The last version looked better, no offense.
This looks too plain and looks rushed though.
Its not eye-popping.
Sorry for my criticism. Ban me now. D:

coool! xD

A lot of websites on the internet go through different skins, and themes until they find one that suites their site best. I think a lot of people missed the part about there being more links to the navigation in the future. I'm guessing right now, this is only phase one of the changes that are going to be made. The horizontal scroll is web 2.0 a lot of designers are starting to make layouts in this way. As for the users, they are going to have to be more accepting to change. And realize that not everything stays the same forever. Don't fret over something as small as a horizontal scroll or some extra pixels on a forum site. There are things that you can do on your end to adjust to the new changes. You could get a widescreen monitor, or update your graphics card to adjust to higher screen resolutions than the current site's size (1024x768). My screen resolution is 1440x900 I can still have cb windowed and everything still looks fine. Hopefully you guys will just move past this bitching stage, and accept that our "active" community accounts for about 5% of cb's users. Seems like the other 95% don't mind the change to come here and bitch about a horizontal scroll.

Some of us have new computers with high resolutions, and this width is still hella annoying. As for horizontal scrolls being web 2.0...I really don't think that's the case. Styles may change, the impracticality of having to scroll two directions has not. I don't know what makes you think that because some people don't post, it makes the rest of our input less valuable. I'm all for changes, but the width is unnecessary.

Paperplane,

I didn't say that because the active community is a small number that the input it provides is invaluable. So please don't put words into my mouth.

If you recall from Jusun's post about adding more to the navigation bar. How can you have 13+ links and a search bar on one line without the width of the site being larger?

No. Quote it? I really don't care about anything but the forums, and accordingly skimmed most of his posts.

When you have active forums that help the site survive, you can't disregard how changes to other parts of the site effect the forums or their users.

this has nothing to do with web 2.0. web 2.0 is now used more for portfolio websites, and instead of scrolling vertically, it's the new thing to scroll it horizontally. this, however, is an online forum. stop with the web 2.0 bullshit.

i don't think it makes sense to say that only 5% of the community dislike it becuase only 5% are giving feedback. just because other people don't come to the forum doesn't mean they like it any better than the ones who do. i go to sites all the time that change stuff and it annoys me but i don't go to their forum becuase i don't regularly frequent their forum in the first place. it's not like not giving input automatically means you like it.

i was registered on this site a year before i even realized there was a forum. if i had gotten on and there was a horizontal scroll bar i would have thought it was annoying as hell but i wouldn't have known where to complain about it on the forum or even thought to.


i also don't think anyone should have to go buy a monitor so they won't have horizontal scroll bars all the time but yeah...

i hope a thin version is still going to come out.

lol.

I'm used to new layout now.

I personally don't mind the new layout, but I think the look of the navi/menu could have been better thought out.

Looks good so far, good work!

I like the changes.

I believe everyone has gotten used to it now. It's just that it's not very designed well (thought out).

i'm not used to it, i still dislike it.

^ Me neither. The only things that I would like to see get changed is the width and the cramped space up top.

The navigation still annoys the crap out of me.

^ yes we do. and we now have mocha / latte / and a new nighttime version. will still need to forum-ize them.

just wanted to say a couple of things.

for those who only use the forums, i agree that people might consider the new width a bit too wide (or is it because theyre accustomed to the old width). but for everyone else (that actually uses the site like the layouts section), i would think they would prefer the new width over the old one, considering the browsing is much better with the larger thumbnails.

unfortunately, its true that only a very very few actually use the forums. so when i was doing 4.5 redesign, i did not optimize it for the forums. logical would dictate that i should optimize the site for the majority of the people who come here. that being said, the majority come here really for everything OUTSIDE of the forums, which is much better suited with the larger widths.

another factor that i took into consideration with the re-deisgn is, less than 1% of computers today actually have their resolution set to 800x600 (this was windows 95 / 98 days). previous to cb4.5, the site was actually optimized for 800x600. but then again, the last time i did a redesign was two years ago, when there was still around 10% that actually used that resolution. considering now that people dont use that resolution, coupled with the fact that widening it would make browsing the layouts much better, theres no reason why the site should still be optimized for 800x600. with the redesign, its optimized for 1024x768, meaning for those who have 1024x768 resolution and greater, there shouldnt be a scroll bar at all. (if there is, please let me know, this is an error that can be fixed.)

obviously, this site wasnt designed to have a horizontal scroll bar. however, for those who STILL use 800x600 or like their browser windowed to a window smaller than 1024x768, you WILL see one. what i dont understand is that most of you probably have facebook, and facebook's width is also optimzied for 1024x768 for the same reason i mentioned above (about the lack of people using 800x600 today), and increasingly, youll see other sites moving on to optimize for 1024x768. like i said, theres no reason why it should be any lower, especially if the new wider width will help with the overall presentation of a site.

so i dont know. im taken aback by those who pretty much bash or complain or say that they dont care for anything else but the forums, and demand that there be something to suit their personal needs irregardless of the circumstance (the fact that they are a small minorty, which i do hope for their sake they did not realize, considering how they came off). maybe it would be understanable if its coming from our younger members since they have a lot to mature anyhow, but one would think theyd know better when theyre like 18.

that said, i will most likely come out with a thinner version (at least for the forums anyway), but im not going to make any promises. and bashing really doesnt make anything better. not that i have any problem with criticisms, but if youre going to criticize please do so conctructively.


