Forum update

[AoCWaldgeist]

I was the one who designed and coded the old forum skin back when I was still Community Manager for Funcom. To the technically advanced people out there, who suggest easy changes by using FireBug or something to adjust the CSS let me tell you this about vB 4.x: It sucks monkey balls of hell for developers. The old one was already not a wonderfull thing to design/theme, but the new one is so convoluted and chaotic. That's why I didn't use 4.x for the TSW forums. It just would've taken additional weeks to style the forum in the vB backend.

You cannot just use your custom CSS and make due, you have to use their stupidly in-template variables and instead of being a simple copy and past job from Firebug to a CSS file, it's a clickfest. If you touch the templates, you break them for future updates. I can absolutely understand why it would take them ages to adjust the present theme to look like the old one. The old one had so much custom changes in templates and css, that it's just not worth it.

It's a bit sad that vB didn't use the opportunity when they released 4.x to really come up with something new and clean, but instead they kept on doing their 1999 style of layout.

Cheers,
Waldgeist

[MashMash]

How can i remove the scenery background in the forum theme ? :O

I just use adblock plus (in firefox anyway). The context menu has an option to block images (or various elements as you desire). Right click and gone for good. The forum still seems to work fine otherwise. I haven't had any problems anyway.

[Bibik]

I just use adblock plus (in firefox anyway). The context menu has an option to block images (or various elements as you desire). Right click and gone for good. The forum still seems to work fine otherwise. I haven't had any problems anyway.

Thanks for the info, it works well !

[Anzu]

I was the one who designed and coded the old forum skin back when I was still Community Manager for Funcom. To the technically advanced people out there, who suggest easy changes by using FireBug or something to adjust the CSS let me tell you this about vB 4.x: It sucks monkey balls of hell for developers. The old one was already not a wonderfull thing to design/theme, but the new one is so convoluted and chaotic. That's why I didn't use 4.x for the TSW forums. It just would've taken additional weeks to style the forum in the vB backend.

You cannot just use your custom CSS and make due, you have to use their stupidly in-template variables and instead of being a simple copy and past job from Firebug to a CSS file, it's a clickfest. If you touch the templates, you break them for future updates. I can absolutely understand why it would take them ages to adjust the present theme to look like the old one. The old one had so much custom changes in templates and css, that it's just not worth it.

It's a bit sad that vB didn't use the opportunity when they released 4.x to really come up with something new and clean, but instead they kept on doing their 1999 style of layout.

Cheers,
Waldgeist

Hey there Waldgeist! Hope you're doing fine

[Foxcat]

Cheers Wald,

Really good to see you here again, hope all is well with you. Many of us miss having you around

I was the one who designed and coded the old forum skin back when I was still Community Manager for Funcom. To the technically advanced people out there, who suggest easy changes by using FireBug or something to adjust the CSS let me tell you this about vB 4.x: It sucks monkey balls of hell for developers. The old one was already not a wonderfull thing to design/theme, but the new one is so convoluted and chaotic. That's why I didn't use 4.x for the TSW forums. It just would've taken additional weeks to style the forum in the vB backend.

You cannot just use your custom CSS and make due, you have to use their stupidly in-template variables and instead of being a simple copy and past job from FireBug or to a CSS file, it's a clickfest. If you touch the templates, you break them for future updates. I can absolutely understand why it would take them ages to adjust the present theme to look like the old one. The old one had so much custom changes in templates and css, that it's just not worth it.

As for the forum, yes... editing themes through the buildin vB style manager is both a pain, slow and tedious. I agree, it isn't as straight forward as just editing a stylesheet, but its not too complicated either. We're not asking for great changes here but some adjustments to colors on fonts and backgrounds as well as a slight increase in font size, it isn't rocket science.

You can easily copy of an existing template, open it in a text editor (eg. Notepad++), find the CSS entries you want to edit (eg. by using Firebug or similar) and make your changes. These XML style templates basically contains encapsuled HTML and CSS stylesheets. Sure you can choose to make your template support the buildin style manager by keep using vB stylevars in your CSS code, but you don't have to. You can just write the style rules and values as in any other stylesheet.

I'm sure you know your way around vB design, and you did a really nice job at with TSW and our old AOC forum. We look at these forums with envy today, as our forum looks so horrible generic. So while customizing isn't exactly simple, then it dosen't require a higher technical degree either. All it takes is a text editor and a tiny bit of will to do it.

We're after all talking simple HTML and CSS3, just encapsuled in CDATA sections inside an XML text file. It might look messy but theres really nothing complicated about it.

It's a bit sad that vB didn't use the opportunity when they released 4.x to really come up with something new and clean, but instead they kept on doing their 1999 style of layout.

Cheers,
Waldgeist

Couldn't agree more! Old school forum style brings back memories from a past millenium and vB redesign through stylemanager is a pain, but Funcom knew that when they bought the upgrade. So I assume they meant they were up for the task of customizing it to look good. I personally like Blog layouts much better these days.

Cheers and with hopes they'll hire you to make our forum look awesome once more!


Best regards,
Sifie

PS! Just look at how mindblowing bad this post look with the quote background being the same as the post background and all the lines and dividers. It simply look unprofessional beyond belief compared to other MMORPG game forums.

[Nexothep]

I don´t know if someone else reported this before:

When I start a search for specific words, there is no option anymore for "show posts" or "show threads".
As a result I only see the thread, but I don´t want to search 20 pages for this specific word....

Please switch on this option again.

[HaremBunny]

I don´t know if someone else reported this before:

When I start a search for specific words, there is no option anymore for "show posts" or "show threads".
As a result I only see the thread, but I don´t want to search 20 pages for this specific word....

Please switch on this option again.

This option is available BUT ....
You have to switch from the DEFAULT "Search multiple content types" to "Search single content type" tab.
Then look at the bottom of the page there is the option you are looking for I think.

Simple solution: Make "Search single content type" tab the DEFAULT.

[Foxcat]

@All,

Its been almost a month (minus 2 days) since I wished our forum developers good luck with their endevours. In this time we got 1 background image that isn't very Conan immersive, neither in color or theme. So today I'll post another teaser, just to give some (in my humble opinion) much needed inspiration to whoever is struggling to customize our forum.

Image removed by poster


Cheers

[Nexothep]

This option is available BUT ....
You have to switch from the DEFAULT "Search multiple content types" to "Search single content type" tab.
Then look at the bottom of the page there is the option you are looking for I think.

Simple solution: Make "Search single content type" tab the DEFAULT.

Thank you very much! :thumbsup:

[Khaletohep]

@All,

Its been almost a month (minus 2 days) since I wished our forum developers good luck with their endevours. In this time we got 1 background image that isn't very Conan immersive, neither in color or theme. So today I'll post another teaser, just to give some (in my humble opinion) much needed inspiration to whoever is struggling to customize our forum.

Cheers

Pretty! Interesting font. Fancy, but still well readable.