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Soliciting style requests

alethiophile

Shadowed Philosopher
Administrator
Joined
Apr 26, 2013
Messages
7,670
As you've no doubt noticed, the new XF2 install has a limited number of styles compared to the old site. We are currently soliciting requests for new styles to add.

We've begun by installing the Blackened Pro theme, which is a straightforward adaptation of the Blackend styles from the old site. However, unfortunately, the other old-site styles mostly do not have such straightforward XF2 successors. Thus, we'll need to find new styles that satisfy the same prerequisites. We welcome posting candidates in this thread.

Note that there are both financial and technical limitations on the number of styles we can add to the site, so we can't simply add every option people suggest. Once there are some candidates, I'll edit this post to include a poll for which ones people prefer. Note that poll results are advisory, and final decisions remain with administration.

Update: We now have various color variations for the Blackened theme.

Update: The sticky navbar can now be disabled under User Preferences.

Update: Lightened theme added.
 
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Listed in order of importance, descending:
- Increased color contrast for both Light and Dark mode. between UI elements and between text and background. This is most important when there's the godawful gray post field that makes the text feel smudged. Not even the Blackened styles achieve this and proper color palette is important for readability.
- Lessen padding. This might be the single most important thing wrong with web design.
- [corner cutting joke]
 
Also ringing in - the new appearance of the forum make my eyes bleed.

Note this not the colors. This is the UI - the way the website itself actually looks. It's beyond fucking terrible, like someone decided "how can we fuck this website to make it look like an even shittier space battles?"

Is this something that's going to be possible? Or is this godawful new UI here for good with no chance of having an enjoyable mobile experience on this website anymore?
 
Flexile Dark was the only theme I used on the old site. If that's not available then something of a similar color scheme would be appreciated. Also a way to get rid of the big ass title bar at the top of the screen or pin it down to the background so it only shows up at the very top of the page instead of following me as I scroll.
 
Flexile Dark was the only theme I used on the old site. If that's not available then something of a similar color scheme would be appreciated. Also a way to get rid of the big ass title bar at the top of the screen or pin it down to the background so it only shows up at the very top of the page instead of following me as I scroll.
Seconding the flexile dark bandwagon. It's a great way to spare a phone's OLED screen some burn.in.
As for the sticky header, it's supposed to be among the default settings for XF2 frontend rendering. Even AH.com has it.
 
I believe the style I used was Blackend-Purple, so I'd really like to get that back.
 
PurpleFreak Dark seems like a nice Purple Dark Theme. It is 100% free, as in it doesn't cost any money whatsoever.



purplefreak-dark.webp


 
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These 3 would be nice
 
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Where exactly does one go looking for styles? A quick google search led me Here but I'm not sure that's correct.

Edit: Apparently it is...
 
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Here's a list of free themes for people to look through:

And here's the themes that I'd like added, pretty please (not sure how they'd look in action, so I want to try a few different ones):
 
I can't remember the damn name for the life of me, but I think it was high responsive dark contrast that was my go to for this forum.

I loved it. The background was completely black, saving both my battery and my eyes while the text content for post and stuff were in crisp, clear white. Making it both easy on the eyes and have great readability.

The grey on shittier grey the default dark theme has can take a hike and throw itself off a cliff.

That theme really defined this site apart from the crap that is SV and SB, especially SB. SV is somewhat better.
Here's a list of free themes for people to look through:

And here's the themes that I'd like added, pretty please (not sure how they'd look in action, so I want to try a few different ones):
Okay, quick question, what's the theme that the xenforo forum you linked here itself is running? That pure black background, white text and blue highlights is great.

It'd be great if we could just port that in.
 
That's... incredibly stupid. Why would you force something of such dubious use to always be taking up a chunk of screen space?
I'm mostly confused with how big it is. Why didn't we do it the SB way and have the smaller one be sticky? I don't need to find forums at all parts of a page, but seeing my profile and alerts is always useful.
 
The Blackend themes looks way better

Still love the old light responsive colors though

edit: to clarify, the blackend themes look way better than the Light/Dark but are still worse than the original QQ theme
 
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Just throwing my tidbit in: while not perfect the Blackend style(s) are a significant improvement, thanks.
My issue is that the new blackend themes still show the text as grey on a dark background, which is hard to read because it's hard on my eyes.

The dark responsive high contrast's main two benefits was a completely black background with white text.

A black theme with these two qualities are a must.
 
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Okay, quick question, what's the theme that the xenforo forum you linked here itself is running? That pure black background, white text and blue highlights is great.

It'd be great if we could just port that in.
No idea, though you're right that it looks great. You can probably make an account and ask about it.
 
I'm mostly confused with how big it is. Why didn't we do it the SB way and have the smaller one be sticky? I don't need to find forums at all parts of a page, but seeing my profile and alerts is always useful.
Cutting down on the empty space and sizes of just about every field that isn't the posts themselves would be nice, really. And between most of them, too. Even stuff like the headers on quote boxes is just EXTRA THICC! for no reason whatsoever now, and all of those things stacked together means that there's a lot less actual posted content visible on the page at any given moment. Getting rid of the horrendous default margin size that the testbed originally started with helped, but there's still a lot of work to be done.
 
Definitely would love to see a Dark Responsive style. Dunno if it's a thing with the new version, but if it is it's definitely needed. The Grey on darker grey for text is definitely not great even with the Blackend styles.
 

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