The ATK Community Facelift!

[Chalex4]

Cheers.

I have changed it to four news feeds on one page, and kept the refresh time at 10 seconds.

[Isphera]

I go away for two weeks (I'm writing this in a Disney Net Cafe), and you have completly trashed the site. I'm sorry if this offends you, but as we all know, I will speak how I feel, and I feel that the new site color scheme, features etc. have ruined the site. The banner with the blue and black rings makes us look like 12 year olds, and the brown looks like I eat a really hot curry and decided to do my business over the website rather in a restroom.

We all know I didn't like the Facebook-like additions previously, but this is in a completely new league. The only good things I can say about it is that I log on to see a gaming newsreel with a Madden 09 story on it, and that it's reversable.

If you want to post hate mail against me, go fo it, and I won't be able to read it until Monday lunchtime when I get back. I will be on TS by Monday evening at the latest, and look forward to discussing this with Chalex in the near future.

EDIT - If you have removed the shoutbox, I will skin you alive.
EDIT2 - Do we really need an About us box? If people care, they would read the story on the side.

[Mr.Big]

Oric, go to hell, i like this new look, and where is the shoutbox?

[Siepie]

As i said the other night, kudos

[Snerfs]

lol sorry but nice rant oric. i suppose its to peoples different likings. however, i would prefer if the shoutbox would still be on the main homepage because for me, thats the page that sits on each side of me playing WoW so i can actually see the shout box and new posts

[Chazlene]

The shoutbox is still at the top of the forum, we didn't want to keep it on the homepage because it would mean the page would be too long with the new About ATK box and the News Ticker. We also wanted the forum index page to be used more, since a lot of people skip it out by clicking on the new posts link.

And Oric, you don't have to be so bloody rude about the new design, everyone else just said something calmer like 'I'm not sure if I agree with the colour scheme'. You can't expect us to listen to your advice if you're going to start a huge rant about it.

[Calneon]

Moving the shoutbox to the forum index won't make me use the forum index, it just means I have to click a link to see the shoutbox, then go back and scroll down to see the recent posts box. I know you may want the forum index to be used more, but the fact is that the recent posts box is just so much easier than going to the forum index, clicking through all the subforums, replying, then navigating back out etc.

I do agree with Oric somewhat, though I dislike the negative style he chose to write it in. The about us box (i'm being blunt here), quite frankly looks bad unless you have the website small enough that there are no gaps either side. It is also pretty useless, you're taking up half the frontpage with a box that is only useful to new users visiting the site, and is just an annoyance to the current members of the community, which, let's face it, should be your primary focus (i.e. improving the usability of the site for US, not trying to entice new members, though we need to do that too). I think the about us box does what it does well, it is just badly placed, and anybody wanting to find out about us can just navigate to the about us page.

Thirdly, the news ticker. I know Chalex you went some steps to improve the news ticker, and it is much better this way, but (and I speak with my opinion here, I don't know how much other people use it), something that has nothing to do with ATK shouldn't be a dominating feature on our homepage. Move it to the side and ill be happy (though I do think that we have too much crap on the side as it is).

Fourthly, the colour scheme, I won't say much about this, but I do think the previous scheme was more attractive.

But seriously guys, I really like the effort and thought that you're putting into changing the site for the better, any critisizms I give are purely positive and to try and help you make the site even better by giving you my opinions .

[Chazlene]

I thought this design would be quite Marmitey, you either love it or hate it. One of the other reasons why the shoutbox was removed from the homepage was that for around 50% of people visiting the website the shoutbox wouldn't load. This should be fixed in the future, and then the shoutbox may be put back on the homepage, but not as tall as before.

The About ATK box isn't going to remain as 'About ATK' we'll update it to include major news items, such as the i34 video being released for example, and with only one slide staying as 'About ATK'. If you don't like seeing the box every time you load the website, you can always choose to collapse it with the chevron symbol in the top right.

I also think the News Ticker should be moved to one of the side boxes, since it isn't detailed enough and doesn't contain enough images to be given a place in the centre of the page.

Now remember that we changed the whole colour scheme in just one day, so it was fairly rushed. I'm probably going to make changes to the colour scheme and improve the horizontal bars, just suggest colours you think will go well with the header.

I also think that we could reorder the columns on the homepage so it isn't so symmetrical, i.e. the wide centre column could be moved to the right and the two narrow columns to go next to each other, what do you think?

[Calneon]

I like the layout of the portal at the moment, I think that what you suggest would look a little strange. The obvious colour scheme to try would be an aqua colour to match the banner at the top, white, aqua (forgot what the colour is), and some black. Would it also be possible to have multiple skins that people can chose from in their profile?

I didn't know you could collapse the boxes individually, but it's kinda pointless because you would have to do it every time you loaded the page, maybe if it was stored in cookies somehow?

EDIT: My bad! They do store in cookies, that's great .

[Marshy]

ahh this new ice blue and grey is bad im sure hutch would have a good choice we should let him come back into the community

[Calneon]

ahh this new ice blue and grey is bad

Heh, well I like it, considering it isnt finished yet . I guess this is really the reason why there needs to be some sort of option so each user can have a different skin.

[Snerfs]

ahh this new ice blue and grey is bad im sure hutch would have a good choice we should let him come back into the community

good try marshy, not a chance

[Darkeagle]

Im back, Chalex you lying son of a bitch, i knew i was right.

[Nicknack]

oh... your back
aahhh just kiddin, hows you bin

[Marshy]

good try marshy, not a chance

Why thank you also this topic is a little old.