Forum Converted to IPB

[Dae314]

Alright! Things are looking pretty good. One thing which would be nice to have later would be a light theme that's official. I'm currently using IBR because I prefer reading dark text on a light background, and it doesn't have the Kametsu logo and the favicon that appears in the top of the web page by the title is vB not IPB.

Another stylistic thing are those little icons at the bottom of a thread. Do we really need an email, print, and download icon? Do we want to support all those sites that are down there?

Also, I find that green bar at the top with the 3 rotating dots to be a bit out of place. Perhaps as a later project it would be worth looking into ways to style that thing and make it fit in more. I also think you don't need all that information under your avatar on each post, but I don't know if you can change that. Stuff like local time, warning posts, and skin seem unnecessary and just add extra junk to a person's post.

Edited July 11, 2012 by Dae314

[christoopher24]

Great Job Koby!! I've been checking it out, and I am really enjoying the new look and everything! Seems more modern. It'll take some time to figure out everything, but I am really glad you decided to update the site, it is awesome!

[† Emotional Outlet]

Hmm, I didn't know everyone could see the warning points. That definitely seems like it should be a staff-only thing. I don't believe in publicly shaming people like that, haha.

Definitely agree on the skin thing, but I don't mind knowing people's local times. Kind of helps to give people a frame of reference when talking to people.

There really isn't that much information on there as compared to previously, when your favourite game, anime, MAL account, and various social media buttons like Skype were under the avatar.

[Dae314]

You really think stuff like join date and age should also be up there? Also, I guess warning posts are just on your own profile since I notice now that you mentioned it that I can't see it on other's.

Oh right one other small thing I noticed was that when I'm looking at the list of newly updated threads, hovering my mouse over the thread title no longer reveals the full title if it's been cut off. I believe in the old Kametsu you were able to hover over a thread link and see the full title and a small description. That would be nice to have back. I'm browsing themes right now looking for more that look nice ^-^.

Found another thing. I don't know if this is skin related, but hovering my mouse over the post number in the upper right of the post gives me "Forum Converted to IPB: Post #<xx>" where <xx> is whatever post number it is. I think you may want to change that tooltip.

--edit--

OK, I quickly went through all the utilities and skins in the market place. I went through rather quickly so I probably missed stuff. I found some things which looked interesting. I only lightly reviewed everything so consider these just helpful suggestions and not wanted or perceived necessary changes:

Skins: I only found http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/5484-neat/]this one that looked like a professional and clean light skin alternative to IBR just to have 2 dark and 2 light skins.

Utilities:

http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/5263-scroll-to-top/]scroll to top button <- useful in general

http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/4233-sos31-topic-title-colored/]enable colored thread titles <- might be useful to highlight certain threads like rules and such

http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/4393-th-hide-links-from-guests/]hide links from guests <- if you wanna restrict access to download section links

http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/2853-iannounce/]announcements side bar <- may be more effective than just posting in the announcements forum which some people probably just overlook most of the time since we're not announcing things every day

http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/4458-mm32-staff-online-in-sidebar/]staff online side bar <- may or may not be useful

Edited July 11, 2012 by Dae314

[† Emotional Outlet]

I don't mind either. They're nice to know, but I won't miss them if they're gone.

Java was actually telling me a story on the way back from my appointment about how back in the late 90s/early 2000s, when he on a forum, someone pretended to be another user on the forum. He took the user's name, replacing one character with a unicode character that looked exactly the same, mimicked his profile, and wrought havoc on the forum, spreading slurs, insulting people, and generally being a troll. The actual user saw this happening and, as these things seem to pan out, confronted the troll publicly on the forum. Even the mods thought he was arguing with himself.

And okay, that's good about the warning points, haha. I anticipated being able to see them on everyone's profile, but not everyone else seeing them!

[Koby]

You really think stuff like join date and age should also be up there?

I added most of that because I find it relevant, useful, and informative.

Besides, not like it doesn't have plenty of room there, if removed it'd just be a blank area there.

Found another thing. I don't know if this is skin related, but hovering my mouse over the post number in the upper right of the post gives me "Forum Converted to IPB: Post #<xx>" where <xx> is whatever post number it is. I think you may want to change that tooltip.

Not sure what you think is a problem here, but that's how pretty much every software does things. Allows you to copy/paste a link directly to that certain post if you wanted. Even our old vB 3.7.0 did that.

One thing which would be nice to have later would be a light theme that's official. I'm currently using IBR because I prefer reading dark text on a light background, and it doesn't have the Kametsu logo and the favicon that appears in the top of the web page by the title is vB not IPB.

I've already said I'd be re-designing our own custom skin at some point. As for the favicon issue, that's a problem on your end. Your browser isn't refreshing it's cache. For one thing, it hasn't been a vB favicon in about 2 years, and I replaced the IPB one with our own Fairy Tail logo favicon I've used for the past 2 years, which shows up on every single skin for me.

