New Default Style - TWS2

The Org is proud to officially release a new forum style. It is a TWS2 theme and it is easily the best looking and most heavily customized style we have ever had. The style is so good that it will officially replace the STW style as the default style of choice for the Org. You can now find the skin at the top of the style choice menu in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.

I am sure I speak for everyone at the Org when I offer a tremendous thank you to Kagemusha, who has done an exceptional amount of work to create this skin. :bow:

I've just refreshed to witness this beauty -yaaaaaay.

The skin looks very nice. Thanks Kagemusha-san! :bow:

So the top secret new skin has gone public. Huzzah! The site has never looked better.

Well done indeed, Kagemusha! The earliest versions were beautiful, and each revision only improved on that. The final version is truly a thing of beauty. :bow:

And well done to Tincow for beating the forum code until the bugs gave surrendered. :bow:

Beautiful Kage! :bow:

Excellent work, my friend. :bow:

Woha! Awesome work. Love it.

Sweet! Thanks, Kage :bow:

Kage's forum skin
symbol of our inner peace
brings joy to my heart

~:thumb:

hmm....

would have been polite to be notified.



Having said that....

I like.

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Originally Posted by InsaneApache

hmm....

would have been polite to be notified.

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Notified of what?

Top job

Truly, utterly, jaw-droppingly amazing.

Easy on the eyes
Cherry blossoms in background
Excellent work Kage.

:bow:

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Originally Posted by InsaneApache

hmm....

would have been polite to be notified.



Having said that....

I like.

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We've mentioned it before here in the WT that we've been working on a new skin for the Org, but we were hesitant to put a deadline on it due to various factors that kept cropping up for the content team. Kage didn't want to release it before it was sufficiently completed and all of the bugs were eradicated. There was an annoying one with the top banner if I remember right, and then the logo. What you're looking at is the result of (easily) five months of relentless design work by Kagemusha in his free time. Which is to say nothing of the work the Tech admins put in helping him piece all the little annoying aspects together.

I'm sorry the content team was not more vocal in the months leading up to release of the skin, but I thought it would be a nice surprise. :bow:

I'll be honest. I hate it.

The word "Org" at the top, when viewed in 1920x1080, blends in to the castle in the background making it look like a bad MSPaint attempt without stroke.
The background picture, while nice, does hide the words of foreground words that aren't encased in the new "paper" texture of the foreground (IE: Quick Navigation at the bottom of a thread).
Do I really need to say anything about how badly the top menu (News, Forum, Tournaments/Ladder, etc) clashes?

Thank goodness I can change my forum skin in my profile settings, so thumbs up to that. The only way I'd recommend this skin is if someone was browsing in a non-maximized window, and even then the top menu bar requires at least a minimum width resolution.

Bravo Kage! And thank you.

KI, your own display settings must be screwy, I use 1920x1080 and I do not experience the issues you describe.

Kekvit Irae. Like Nowake said.I think you should check your resolution settings. There are lot of dynamic components in the skin and they are precisely tested for different screen resolutions. Ofcourse i cant make you like the skin if you dont and it was bound to happen that not everyone will be pleased with it, but like you said, you have other options to use.

Apart from that, thank you everyone! What i would like to point out is that the new skin is just not my work, but a team effort of the staff. I would specially would like to thank Tincow for his relentless bug hunting and modifying of templates, so we could arrive to the end result we are now. The rest of the staff deserve similar gratitude as without their input,ideas and encouragement, this thing might have never materialized.

About the skin. The theme is serenity and the inspiration for the theme comes from someone who is not around anymore, who is not with us anymore. Without Tosainu, this would not have even been possible. It was he who originally helped me with his endless patience to learn the basics how the style variables work and it was his personality i tried to reflect with this work. Where ever you are, this is for you my friend. I hope you approve of it.:bow:

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Originally Posted by Kekvit Irae

I'll be honest. I hate it.

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Try a forced refresh of an org page in your browser. If that still doesn't fix it, perhaps you could post a screenshot?

I've been using various test versions of this skin in 1920x1080 for the last 3 weeks; a couple of those issues were present in very early versions and have all been fixed. You shouldn't be seeing them. Your other issues, e.g top menu, are entirely new.

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Originally Posted by Kekvit Irae

I'll be honest. I hate it.

The word "Org" at the top, when viewed in 1920x1080, blends in to the castle in the background making it look like a bad MSPaint attempt without stroke.
The background picture, while nice, does hide the words of foreground words that aren't encased in the new "paper" texture of the foreground (IE: Quick Navigation at the bottom of a thread).
Do I really need to say anything about how badly the top menu (News, Forum, Tournaments/Ladder, etc) clashes?

Thank goodness I can change my forum skin in my profile settings, so thumbs up to that. The only way I'd recommend this skin is if someone was browsing in a non-maximized window, and even then the top menu bar requires at least a minimum width resolution.

