Hello Z28.com users!

As you can see, we've updated the site theme. Without going into many boring details, this new theme is designed to be much faster for our users on mobile devices. At the same time, I kept the layout and colors close to what everyone is used to.

 

Not a fan at all of this forum. Is there not a way to use this for the mobile themes (ipad, phones and such) and use the old one for the desktop users? Or are you trying to get away from that theme altogether?

 

Technically I could have both styles on the site, but it means two sets of templates that need to be changed, checked and tested every time I install a plugin, update the site, etc. The actual location of everything is where it was before, the only difference is how things are drawn. Flat colors instead of Windows XP style gradients. Icons using font-awsome instead of graphics files (which take longer to load).

----------------------
As far as colors go, whiter colors don't use more power on LCD screens then any other color. They use less. The back light shines through, except where power is applied in the matrix to polarize the liquid crystal and block the light. Then the back light itself uses power, and that part stays the same no matter what the color is --- its determined by your screen brightness settings.

Then there are OLED screens, which light up each pixel individually. Technically brighter colors do use more power on them, but their power consumption is lower overall than an LCD screen.

Either way, dark or light, is a compromise. Dark is slightly more power efficient on OLED screens, light is slightly more power efficient on LCD screens.

----------------------
As to why the change was made...
Two years ago this site had 49% desktop users, 51% mobile/tablet. Now it's 34% desktop and 66% mobile/tablet.

So..... stay with design elements which came out 16 years ago with Windows XP (gradients, everything rounded, etc), and please an ever shrinking number of people.

Or move on to newer, modern design elements which render faster on mobile devices, to prepare the for the future and the types of devices most people are using these days.

-------------------------
And an FYI, the message text here is the blackest black of the palette: #000000
I do plan to try tweaking the white to be a little brighter so it has better contrast, that or a better contrasting font.

 

As I suspected, you had a reason to make this change. It's all good. Just have to get used to it. Mainly the icons for the alerts.... Going to take a while. lol.

 

Breadcrumbs are being covered by nav bar on iPad in portrait mode.

#ad

 

#ad
Ad covering the announcement.

 

The quick reply box is a little hard to see as well. And when you click on a link to go into a thread, you have to scroll up to read it. It goes too far down the page.

 

Okay, I've resolved the issues with the top of the page. The auto-resizing didn't like the width of the logo. I took the cars out until I get a chance to redo the logo fully. Taking care of the reply box issues now (just a color change).

 

Reply box has much better contrast now.

Another issue is better delineation between the posts and signatures.

 

Can you make the border about 3 pixles? I think that will help greatly.

And the issue with having to scroll up is because of the docked header. If the header was not there, you would not have to scroll up.

 

Which border?

The reason for the docking is a rather large forum did a study and found when they kept it anchor page views for newly registered users and guests doubled. Apparently the current generation of users are too used to "social media" (ironic considering forums were the first social media) and it's use of menu anchors. I'll see what I can do as far as some tweaking with this goes.

 

I don't know how to do it, but if we can get it to move the thread down the same distance as the header is tall, that would completely fix that issue. Might have to do some custom code on that one.

and the border around the reply box. It's completely up to you, but I think if it was 3 pixles instead of 1, it would look a little better and be a little more defined as to where you need to reply. On my computer, the light gray is just not showing up that great, but would if it were a little thicker.

 

This is a known glitch with Xenforo on phones. If you turn your phone in landscape mode it will help make the text easier to read. I'm having the same issue on my forums that are running the same software and so far, there is no fix other than landscape.

 

Yea, I have talked to Ken about this trying to find a solution and unfortunately there just isn't one.