Another stylistic thing are those little icons at the bottom of a thread. Do we really need an email, print, and download icon? Do we want to support all those sites that are down there?

Those are pretty much basic needs for sharing content, bringing in word of mouth visitors, etc.. Pretty much every site should have, and usually does have options for doing that. Removing them would be a terrible idea.

As for the topsite buttons, maybe you should look into what they actually are and what they do. They track our visitors counts and rank us accordingly to other sites, visitors visit the topsites from the various sites that have joined and they find us. Back 10 years, topsites were the #1 way to grow a community forum. They don't really help as much now days after spammers started targeting them about 4 years ago, but we still get a decent amount of traffic from them.

Also, I find that green bar at the top with the 3 rotating dots to be a bit out of place. Perhaps as a later project it would be worth looking into ways to style that thing and make it fit in more.

You shouldn't even really ever see that if your internet is half decent. It's simply a loading bar and it only seems to appear when something is taking too long to load.

[Dae314]

Oh I didn't criticize the top sites bar. I understand what those are for. I was talking about all the little digg/stumble/reddit icons. Affiliates are affiliates, I won't question who you want to put in that bar.

I'm referring specifically to the Forum converted to IPB part. Shouldn't that read Kametsu Forums?

I'll see what I can do about the favicon. I think it's tied to the skin since I was getting the fairy tale symbol with the other themes.

The dots are something I would expect you to shelve until you finish more important updates, but having every inch of the site themed or at least considered would be nice by the time Kametsu announces the conversion complete, which is why I'm mentioning it. Also I get those dots every time I post a post, open a post for editing, or post an edited post.

Most of what I tell you about (if I don't say "omfg urgent!") is just minor detail stuff that I see. I have no idea how far along you are on the back end of things and I don't expect rapid responses from you on every little issue (or even a response at all). Concentrate on the important conversion aspects and just make a list of stuff like what I post that you'll get to later. That's what I expect you to do with my posts .

Edited July 11, 2012 by Dae314

[Koby]

Oh I didn't criticize the top sites bar. I understand what those are for. I was talking about all the little digg/stumble/reddit icons.

All of those are social networking sites, which allows users to easily post links to the page to their accounts at those sites, making it a lot easier to spread the word about the site if the user decides to.

I've used Stumble, Twitter, Google+, StumbleUpon, and Facebook myself before... but I haven't tried the others.

[J-Lord]

Hmm, I didn't know everyone could see the warning points. That definitely seems like it should be a staff-only thing. I don't believe in publicly shaming people like that, haha.

Definitely agree on the skin thing, but I don't mind knowing people's local times. Kind of helps to give people a frame of reference when talking to people.

There really isn't that much information on there as compared to previously, when your favourite game, anime, MAL account, and various social media buttons like Skype were under the avatar.

I think the information located under every avatar is great, sure some people don't like it but I find them great in understanding the people around you, especially the local time one, to often have I been scratching my head trying to work out what time zones all my kametsu friends are in so this will help a lot of people out. It's as Koby said:

I added most of that because I find it relevant, useful, and informative.

Besides, not like it doesn't have plenty of room there, if removed it'd just be a blank area there.

Also I must comment on the new dark style, I prefer it over the shinny, blinding white theme we had before, nice work Koby!

[OriginOfWaves]

berry berry nice looking indeed oh and a proper mobile version is just awesome

[Koby]

I'm referring specifically to the Forum converted to IPB part. Shouldn't that read Kametsu Forums?

No. It's suppose to be Forum Converted to IPB because that is the name of this topic.

If you go to another thread, you'll see that change to whatever the name of that topic is.

[ZeroPenguins]

Looks great and everything, but thank you very much Koby for forgetting about me and leaving me as a Crusader-0. LOL Nevermind seems to be fixed...

Well other than that, my life has been way too busy, not that anyone cares rofl.

Edit 2:

Hahahah I notice we don't have a gill system! Can't wait to see what Lemming is gonna say when he comes back! LOL

Edited July 11, 2012 by Ang3lofDarkness

[† ballard]

The forum is looking good Koby. It has a nice fresh feel to it. I kind of get the urge to make an awesome new signature to go along with the shiny newness of the forums.

Edit: XD My current sig kind of hurts my eyes with the color scheme of the forum, or it could just be that it's late and my room is dark. XP

*Loads up photoshop*

I have a lot of ideas. ^-^

Edited July 11, 2012 by ballard

[dark4yoyo]

Hum the dark background is kinda cool, but some writing colors just kill your eyes (-> Sakura Rei).

Also, I noticed that the uploader group doesn't have the rights to see the staff section anymore, is that on purpose ?

[Kenzou]

I dig the new site threads, nice colors and more accessible too. Great job Koby and Kametsu Team.

[Blue boy b]

I expect great things from these forums

[Legado]

Nice! i can get use to this

[SkyLord]

glad the conversion went through successfully!......Loved the new look on the forum.

[sergey187]

Good to hear your back ))

[Gedo Mazo]

The only thing missing,is the Spoiler button