2017 Forum Redesign Feedback Thread

[RavenGT]

This new 10th anniversary forum design was intentionally pushed public ahead of time in order for me to style elements visible only to Guests. Since this isn't really a secret anymore, I thought I'd get your thoughts on it right now before we blow it wide open still ridden with bugs.

Just some pointers I'd like to mention:

• The theme was based off of Eco Friendly because I'm clueless when it comes to forums. All the HLC themed styling were simply hacked in with extremely messy code. I styled things that I thought were relevant to the core experience, but you'll know when you run into some out of place default assets.
• The theme is unfortunately not responsive or full screen, as my attempts to do so may break everything. What's actually important is images such as embeds or attachments are now made to fit inside the layout with no scroll bars, allowing for a maximum of 736px wide before being resized and resampled by your browser engine. Be mindful of this if you really care about presenting your images in 1:1.
• Custom Titles now really look like custom titles and is treated to compliment your display name (see my own), where as Personal Text is treated as something like a motto or quote. As you may already know, these can be customized in Forum Profile, custom title can be found just right above your signature field.
• All sub-forums are now visible to the public in an effort to expose more accurate forum activity to guest lurkers.
• I'm considering Steam mini-badges similar to HIT, but I'm not sure how to do this. Just a consideration at the moment.
• I'd like to make new thread topic badges and unify the look.
• Personally I'm a little unsure of the orange [!] icon used for new sub-forum activity on the forum index. Also, if there are any general legibility issues, let us know.

Stay tuned for more exciting things.


Edit:

Recent changes:

• Search box moved to header menu bar allowing forum » sub-forum » topic to overflow.
• Code block now uses Consolas and a larger font size, fixed width spacing should look much cleaner, credits read a lot better now.
• Login area styled and fixed.

[Bekey]

Compliments and nice things aside. Where's the generator button? 

[The ghost of Cliffmas FALs]

Clearly it's

[Imperial Wizard]

The entire site should be flashing yellow and purple tbh

[Editor]

The entire site should be flashing yellow and purple tbh

Maybe for our 20th.

[Burd!]

RavenGT, you are amazing. Awesome new design of the site.

[Matuka]

I actually really love the new logo. It reminds me of optotypes. Excellent fucking work! This is definitely not what I expected to see when logging on this month.

[Alex]

This is really neat, we just need a thumbs up button ;)

For now  will do

[SPRKH]

Now we just need people to post. 

[RavenGT]

I've seen some great content in the past month, and I would really like to remind some of the neighboring Half-Life communities like Sven Co-op forums or even HIT that we just got relaunched, however it's not going to look all that convincing when we only get a couple posts every 4 days or so. I think we need more consistent activity whether it be banter or releases (new or old). I had this thought that maybe we can dig through the HIT archives and just repost the shit out of everything we can find with images, credits, and downloads in attempt to populate this place with content, if we can't manage it with discussion activity. I don't know if this will sit nicely with the original authors despite being credited, but in this post-2013 Steampipe era it's been pretty deserted. I'm sure some of you awesome HLC people have been doing this for years, but maybe we can get more people on it.

[Editor]

Zikshadow started a thread in the Releases section I have stickied
http://www.half-lifecreations.com/forums/index.php?topic=2067.0

HIT lost its attachments if I remember right, and many of the hosted links are dead but I doubt anyone would have an issue with it this many years later. My thoughts on the matter are the content being archived is a public service.

So anything we can find should be added for safe keeping.

[zikshadow]

Hmm, so does that mean moving everything from the "Recovered HIT Forums Stuff" to their own threads?

[RavenGT]

Hmm, so does that mean moving everything from the "Recovered HIT Forums Stuff" to their own threads?

Personally I think this is the best case so people who come to HLC can naturally browse for it in the releases sub-forum, and it works with the search function how it should.

[zikshadow]

So be it then.

But, who's gonna be doing the new threads? Have the mods/admins move the individual posts from the RHITFS one by one to their own separate threads or have users make the new threads themselves?

