New Forum Layout

[BlindSide]

What are your opinions guys? Do you like it, hate it, love it?

Or just plain dont care... (like me )

Please post your opinions and comments, and vote in the provided poll.

Thank you

- BlindSide

[niko]

Clicked 'I love it' - McD. brainwashed already maybe
No really, it makes much more sense now

[Nodtveidt]

Don't really care, a forum's a forum.

[afecelis]

Well, we just thought that since the "Irr tools" (editor, audio, xml parser) are so developed and mature now, and while they're still "new" (and there aren't so many posts about them), that it was a good time to create specific forums for them to try to clean things up as well as make it easier to find info (specially for newcomers) since many of the important tips and experiences are "camouflaged" among other topics or even get lost without even being noticed. From there on, and seeing how they looked in their own group, the idea of trying to organize the other stuff was just a consequence.

Still thinking of what other things could be re-arranged, but there are topics that are now too old and contain a mega-ton of info making it impossible to segregate it by hand.

[gfxstyler]

i love it now, just to replace those ice-blue colors...

[Armen138]

yes, now allow us to select a nice dark skin and we're all set!

[veegun]

Yes, I like the new layout.

But, I wish the "Project Announcements" thread was split like:

Project Announcements
----Tools <---- editors, designers, viewers, etc.
----Games <--- prototypes, wip, mobile, etc.
----Contrib <--- custom scenenodes, engine addons, wrappers (physics, scripts, fonts, input) etc.
----Misc <--- demos, everything else

or

Project Announcements -- Tools
Project Announcements -- Games
Project Announcements -- Contrib
Project Announcements -- Misc

It's the 2nd largest one at 11,440 posts! It would make it easier for folks to find say a tool or a game. The names of a project can vary greatly. Take for example "JohnnyAppleseed." Do you suppose that's a game or a tool? If you pick a tool, you're right. But just by looking at the name one cannot tell. But if it's located in a Tools forum, then it makes it that much easier to know.

"The Beginners Help" could be split too into sub categories like:

Beginners Help
----Graphics
----Input
----Math
----Physics
----Misc

The above is just an example I threw together. It could be better thought out based on existing posts.

[afecelis]

yup Veegun, the idea is great, but as you said, they're too big now to classify the posts into the diferent sub-categories. That's why we decided to stick the Irrlicht tools out of the whole mass while it was still time But it's a completely different story with the projects or the beginners help.
I even thought of creating separate forums for the different physics engines (Newton, ODE, etc) but when I searched about them I had to quit the idea because of the tons of results!

But, who knows? Maybe one of these days we get the time to move 11.000 posts or so to their respective sub-forums, heheheheh

but anyway, I'm glad you like this 1st attempt of reorganization.

Regards,
Alvaro

ps. About the color scheme or the option for the user to be able to choose their own theme I'd have to ask Bitplane as I think it's directly related with the Version of the forum used and the security mods done (the captchas) so if it implies loosing them I know Niko will say to stick with this theme. Other template themes don't come with visual confirmation enabled.

[hybrid]

I think FAQ should be moved to the help section.

[afecelis]

you're absolutely right Hybrid! done.

[gfxstyler]

i'd rather change the posting conditions of the project announcements, e.g. no threads like

"hi im gonna make a new game, it will be about war and i need people to help. no screens or demo yet! how do you like it?"

which would already sort out a lot of the crap

[TheRLG]

Also, in the challenges, there should be only three open threads for ideas, and any other threads would be locked official challenges created by an admin. that would streamline it more and clear out garbage. people go to the challenge forum and get confused.

[bitplane]

i like the new layout
i don't think we should split the project forum down further though because it will mean loads more forums to check, longer loading times on the main page, an increase cross-posting, and the chance of accumulating a collection of stale forums.
@rabid, I unstickied the challenge ideas topics because nobody was playing, they were sat there for almost a year with nobody entering. I was considering removing the forum before Armen posted the Space Invaders challenge. Challenging people to make simple games seems to be a much more successful approach, so I think we should continue with more of those in the future.

[afecelis]

Thanks for the insight Bitplane! I didn't know that about increasing loading times, etc etc. So I guess forums are ok as they are now; no more fragmentation.
I had also thought the same of the challenge forums but fortunately Armen saved the day! Let's just hope users keep it up that way.

On a side note, any ideas on forum themes or enabling themes per user profile options?

regards,
Alvaro
EDIT:just checked my profile options and there's the chance of selecting "phpVB2" as an alternative theme; however, selecting it doesn't change anything so I guess Irrlicht's theme (subsilver) is in fact hard coded because of security issues.

[TheRLG]

What kind of security reasons? The security should be able to carry over to different themes, if not, then it needs to!

As far as the looks go, We would probably benefit from subtle changes like having different colors on those gradient bars at the top of tables, and a nice background or something. Those could all be done just by editing the CSS, and it would spruce up the forums a bit.