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Please post screenshots. We know the skin is not absolutely perfect and there are still a few minor issues scattered about. We will do our best to fix these issues, but we do not see them the same way you do so screenshots will help us find and fix them.

At the same time, next time I'd appreciate it if you'd think a bit harder about the words you use to offer criticism. "I'll be honest. I hate it." and "Thank goodness I can change my forum skin in my profile settings, so thumbs up to that." are, quite frankly, just mean and bad spirited; especially after we'd made it clear just how much work had gone into this thing. Constructive criticism is a good thing, but it doesn't help anyone to simply be mean.

I"m running 1920x1080 on a 15.5" laptop. Given my declining eyesight, I often use the zoom feature of my browser (Firefox) if my eyes are straining at a given site. I've found that this can distort fonts and organization on a page considerably depending on the site, if I zoom in too much to make the writing easier to read.

I mention this for anyone experiencing strangeness when viewing the skin. If you use zoom or settings that override a site's default font size, backing it down a notch can alleviate the font/organization problems brought on by zooming in too much (the font remains a bit smaller than I prefer in such cases; I live with it because the other distortions are more annoying).

It's visually appealing. And it gives the Japanese atmosphere pretty well.

The earlier background was boring and made me sleepy when I looked at it for a long time.

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Originally Posted by TinCow

Please post screenshots. We know the skin is not absolutely perfect and there are still a few minor issues scattered about. We will do our best to fix these issues, but we do not see them the same way you do so screenshots will help us find and fix them.

At the same time, next time I'd appreciate it if you'd think a bit harder about the words you use to offer criticism. "I'll be honest. I hate it." and "Thank goodness I can change my forum skin in my profile settings, so thumbs up to that." are, quite frankly, just mean and bad spirited; especially after we'd made it clear just how much work had gone into this thing. Constructive criticism is a good thing, but it doesn't help anyone to simply be mean.

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I'm not trying to be mean. I'm giving my honest opinions on the skin.
I would say I like it, but I don't like lying. I would honey up my words, but that just isn't me. What you see is what you get, and what you're getting is my frank (but without malicious intent) opinion.

https://i55.tinypic.com/2ngbgc6.jpg
That is 1920x1080. Notice the word Org with the castle in the background, and the clashing background of the top menu bar.

http://i53.tinypic.com/eixdi.jpg
That is the same resolution but in a window (which I use when playing games). Wiki and Board are completely obscured by the search tool.

A few solutions is to give us the option to individually disable the top menu bar, and to integrate the Org word as part of the background picture (using the stroke/drop shadow tools found in many paint programs) rather than as a separate text displayed against a static background.

I've managed to replicate the top bar problem when the site is viewed in a tall and narrow window. If I'm not in fullscreen mode I tend to use square windows and so hadn't seen that during testing. :embarassed:

In fullscreen mode my 'org' is in the sky to the left of the castle, the only overlap is the right-most half of the 'g'. I'd need a higher res than 1920x1080 to get the word as far to the right as it is on yours.

Are you still getting problems with missing parchment backgrounds on menus like the quick navigation? There should be a background there.

Which version of firefox are you using? And have you tried a forced refresh?

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Originally Posted by Kekvit Irae

https://i55.tinypic.com/2ngbgc6.jpg
That is 1920x1080. Notice the word Org with the castle in the background, and the clashing background of the top menu bar.

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I'll see if I can give the logo some kind of slight background to make it stand out in that position. Perhaps a white drop shadow will work.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kekvit Irae

http://i53.tinypic.com/eixdi.jpg That is the same resolution but in a window (which I use when playing games). Wiki and Board are completely obscured by the search tool.

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That has nothing to do with the skin. It happens with every skin on the Org, because that's how vBulletin works; it's done that for years. If you really want to display the forums in a very small window, then you either have to live with that or use one of the mobile skins. The only other option is to completely remove some of the navbar buttons, but even then problem will continue to occur if you make the window small enough.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kekvit Irae

A few solutions is to give us the option to individually disable the top menu bar

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That is not possible.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kekvit Irae

and to integrate the Org word as part of the background picture (using the stroke/drop shadow tools found in many paint programs) rather than as a separate text displayed against a static background.

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Thank you, that's a pretty good idea. If I can't tweak the logo to make it stand out better on both light and dark backgrounds, I will do exactly that.

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Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

I've managed to replicate the top bar problem when the site is viewed in a tall and narrow window. If I'm not in fullscreen mode I tend to use square windows and so hadn't seen that during testing. :embarassed:

In fullscreen mode my 'org' is in the sky to the left of the castle, the only overlap is the right-most half of the 'g'. I'd need a higher res than 1920x1080 to get the word as far to the right as it is on yours.

Are you still getting problems with missing parchment backgrounds on menus like the quick navigation? There should be a background there.