---


there shouldnt be a horizontal scroll bar if the resolution is 1024x768 or greater when not windowed.



um.. ok. good for you, wanna cookie?

well i guess if you're offended by people not liking it then you can take comfort in knowing only the minority doesn't. i don't know what you expected though really.




where is there an option to change the skin on the forums now that it's not in the bottom right hand corner?

oh ok


so are we not going to use cb designers banners anymore on the top in place of the add like what was first proposed?

Facebook is portioned off so that when you have your screen windowed, it doesn't matter whether half of the site is on there. But when you try to read forum posts that take up 2/3 of the screen, there is an annoyingly large amount of right-left scrolling to be done. It's a long way to read across in general; no blog optimized for 1024x768 is going to have the text go across nearly the whole width of the page. After all, we may not be stupid enough to still be viewing in 800x600, but it makes a lot of sense not to have the browser window maximized at all times.

I don't really know how you can expect to make changes for the silent majority and not get complaints from the vocal minority when the changes are to our disadvantage.

If most people don't use the forums, and those of us who do are complaining, why can you not just do whatever you want with the front page and make the forums narrower?


ps irregardless is a double negative

I still keep getting bad query on the tracker.

..i dont really care how the site looks. Its fuctional, and I didn't notice the width change. I'm on a wide screen laptop everything is wide.

It's kind of pointless to bitch and complain about something that provides a free service for alot of people. Sure, feedback on how you feel about something is ok, but is it really helping to whine that YOU don't get YOUR way?

On Firefox, Mac.

But if you're still in the process of fixing this, then please just disregard this post.

I think the touch up on the nav make this place look a whole lot better:]

i still wish it wasnt as wide though

web 2.0 means that its the users putting content on the web page instead of a admin, like myspace, youtube, CREATEBLOG. web 1.0 is when there is a single admin for a site ex:] blog sites. When portfolio sites talk about making their site look web 2.0 it means nicer borders and wider width and cleaner, less clutterred space, portfolio sites go for the look not the trend. so techincally createblog was trying to go for a web 2.0 look and it looks nice. Horizontal has been a trend in the 90's and is SLOWLY coming back

^I agree.

because they are considered radicals :] who have probably never had their way in a democracy :]

yes we will, sorry for the delay. i agree, it IS an eyesore. in the past, cb never had any ads on the front page and i would like to keep it that way. =)



uniformity is important. if i understand correctly, images can be shrunk via css relative to their original dimensions (ie 75%). ill read up on this and if this is the case, youll get your daytime thin version.



hi, can you tell me the steps to duplicate this problem so that i can fix it? thanks!



oh thanks for notifying me, ill fix this shortly. its because macs and linux doesnt have the font arial. ill have to work around it using css.

you've turned into a fucking douche.

sorry (seriously). i was cranky.



the styles are back in the main site, but not yet on the forums.

also, the zoom option is pretty interesting, although i must say that the font is a bit too small for my liking when its zoomed out 75%. how do you people who want a thinner version feel about this? maybe itll be easier just to make the fonts a tad bit bigger so that ill look fine on 75%.

Hmm, well everything else looks smaller too including avatars and pictures, emoticons, etc. We should go for one or the other and not a weird middle compromise. It does look good though.

Can we get the "My Controls · View New Posts · My Assistant · Live Chat · 0 New Messages" row of links to appear in the non-forum parts?

Also, I don't think the font needs to be any bigger for those who zoom out. If they do that that's their fault.

Yeah, I forgot you could zoom. Ok, problem solved. See, I am compromising :)
But yes, it probably would be nice if the font were a bit bigger to compensate

^ hey did you try zooming out on mozilla. it seems better than IE.

zoom out once


zoom out twice

doesn't work on mac. problem not solved.

wait how can you zoom?

download firefox if safari doesnt have a zoom function.



for IE: page menu -> zoom (or bottom right corner)
for firefox: view menu -> zoom

surprise surprise, guess what youtube's new width is?

(told you so, about sites increasingly moving to optimize for 1024x768.)

yeah and people are usually watching a video, which doesn't require you to see the whole width of the layout anyway for those people who like to minimize windows. they can watch just the video. unlike a forum where you have to view the whole width to read responses/reply.


just sayin, they prob don't think of it the same way.

^ like i said before, this site isnt primarily a forum website. its a layout website. and like videos, for layout thumbnails (and browsing), bigger is better.

http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=0i22UDAOfj8

on another note, would you like it if the side column (profile info next to each post) was wider to make the post column thinner? this i can do right away.

I always use firefox and it looks fine, but if you were offering I certainly wouldn't object to bigger font for zooming purposes.

I agree with JC. and yes, place do whatever you can to make the post column thinner. Any way to get the fast reply thinner too?

^ hows this (expanded the side columns from 160px to 200px)? the fast reply form didnt change with the widened width.

minor update to the layout browse,

when you hover your mouse over the layout screenshot, youll now see the submit date, view count, fav count, and comment count. have tested on ie7, firefox2, and chrome. please let me know if it breaks anything (if youre using a different browser). remember to refresh your browser to make sure the new css is loaded first! =)

I actually like the new look alot. Its a lot easier to find things, imo. You forgot to add, "bring back arcade", to your to do list.

Since the side columns are bigger can we have bigger avatars?

Ummm i found something wrong.
SOmeone submmitted a layout with a rather long name and its wider than its preview pic and now the layouts on the layouts page arent in order and stuff.

Just check it out and youll see what i mean.

Its the reeses layout thats doin it.

umm
looks
fine
to
me