I've also noticed some missing links too in the RHITFS thread (kinda missing the point of the thread, eh?), perhaps we could recover those as well and put them in a more safer file storage?

[SPRKH]

On that note: what happened to the model dump idea? A stable online (ftp) repository where people can upload/archive old HL shit. Is that aleady a thing? Having something other than gamebanana to rely on is always a good idea. Unfortunately my external hdd with all my old backups and files died overnight, so i wouldnt be able to contribute much myself. Might help drive more traffic to here as well.

[Editor]

On that note: what happened to the model dump idea? A stable online (ftp) repository where people can upload/archive old HL shit. Is that aleady a thing? Having something other than gamebanana to rely on is always a good idea. Unfortunately my external hdd with all my old backups and files died overnight, so i wouldnt be able to contribute much myself. Might help drive more traffic to here as well.

Model dump exists and is used by some users. I've been handing out logins to those that have asked for them so they can upload stuff. You need one Spork; just say the word.

There is also the HIT Model Depot as well that has some older stuff.

[RavenGT]

But, who's gonna be doing the new threads? Have the mods/admins move the individual posts from the RHITFS one by one to their own separate threads or have users make the new threads themselves?

Going forward, I think users should start making new threads. For the RHITFS thread and other existing stuff, I don't mind giving it a try. But after getting the new HLC site up, I'm trying to focus on getting my own site up and getting a job at the moment. The clean up isn't urgent unless someone wants to do it.

[Editor]

But, who's gonna be doing the new threads? Have the mods/admins move the individual posts from the RHITFS one by one to their own separate threads or have users make the new threads themselves?

Going forward, I think users should start making new threads. For the RHITFS thread and other existing stuff, I don't mind giving it a try. But after getting the new HLC site up, I'm trying to focus on getting my own site up and getting a job at the moment. The clean up isn't urgent unless someone wants to do it.

If you need a reference from one of your clients let me know.

[RavenGT]

If you need a reference from one of your clients let me know.

Thanks boss.

[SPRKH]

Hey raven the page looks garbage on the latest internet explorer 

[RavenGT]

Hey raven the page looks garbage on the latest internet explorer 

Interesting, looks just like my iPhone 4 iOS 7.1.2. I have no idea how this even happened because I tested on Chrome and Gecko. I guess it's a good thing at least one person uses IE No promises, and I don't even know where to start.

[Editor]

Honestly, I'd be fine with a script that detects IE and redirects to Firefox or Chrome download pages.

[RavenGT]

Honestly, I'd be fine with a script that detects IE and redirects to Firefox or Chrome download pages.

This is definitely far from my knowledge, let me know if you already know how to tackle it.

[Matuka]

On that note: what happened to the model dump idea? A stable online (ftp) repository where people can upload/archive old HL shit. Is that aleady a thing? Having something other than gamebanana to rely on is always a good idea. Unfortunately my external hdd with all my old backups and files died overnight, so i wouldnt be able to contribute much myself. Might help drive more traffic to here as well.

Model dump exists and is used by some users. I've been handing out logins to those that have asked for them so they can upload stuff. You need one Spork; just say the word.

There is also the HIT Model Depot as well that has some older stuff.

Do you guys still host Millenia's page? I remember he had a big ol' model dump on it.

[SPRKH]

Is youtube embedding (still) a thing?

[Editor]

Had to re-add the feature since the original one we had was not compatible with the newer version of the forum.

Should work now.

[SureShot]

I love the new look.

Certainly feels much more 2017.

Also hai.

[Ring-A-Ding]

Nice, I love this cooler design.

[SPRKH]

Model dump exists and is used by some users. I've been handing out logins to those that have asked for them so they can upload stuff. You need one Spork; just say the word.

I just found about 100 original uv releases. Some place to upload all this shit would be nice

[Editor]

Model dump exists and is used by some users. I've been handing out logins to those that have asked for them so they can upload stuff. You need one Spork; just say the word.

I just found about 100 original uv releases. Some place to upload all this shit would be nice

PM sent.