New Styles

[Jules]

I have uploaded 2 new styles from vbulletin's community forums. The first I have listed under Julestest - its all lilac - so I fully expect it to be too girly for most of the people here. ;)

The 2nd option is called Darkness. I like this one a lot for us. It appears that the designers for it have created other graphics for the top and left side - so maybe those that are good with graphic type stuff can create/customize something ddo flavored for this area - I think its a psd file and they give some options for other "headers".

Then we should be able to change the buttons to our standard ddo buttons and upload some new smilies.

Let me know what you all think.

Jules

[lostinjapan]

I like the "Darkness" one except the graphic on the left has to change.

We don't need no stinkin' guns! :P

Here's some links to some free skins outside the vbulletin site itself:

http://www.sixteenohnine.com/
http://www.minerskinz.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=5
http://www.vbulletin-faq.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=14
http://www.stsoftware.biz/free_vbulletin_styles.html

[nakano]

Gotta say I prefer the Darkness style to any of the other options available atm. And I have to agree with lost, the gun graphic has to go. How bout the many deaths of Coldin instead?

Side note, once again Jules TYVM for all the hard work.

[lostinjapan]

Yes, TYVM to all who have been working on this new site.

How about putting Cinnis (http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/snapless/ddo/screen/cinderspawn.jpg) there instead?

[Coldin]

Darkness is certainly very stylish. Though perhaps a bit too flashy for my tastes, especially in regard to the various icons.

The purplish one is actually ok, except for the fact that it's purple. :)

[Eldamir]

I like Darkness with a couple of exceptions..
- I don't like the side bar - makes the window too narrow for my tastes.. and widening out my firefox window makes the other tabs too wide .. i'm picky like that :)
- the join-date, location and postcount don't have backgrounds that match the space that they're in
- i like that it's dark - but am not sold on the green shades - some of the text in the buttons and links is hard to read, being black on olive.
- the link color is too hard to differentiate from the 'normal' text color .. I like my links to POP out at me on the page.

We've already covered my preference for the names and avatars to be on the side, so that's beside the point of this discussion :)

[Jules]

Darkness is certainly very stylish. Though perhaps a bit too flashy for my tastes, especially in regard to the various icons.

The purplish one is actually ok, except for the fact that it's purple. :)


I know the images are not ddo related. We can change the gun graphics - I found the jpg's that control this and can make them available for someone with image experience to replace these with ddo flavored images. If you want to try changing the graphics on this send me a pm with the email address you want them sent to.

Coldin,

You know they also had a mint green style and yellow/orange that were only changes of color - would you like me to try and upload another one for you? I selected purple cause its my favorite color. I have no objection to having more than one.



Eld,

We'll jut have to keep looking for a style that you like. :D Did you check out the links that Lost included - was there one there that you think you might like?

Jules

[lostinjapan]

I like Gameboard (http://www.minerskinz.com/forums/showthread.php?t=873), Sosumi (http://www.minerskinz.com/forums/showthread.php?t=878) and Blue Pro (http://www.minerskinz.com/forums/showthread.php?t=897)from minerskinz.com.

I like Teal/Black (http://www.vbulletin-faq.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8509) from vbulletin-faq.com

[Jules]

Ok I tried to modify the top image in the darkness folder with one from ddo image gallery, but I don't have enough experiencing to actually do something like this.

If someone with graphic editing experience want to try their hand at making this for us, the image you want to modify is top.jpg and possibly side1.jpg through side4.jpg.

Volunteers anyone???

Jules

[lostinjapan]

I'm half asleep and so this is just a rough first draft...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/snapless/ddo/tharashk/top1.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/snapless/ddo/tharashk/side1.jpg

[Eldamir]

Those look nice, lost.

[Rommalb]

yeah, looks a lot better. The one thing I would say is you might want the top bar to be a solid panorama of the Necropolis, the Shavarath portal looks slightly disjointed suddenly being set in like that.

[Jundak]

Rough draft or no...

Already looks a helluva lot better than Sergeant Fury over there. He's starting to irk me to no end with those silly reading glasses.

[Coldin]

I think that's the Vale up top Tomine, not the Necropolis.

Looks good Lost.

[Jules]

Ok so I don't completely screw this up I'm going to replace those images in the darkness style then re-upload it as a new style - maybe darkness2. Keep your fingers crossed.

Jules

[lostinjapan]

I think that's the Vale up top Tomine, not the Necropolis.

Looks good Lost.

It's the Necropolis. I've got Vale photos but they are far lighter and I was looking for dark stuff to go with the dark theme.

Will play around with them more today and see if I can clean it up some.

Edit: Looks like you're having trouble with the images. :p

[Jules]

I couldn't add it as a new templatle and have it set up correctly so I replaced the existed images and that looks very nice.

If you're using Darkness please refresh your screen and tell me what you think.

Jules

edit: I think the image is too wide - any chance we can make is slightly less wide? It looks like it adds a couple of inches to the end of it - which throws off the width.

[lostinjapan]

I couldn't add it as a new templatle and have it set up correctly so I replaced the existed images and that looks very nice.

If you're using Darkness please refresh your screen and tell me what you think.

Jules

edit: I think the image is too wide - any chance we can make is slightly less wide? It looks like it adds a couple of inches to the end of it - which throws off the width.

I saw that when I swapped back to Darkness from darkness2.

I used the original images as a template...that's why the borders are still there. Just cut/pasted/melded the other images into place. So as for width it's as wide as it was before.

I can chop them down in width for the next version but not sure if that will work...depends on how the CSS is set up. Can try it though.

[Jules]

ok can someone hit me with the "duh" stick. Just figured why the its too wide - its cause the image in the thread itself - please disregard my earlier post/edit/request about the width of the image.

