Forum + Website redesign

[boye]

I feel that the website and especially the forum feel relatively ancient. Could it be possible to modernize the looks of the website and forums?

[Flying_Phoenix]

i don't know what to say really
how's the fw reddit page doing?
this is as smooth and readable and fast-loading as a real forum gets, it needs no improvements
go check some modern crappaforum systems like tapatalk, then come back and feel how golden this one is
fw still teaches all forums what a forum should feel like on a pc

[P]

I agree with Flying Phoenix. This is a classic forum for classic games, no need to pretend we are modern and make the forum bloated.

[UglyJoe]

I do plan on updating the forum at some point, but only because this version of SMF will be discontinued some day and stop receiving security patches.

Would be nice for the main site to be redone (at the very least so it is mobile-friendly), but it would probably be somebody else who ends up doing that.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

The only thing I'm not too keen on is the brick background. I don't know what it is about it--that it's small? The bland grey? Would red bricks be too loud? I'm thinking the ones in Mario Bros. in particular: https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/i.retroachievements.org/Images/001925.png

[P]

Yeah the bricks look maybe a bit simple or colourless and while those Mario Bros bricks looks better, I'm not sure about using strong or dark colours for backgrounds. One can always use the same tiles but with other colours from the Famicom's color generator though.

Final Fantasy and Zelda 2 also have nice bricks.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

bricks.

I like the idea of black bricks with a red outline.

[VegaVegas]

bricks.

I like the idea of black bricks with a red outline.

Again, these mini changes will make pages look even worse. Higher contrast and more off colors = more confusion

[Jedi Master Baiter]

bricks.

I like the idea of black bricks with a red outline.

Again, these mini changes will make pages look even worse. Higher contrast and more off colors = more confusion

Perhaps we could have a forum with multiple themes? I know we can choose different smileys.

[adori_12]

I think there's no need to redesign this site at all. It looks great as it is, remember that we're talking about retro Famicom games, and a modern looking forum for that is very unfitting. Yellow and grey colors are neutral and easy to the eye; replacing them for more vibrant and modern colors would be very distracting.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

Personally, I find too much white hard on the eyes, which is why I thought inverting the bricks might rectify that.

I find the darker tone of NESdev much more pleasant: http://forums.nesdev.com/index.php

But if I'm the only one, I guess I'll just have to keep turning the brightness of my monitor down.

[L___E___T]

 



Speaking personally and subjectively, I would love to see the bricks switched to flat black...

I don't think the site needs a fresh style revision.  It's months & months of work, for an unclear gain.  

As a retro site I agree it doesn't need to look fresh, modern, flat design or anything like that.  It is of an age.

[VegaVegas]

Personally, I find too much white hard on the eyes, which is why I thought inverting the bricks might rectify that.

I find the darker tone of NESdev much more pleasant: http://forums.nesdev.com/index.php

But if I'm the only one, I guess I'll just have to keep turning the brightness of my monitor down.

I heard of some hypothesis that black text on white background is actually healthier and more natural for the eyes as it derives from reading books and paper. Some laboratory confirmed that perhaps, I just heard xP. Maybe leaving this color theme and keeping it default as is and adding another darker toned one or more will be a good idea. You will have the choice

[L___E___T]

 



I would disagree with that for screen use - as the difference is paper is not illuminated from behind

So I do find white glaring and generally much prefer a dark mode whenever I can use one, but FW would be weird to me in black all of a sudden.  If we were going to change the colours I guess I'd imagine red, gold and white first!

[MWK]

I feel that the website and especially the forum feel relatively ancient. Could it be possible to modernize the looks of the website and forums?

Disagree.

Personally I like the site and forum how they are. It sets it apart from every other site which just looks the same.

Agree.