I thought blue was a little less aesthetically pleasing, being a colder color (and the default blue is ugly, and old-fashioned like a Blue Screen of Death. But we can do blue, too.

LOL! Kids today...

Doesn't matter to me - I'm just thinking that old farts like Rick (and, come to think of it, ETR) might hit on the fact that those are hyperlinks if they're the standard blue. But, again, let's see what everyone thinks. I'm happy either way.