Jules

[Xaearth]

ok can someone hit me with the "duh" stick. Just figured why the its too wide - its cause the image in the thread itself - please disregard my earlier post/edit/request about the width of the image.

Jules

I don't think we've recovered that smilie yet :p.

[lostinjapan]

ok can someone hit me with the "duh" stick. Just figured why the its too wide - its cause the image in the thread itself - please disregard my earlier post/edit/request about the width of the image.

Jules

I can remove those and make them links so they don't screw up the thread.

Also, was thinking for final draft...instead of the Shavarath portal...how about a black background and a logo?

Was thinking small "house" with a larger Tharashk...will play with some fonts and post some image links shortly.

Waiting on a huge file to download so I can't play DDO right now anyway ;).

[Coldin]

It's the Necropolis. I've got Vale photos but they are far lighter and I was looking for dark stuff to go with the dark theme.

Will play around with them more today and see if I can clean it up some.

Edit: Looks like you're having trouble with the images. :p

Guess I was wrong. But now I see it's Necropolis because of the tower on the far right.

[lostinjapan]

Try this for the top image:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/snapless/ddo/tharashk/top2.jpg

[Jules]

melikey melikey - if everyone agrees I'll change it tomorrow - when i get back from work

I'm thinking we should start a sub area for design questions - move all existing threads to it - then when its all setup we can just remove it - I'm thinking we should try and narrow the styles to like 3 or 4 - maybe add a few more and let everyone vote for their top 3 and the ones with the highest votes after a week we keep?

Jules

[lostinjapan]

You know, after looking at it again, I think the logo needs to be a little bigger and perhaps overlap in the two images...let me play around a bit more. Should be done before you get home from work.

EDIT: Try this one. It's only a tiny bit bigger but it looks like it should be a little better placed than the one before:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/snapless/ddo/tharashk/top3.jpg

[Coldin]

Wow, what a crazy "A".

[Eldamir]

I think the A looks cool :)

[lostinjapan]

Wow, what a crazy "A".

It's all about the Bleeding Cowboys font (http://www.dafont.com/bleeding-cowboys.font)...

[lostinjapan]

So who's playing around with the Blak-Ice style? None of the image files have been uploaded, only the XML.

[Jules]

I thought I uploaded all the image files - I'll re-upload them again to the ftp site.

Jules

[Coldin]

Hmm, who changed the logo on the Cold Stone style? It's kinda freaking me out.

[Jules]

Wow I like it - I usually stick with Julestest as I'm a purple loving kinda gal.

That would be LostinJapan work. :girldance:

Jules

[Shyv]

I really like the look of cold stone now. And Jules how can you look at Julestest, that's hard on the eyes. :D

[Jules]

I find Darkness and Cold Stone hard on the eyes. So you stick with your favorite and I'll stick with mine.

:lolhit: :girldance:

Jules

[Coldin]

Darkness is too flashy for me. Cold Stone is pretty good because it's more muted colors. The bright white of the default style eventually tires out my eyes. But you know, Cold Stone really hasn't changed much except for the logo, which is still freaking me out.

[Eldamir]

heh .. i scroll down so quickly that i hadn't even noticed the new Cold Stone logo.. :) i agree with coldin though .. that logo is loco

[Coldin]

It'd look better on a different background I think. A beige color might work.

I'd change it myself, but I can't mess with that stuff at work.

[Eldamir]

I like the color scheme on Darkness .. but don't like the side-bar image at the top .. is there any way we could get a style that's identical to Darkness, but only has the top banner?

[Dozen_Black_Roses]

Yeah, I like the new house t logo in Cold Stone :)

[Coldin]

The logo is fine. I just don't like all the blurry lines before it.

[Jules]

I like the color scheme on Darkness .. but don't like the side-bar image at the top .. is there any way we could get a style that's identical to Darkness, but only has the top banner?

Lost added those images from the ones that came with the style - which iirc were military type images.

It'd look better on a different background I think. A beige color might work.

I'd change it myself, but I can't mess with that stuff at work.

I would suggest trying to make a copy of it then trying to play with it as many seem to be using that style.

Jules

[lostinjapan]

I went to bed before I was done with the Cold Stone logo...didn't realize so many people used it, and got so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open so I just left the latest image where I was playing around. It's NOT DONE! :P Sorry the lines are freaking you out.

The 'logo' before was simply the vBulletin logo, exact to the one on the Default style.

[Coldin]

Hmm, is there anyway to center the banners/logo? They'd probably look better that way.

[lostinjapan]

Hmm, is there anyway to center the banners/logo? They'd probably look better that way.

Yep - planned - just hadn't gotten there yet.

[lostinjapan]

I like the color scheme on Darkness .. but don't like the side-bar image at the top .. is there any way we could get a style that's identical to Darkness, but only has the top banner?

After I fix Blak-Ice, finish Cold Stone and the other 50 things I've got on my list of 'to-do's', I'll see if I can make a copy of Darkness but with no side banners. All I did before was replace the original (military) side banners with something more DDO appropriate...but even those I'd like to clean up some.

[Rommalb]

damn, the Cold-ice banner looks pretty sweet now

[Jules]

damn, the Cold-ice banner looks pretty sweet now

Which is it?

Blak Ice
or
Cold Stone

Jules

[lostinjapan]

Which is it?

Blak Ice
or
Cold Stone

Jules

He means both. :D

[Rommalb]

actually i meant Cold-stone, but both are pretty sweet

[Coldin]

Only thing the Coldstone banner is missing is a frame or something to go around it. That would probably make it look a little more polished.

[lostinjapan]

Only thing the Coldstone banner is missing is a frame or something to go around it. That would probably make it look a little more polished.

Like that?