Which version of firefox are you using? And have you tried a forced refresh?

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I usually require a rectangle window since virtually 99% of the games I play are in windowed mode so I can easily tab out. That, and I stream a lot.
Only recently has the missing backgrounds for the quick navigation worked. The words "Quick Navigation" itself has no background (which is to be expected I guess), making it clash sometimes with the far-background picture due to the varying length of posts.
I'm using the only version of Firefox that doesn't suck (3.6.24).

Thanks Kage and everybody else who worked on this, it's really nice!

And then for the "issues", well, the Org letters standing in front of that castle is hardly a big thing for me (by the way, for fullscreen mode, press F11 in most decent browsers). As has been said, should be easy to fix as well.

And as far as small browser windows are concerned, have you tried the Steam overlay browser while playing games fullscreen? It's not as good as Firefox but should suffice for browsing the org and most other pages. Unless of course you have to play in windowed mode and can't use the overlay.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kekvit Irae

The words "Quick Navigation" itself has no background (which is to be expected I guess), making it clash sometimes with the far-background picture due to the varying length of posts.

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I have investigated this and unfortunately there is no way to add a background to those words without also adding it elsewhere on the skin where the background looks bad. Under those circumstances, I think having those words slightly harder to read is the best compromise.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kekvit Irae

I'm using the only version of Firefox that doesn't suck (3.6.24).

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:laugh4: So I'm not the only one who wonders what annoyances await with the latest updates.

We've found a few issues with zooming. Have you got firefox set to something other than 100%?

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Originally Posted by Husar

And as far as small browser windows are concerned, have you tried the Steam overlay browser while playing games fullscreen? It's not as good as Firefox but should suffice for browsing the org and most other pages. Unless of course you have to play in windowed mode and can't use the overlay.

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Using Steam to browse the web is like using a Kindle in a public library. Yeah, you can, but what's the point?
Also, Steam's browser is slower than molasses in winter, and it takes (relatively speaking) ages to alt-tab to a browser window when playing in full screen. Neither of these options are viable for me as a gamer who has a "need-to-know-now" policy on some games. Not to mention that I like chatting with friends a lot over AIM and my stream, and feasibly playing in full screen while doing this is an impossibility unless I fork over the money for another monitor.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

:laugh4: So I'm not the only one who wonders what annoyances await with the latest updates.

We've found a few issues with zooming. Have you got firefox set to something other than 100%?

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My default Firefox font is set to Times New Roman 16 pt font. No more, no less. If I'm unable to read something, I highlight and then copy-paste it into notepad (or, if it's short enough, the google search tool as a temporary solution). That said, I have had absolutely no problems with the text font or size of this skin.

This is by far the best skin, well done Kage ^^

New skin looks very nice, specially the background, but this website just doesn't look right to me with any skin other than TheGuild .

:2thumbsup: to Kage! :bow:

This skin looks a lot more professional than any of the others, and I like the vibe it has.

IMO the top part of the skin is simply too low a resolution for the job. That can't really be fixed (would need a new background with much better resolution for that). Additionally I think the various icons are a bit large, which results in awkward positioning of the text (the nice thing about the STW skins is that it enforces a nice, regular vertical “rhythm” of lines of content which might not look particularly exciting but offers great readability and is easy on the eyes). This might be just me being unfamiliar with the skin and looking for things in places according to the peculiar layout of the STW skin, though.

Subjectively the STW skin manages to cram much more forum listing/thread listing in the same size compared to what the TWS2 style can do, which is a recurring issue on vertically challenged displays.

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

IMO the top part of the skin is simply too low a resolution for the job. That can't really be fixed (would need a new background with much better resolution for that). Additionally I think the various icons are a bit large, which results in awkward positioning of the text (the nice thing about the STW skins is that it enforces a nice, regular vertical “rhythm” of lines of content which might not look particularly exciting but offers great readability and is easy on the eyes). This might be just me being unfamiliar with the skin and looking for things in places according to the peculiar layout of the STW skin, though.

Subjectively the STW skin manages to cram much more forum listing/thread listing in the same size compared to what the TWS2 style can do, which is a recurring issue on vertically challenged displays.

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About the the logo background screenshot. There must have been some kind of quirk in the Org´s superhyper computer when it was taken. I believe it was Lady frog , who was operating the system when the screenshot was taken, so any complaints concerning the quality of it should be taken to her.~;)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

With all seriousness.The background screenshot was taken with the highest resolution any of our PC´s can have, so there is not much what can be done about it, if it is not good enough. Concerning the icons. They are larger by purpose and atleast for the staff we had grown into them quite easily when we were the only ones able to use the skin. In matter of fact we even had larger ones in test and there werent too many complaints about those. But in the end.If the STW suites your tastes better, i am happy you can use it, as my first forum skin.I have had quite a lot negative feedback from it and im just happy if atleast someone likes it.