STH Forum: old or new theme

Old or new theme for STH forum, which one do you prefer?

  • old

  • new

  • who cares


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i386

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2016
4,220
1,540
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Germany
I choose the fourth option; some things are better with the new version (especially on mobile devices), others were better with the older version ;)
 

alex_stief

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2016
884
312
63
38
Not 100% sure why anyone would care enough to vote if they don't care, but here it is ;)
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
7,625
2,043
113
The new theme has a lot white space, requires a lot of scrolling, forum list vs boxes and other usability issues.
The font is BOLD all over instead of normal and bright when on dark theme.
Honestly, if we have to stay with this forum theme i'll be forced to reduce usage by 50% and maybe more it's unbearable on my eyes, even dark is very bright with the bold white font all over and navigation with all the white space is not enjoyable.

My 02 this is a forum killer
 

MiniKnight

Well-Known Member
Mar 30, 2012
3,072
973
113
NYC
@T_Minus you haven't found the "Toggle Width" feature it seems in the bottom left.

I like the bigger font. Easier on old eyes. This isn't a forum for teenagers and browsers can make text smaller.
 
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EffrafaxOfWug

Radioactive Member
Feb 12, 2015
1,394
511
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To chime in on the old fart front, here's my gripes. Apply to both the light and dark themes (although I'm using the light theme because the explosion of colour on the dark one was driving me nuts).
* Whitespace. Whitespace everywhere! Not sure if this is catering to phones or UI fashion but it looks bloody awful on my desktop. Many elements and the spacing between them seem oversized, especially what seems to be called the "reactions bar" (I never use it so it's gone into a ublock rule now).
* Much enhugened typeface now. I've got them set to small and they still look too big to me.
* Horrible rounded corners everywhere. Yes, the old theme had roundrects as well but they were much less circular than this.
* Lots of low-or-no-contrast all over the place. Less clear demarcation between many elements, the old theme had fairly solid darkish-grey lines
* Conversely, high contrast where it isn't needed. The rainbow of avatar colours is especially distracting especially since they're not actually drawing your attention to anything important. The old monochrome avatar image was better
* As previously mentioned, no forum navbar at the bottom of each page
* Not sure what's going on with it, but I also see no differentiation between read and unread posts - unless the unread ones are somehow just more spidery or something. Possibly this effect is reliant on loading remote fonts, which I keep disabled.
* Colour of selected texts now seems to follow the StH theme colours and not the colour I have set. Jarring. Even more annoyingly, it's the same colour as the blue UI elements in light mode but the same blue colour in dark mode. Even more jarring.

* Not really anything to do with the theme as the old site had the same problem, but the forum still doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between forums you've looked at. Forums show as having "new" posts if there's any unread posts in them at all, not just since your last visit, so you have to compulsively go "mark forum read" every five minutes to get the new posts icon to mean anything.

All £0.02, YMMV, IMHO, etc. I wouldn't go so far to call it a forum killer but to my aged sensibilities it doesn't look anywhere near as professional as the prior design. And yes, Windows 2000 was the best windows GUI since you ask! :p

* yells at cloud *
 

IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
2,515
650
113
To chime in on the old fart front, here's my gripes. Apply to both the light and dark themes (although I'm using the light theme because the explosion of colour on the dark one was driving me nuts).
* Whitespace. Whitespace everywhere! Not sure if this is catering to phones or UI fashion but it looks bloody awful on my desktop. Many elements and the spacing between them seem oversized, especially what seems to be called the "reactions bar" (I never use it so it's gone into a ublock rule now).
* Much enhugened typeface now. I've got them set to small and they still look too big to me.
* Horrible rounded corners everywhere. Yes, the old theme had roundrects as well but they were much less circular than this.
* Lots of low-or-no-contrast all over the place. Less clear demarcation between many elements, the old theme had fairly solid darkish-grey lines
* Conversely, high contrast where it isn't needed. The rainbow of avatar colours is especially distracting especially since they're not actually drawing your attention to anything important. The old monochrome avatar image was better
* As previously mentioned, no forum navbar at the bottom of each page
* Not sure what's going on with it, but I also see no differentiation between read and unread posts - unless the unread ones are somehow just more spidery or something. Possibly this effect is reliant on loading remote fonts, which I keep disabled.
* Colour of selected texts now seems to follow the StH theme colours and not the colour I have set. Jarring. Even more annoyingly, it's the same colour as the blue UI elements in light mode but the same blue colour in dark mode. Even more jarring.

