Do you like the new-look BU?

Sir_Brizz · Aug 13, 2005

Birelli said:
The layout might have resembled GSI sites, but IMO the design or maybe more clearly the graphics didn't. What I miss the most in this new design are those nifty graphics for the menu and news seperators and the background image behind the dates and things like that. Those little touches were what made the old design really stand out. I mean the current design really does look a lot like PU now - that is to say it's just a bunch of different colored boxes in the background with one pixel borders around them. It's just blah. Bringing back some of those old little graphical touches (maybe new ones but similar concepts) would go a long way towards getting a new design while keeping the look of the page unique and stylish.

That's the thing, it wasn't just the layout. GSI pages have a standard layout, they can use whatever graphics they want. BU looked like PU with a different skin.

I agree the site needs something else (and we've got some stuff in the works for that), but using the excuse that the old design was some spectacular feat just doesn't cut it for why this design sucks.

Nemephosis · Aug 13, 2005

Sir_Brizz said:
I agree the site needs something else (and we've got some stuff in the works for that), but using the excuse that the old design was some spectacular feat just doesn't cut it for why this design sucks.

It looks like crap on smaller resolutions. I think that's a pretty good reason.

Yeah, we ARE out there.

Parser · Aug 13, 2005

Heh, talk about fair weather-ness. One minute people are praising BU as being the best Unreal engine site on the web, the next minute they're proclaiming their "absolute disgust" at BU wanting to give their site a fresh look.

I think the new site is a hell of a lot easier to read, even with the addition of a background image. The black text on grey format of the old site made the news text harder to distinguish and the colours would sometimes "bleed" into each other. Both the sidebars and the news bits are easier to read for me with the lighter background without my eyes breaking into a sweat.
Even in light of the compatability issues, I still think that the new site is slicker and has more defined sidebars which are definitely less cluttered than before. They're a lot easier to navigate. Plus I don't think it looks as cookie-cutterish as some people are stressing. The first time I saw the new site I still knew it was BU, and it still looks individual enough (That's just my opinion though).

PS. The quicklink bar at the top is pretty handy too.

Birelli · Aug 13, 2005

Parser said:
Heh, talk about fair weather-ness. One minute people are praising BU as being the best Unreal engine site on the web, the next minute they're proclaiming their "absolute disgust" at BU wanting to give their site a fresh look.

I'm still praising BU as being the best Unreal engine site out there, it is. Don't confuse my nit-picking with the new design as having anything to do with the excellent content.

Latent Image · Aug 13, 2005

I have no problem with it except for the links, the bright blue sux. otherwise a clean easy to read easy to navigate site.

Sir_Brizz · Aug 13, 2005

Nemephosis said:
It looks like crap on smaller resolutions. I think that's a pretty good reason.

Yeah, we ARE out there.

That's a different excuse than alot of people are using, though

JaFO · Aug 13, 2005

It does look a bit too boring / identical to those generic gaming-sites like Jolt.

Question :
Are there any plans to make the themes for the main-site match those for the forum ?
It'd be nice if I could have the same 'Matrix Green'-colourtheme (or any of the rest) for the main site as an option ...

Nemephosis · Aug 13, 2005

Sir_Brizz said:
That's a different excuse than alot of people are using, though

Well I happen to have a good reason. "bcuz the oldar one iz bettar" is not a reason.

Do you know if something being looked at about this resolution problem?

hal · Aug 13, 2005

Nemephosis · Aug 13, 2005

Thanks. :tup:

tarquin · Aug 14, 2005

hal said:
Looks bad on green monochrome monitors ... what's your point?

It doesn't look too good on 1024x768, either.
It looks *great*, but it's a shame you guys have used tables instead of fluid CSS. That would make it look good at any width (see Jailbreak for an example)

Sir_Brizz · Aug 14, 2005

We aren't using tables, and we won't be using tables on the next redesign either.

Zenny · Aug 14, 2005

I'd just like to chime in and say that ModWorks will be staying on the old layout until at least the end of this football season due to my time constraits.

daloonie · Aug 14, 2005

I would love it if we could get the oppertunity to switch between designs new/old. I really don't like the new one and Opera doesn't either.

G-Lite · Aug 14, 2005

Sir_Brizz said:
We aren't using tables, and we won't be using tables on the next redesign either.

Come again?

Code:

[b]<body>
<table[/b] width="982" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0">
  <tr>
    <td class="networkbar"><div align="center"><a href="http://www.beyondunreal.com/">BeyondUnreal</a> • <a href="http://forums.beyondunreal.com/">Forums</a> • <a href="http://download.beyondunreal.com/">FileWorks</a> • <a href="http://mods.beyondunreal.com/">ModWorks</a> • <a href="http://www.beyondunreal.com/main/site/hosting.php">Hosting</a> • <a href="http://www.beyondunreal.com/main/site/contact.php">Contact</a></div></td>

  </tr>
</table>
[b]<table[/b] width="980" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="[b]bucontent[/b]">

Both this and the previous design could've been done without tables. I think you can even pull it off with it working in both IE and Moz.

It still won't take away the background hack though, or it'd slow down to a crawl if you used translucency everywhere.

Curve[UK] · Aug 14, 2005

A switch would rock!

Nemephosis · Aug 14, 2005

Sir_Brizz said:
We aren't using tables, and we won't be using tables on the next redesign either.

You're already talking about the next redesign?

Guess this one wasn't so good if you already feel you have to change it again.

hal · Aug 14, 2005

Saying "next redesign" isn't really clear. Not a total overhaul - just a few more options and a different approach code-wise.

T2A` · Aug 14, 2005

Damn. How did I miss this thread?

The site doesn't look bad, but I don't prefer it over the old look. It looks too "emo blog" for me, like I mentioned in IRC when the change first took place. BU had it's own distinct sort of look and I really liked the whole gray scheme as opposed to this blue one. I would love an option to switch between this and the old version...

hal · Aug 15, 2005

For anyone who missed it from page 2:

El_Muerte_[TDS] said:
Those screenshots Brizz posted are of a somewhat redone layout of the current dtyle by me and PJMODOS. PJMODOS redid the current design to be more flexible (as a proof of concept). I finished it some more and made a few exmaple skins to show off the more flexible code for the same look. Specially the "metal" skin was a quicky, took me a few minutes to find an acceptable metal texture on google.
You can take a look for yourself to see the "fixed" code (e.g. XHTML1.0 and CSS2.0 correct):
http://unreal.student.utwente.nl/beyondunreal/

We're not going to do all of those skins, but that's the code I believe we are going with, and the Classic skin should be of interest.

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