* Not really anything to do with the theme as the old site had the same problem, but the forum still doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between forums you've looked at. Forums show as having "new" posts if there's any unread posts in them at all, not just since your last visit, so you have to compulsively go "mark forum read" every five minutes to get the new posts icon to mean anything.

All £0.02, YMMV, IMHO, etc. I wouldn't go so far to call it a forum killer but to my aged sensibilities it doesn't look anywhere near as professional as the prior design. And yes, Windows 2000 was the best windows GUI since you ask! :p

* yells at cloud *
I pretty much agree with just about every point made in this post. I sincerely miss the old forum. I find myself wanting to visit the forum and then catching myself not to because I have not been pleased with the experience since the change. It's not going to keep me away permanently but I don't see myself being as active in the future unfortunately . Which is a shame because I love this community.
 
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edge

Active Member
Apr 22, 2013
203
71
28
I am waiting to hear complaints that the new look doesn't comply with consistent user access (sigh, I am probably one of the few who remember when CUA meant something).
 

EffrafaxOfWug

Radioactive Member
Feb 12, 2015
1,394
511
113
On re-reading my comment I'd like to make clear (to Patrick mostly) that I'm not trying to disparage the site or anything - you've basically done a whole-forum replace and reskin in a matter of days for a large audience of detail-orientated nerds so I'd legitimately be shocked if there wasn't hand-wringing and wails from the cheap seats. You've already done a sterling job getting rid of the obnoxious animations so I'm well aware things are being taken on board and I'm sure there's plenty of opportunities for fine-tuning coming up.

Edit: ...and with that post, text miraculously became small again! I sense that someone is live-hacking the CSS as we speak :)
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
12,511
5,792
113
Yea. Just to give you guys an idea, we are using UI.X Pro now. That is the "Pro" theme by the folks that did the Anandtech/ Tomshardware forums. AT/ TH have much higher customization, but we get a lot of functionality with the new theme and those folks actually setup the base install.

One of the big changes is that every addon that we had no longer works. On the plus side, we have a lot of extra functionality now.

Just to give some sense in the last week we have now:
  • Rebuilt the forums. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS from 16.04, new web stack, major break everything XenForo upgrade, new theme (we used a customized UI.X non-pro on XF1 BTW)
  • Rebuilt the main site. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS from 16.04, new web stack, new theme
  • Rebuilt the ad server. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS from 16.04
  • Swapped out hosting nodes bringing spares online.
That is a pretty big lift while still getting content out.
 
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T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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@MiniKnight

That does nothing for the white space or font size and is irrelevant to everything I commented on.
Additionally you can always increase font-size too ;) but I think we both know increasing via browser does not only increase the font size ;)

@EffrafaxOfWug hit the nail with many of my points better illustrated.

@Patrick I'm not a XF long-time admin so unsure what's built-in vs what you had customized but I do know the previous version of STH Forum was my favorite layout and usability of any forum I've used in the last 20 years. I'd hire a XF pro that only does XF that's what I've done in the past and they always work 3-5x faster than me trying to do things :D on something i don't work in day to day. When I say my favorite I mean I felt like I could literally scan the entire forum for new posts, updates\changes, etc really fast (using new posts and browsing). It was a pleasure to use, and didn't make me scroll or look all over, this one is the opposite :) Hopefully can get back to the`ol look :D
 

Dreece

Active Member
Jan 22, 2019
503
160
43
It's always going to be a 'getting used to the new' thing, just like the Win7 vs Win10 debacle... but when all is said and done... it grows on you.

I been away for a while and just popped in and nearly flicked my tea off the table, definitely impressed with the modernisation! Will indeed take getting used to compared to the old look, but I think with all things new and hip, things grow on you... I just about recently have begun to understand dubstep music and its spinoffs... though still prefer a smashing 80s track.

Another suggestion if I may... consider updating the STH logo to something 'modern' too, it still looks like it was knocked up in paintbrush by an intern.

Great to see STH entering the millenium... the oldies may not like it so much, but the younger generations will find it more pleasing and hopefully result in better engagement with the millenials, which lets face it, they are the larger internet audience these days.

PS. I love the colour scheme, very good on the eyes, and I agree with the other comment above regarding the slightly bolder font being easier on the eyes, for me its an extra bonus as I can now have this window in the corner of my 4k 32" monitor without having to adjust the browser zoom.

@Patrick - I also believe it is time you update your profile photo, kind of reminds me of the early 80s TV adverts. lol
 
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