Lisa, the Simpson!

Suggest move on from this (http://www.lisa-simpson.net/topic/377.msg8273#msg8273).

ALM said

Suusje said

ALM said

D.B. said

While I don't believe that this is the place people come to look at a website with a pretty design (it's a discussion forum...), I can't object to the fact that a few changes could make the design feel a little more dedicated to Lisa/Simpsons art.
I guess changes could include use of some artwork and such, but I think it's really up to the personal preference of the site author. I also think that if the majority would like to see an improvement and the author agrees to make changes, it should be a group effort, to make the best out of it.
But generally speaking, I don't care much for it, it may just give a sort of atmosphere to the place. I never once looked at the design and thought "oh, how boring!", what caught my eye is the content. And yes, I've been to alot of these forums, they may look the same, but it provides simplicity of knowing it all inside out.

This thread of course isn't an official statement that's going to change anything, but I'm wondering, how does everyone feel about the looks of the place?

Personally, I don't think that LTS needs a fancy design. It's true that the standard SMF theme probably gets a bit boring over the time (well, it's not really the standard theme, since it has a green tint, rather than the usual blue I see everywhere), but after all, it's the postings that count. Whenever I encounter a forum that uses uber-fancy and resource-intensive graphics, I switch to the standard forum theme, if possible.

Usually, the forum developers do a good job in making the standard theme readable, not distracting from the content, and overall pleasant to the eye. I also like the usage of text links for most items, so even if the server is a bit overloaded, I can browse pretty fast. This isn't only about slow internet connections, but also about my free time that I can invest into the forum - and nothing looks more ugly than a website where half of the pictures are missing due to a bad internet connection or a webserver that is too busy.

That said, let me assure that I wouldn't object to some nice Lisa graphics. I think one of the nicest Simpsons forum designs was the old Maggied.de design back in 2001/2002 (see attachment below), and the current New Springfield (http://www.newspringfield.de) design is still among my favorites. Both have a carefully selected color pallet, and one or two graphic items that mark them clearly. If someone would like to create something similar, I'm all for it.

As others mentioned before, this forum lives from the vivid discussions - and for a small forum, I'm surprised about the activity, which is held up by some 25 members or so. And this is a good thing. It's a cozy little place where fans who are truly devoted to Lisa Simpson can share their thoughts, their art and stories. If someone wants a wide variety of Simpsons-related topics, he can join No Homers or another general Simpsons forum, but this is a place about Lisa. And if a true Lisa fan stops by, he (or she) does that because of the content, and not because of the design, regardless what any so-called "professional consultants" say.

I also like the small, but carefully selected division into a few subforums, rather than creating dozens of those, where each one is holding only a handful of topics. I've seen lots of other forums that have literally hundreds of categories and subforums, and the only way to keep up with new postings is by actually using the "Show new postings since last visit" link. This way, you override the forum categories anyway, rendering them somewhat useless. The only advantage of those is that occasional visitors might find a specific thread easier.

This posting is going to overlap with the original topic (my expectations about LTS), but when it comes to the overall appearance, I don't see any problems with the current state. It might be different being a participant in the community since several years, compared to someone who just dropped by for the very first time, i. e. after clicking a link in Google or on another website, but when I got myself involved in the Simpsons community back in late 2000, early 2001, the forum I got settled didn't have a great design, but it convinced me because of the rich discussions as well.

What I clearly don't want is an invasion of "kiddies" who flood the board with mindless postings, smiley orgies and stuff like this (so much for "OMFG!! This am forum about teh Lisa!" ;) ). Also, comparing a forum to a website like Simpsons Realities is like comparing apples and oranges - SR is all about Simpsons fanart, so a fancy design with pieces of fanart is the way to go. A place for serious discussions should look accordingly. I mean, we're not MySpace or YouTube or another of those "Web 2.0" sites after all. ;)

*stumpt by agreement*

When I first joined this forum, I tried taking screenshots once every month, to show its progression and its changes. After about 4 months, theres virtualy nothing changed from then to now. :D
Would I want it to?
Well, not really. I like the little hints that show this is a Lisa forum. Its just, pleasent. The SMF people, thingies... have had experiance to make the forum pleasing to the eye, and not disturb the content anyway, thats their job. What they created was the default theme, all that has been done now is personalised that style in a way that doesnt disrupt the old theme, but reminds users its a Lisa forum.
Can always use that feature that allows more than one theme but... personaly I like to think of this as, like a community house. Everyone see's the same wall paper in the same rooms.

All in all I agree with Andreas I guess. Especialy about the loading speed with many graphics. All I'd add is about the activity on the board (offtopic), to me is exactly what you'd expect to find on a Lisa forum. Lisa isnt exactly the most popular character of the lot, so why would there be a mega forum in her name?
Even if this place did become more popular, and expended by allowing more offtopic things, I think that WOULD change my expectations of LTS. With a domain name like 'Lisa-Simpson.net', why should there be more (or close to it at least) offtopic stuff than Lisa stuff?

I think LTS looks fine.   If admins want to make different templates for the members, that would be extra nice, but not necessary.  There is always room to tweak with graphics, and such.
  I'd think most people would be more interested in the discussion/art here, if they came upon the site.

ALM
There is also "favicon" ;) but you're right, some tweaking with the forum layout wouldn't hurt. I'll try to think about it seriously... unfortunately, SMF templating system doesn't scream "OMFG!" either. :( It's a dirty mess of code and design, I realize that it's the fastest way to convert PHP data into HTML, but it's very hard to deal with. Maybe I'm just too spoilt with PHPC's beautiful templating system... :p

I've found it pretty easy actually, and have since coded TCB vX (and X-2) and LTBQ 2.0 in the exact same way. But each person has their own preferences.

Anyway, for the theme area, as a Customiser in the theme department, I'll help out where I can. I got moved to the Customise team from the Doc Team don't you know. :P But keep that to SM.org or MT2 as I dont do support via messengers or PMs.

I don't get on here as often as I'd like, but I love reading what everyone has to say! I sure hope the forum doesn't go down!

Goddamnit, more than two months have passed since my previous post here, and I didn't do anything :(
I'm really sorry, guys! I remember that LTS still needs some handwork. Will try to think about it soon...

/me is still kicking Dag over upgrades. :P

I think the upgrades to the software can wait... but what if we start from the color scheme? Yellow would be surely more appropriate, the tone and saturation of the present blues are ok,  very light and easy to the eye. Do you think it's possible to "convert" it to yellow/ light orange. It's an easy simple thing but will surely give the forum a more personalized feel. :)

Creating a yellow color scheme shouldn't be too hard indeed; all it takes is changing the CSS file for the basic colors, and modify a few graphics for the navigation. Add some Lisa pictures/icons, and it surely looks a lot more inviting for the Lisa fans. Also, you should add it as a new forum style, so if someone really doesn't like it, he always could switch back to the good old blue. :)

Upgrades should always be a top priority to patch up any security issues. Currently, you're vulnerable to every exploit found since RC3.

Besides, it'll be MUCH easier to upgrade to 1.1.4 first, and then make a theme for 1.1.4.

Trust me on this.

Please take no offence to this ALM, but I would find it hard to believe that someone is really out to ruin our forum. yes we are starting to get noticed, but I dont think that security is a real problem around here. Besides, I am sure that Serge has thought about those issues and has backed up the main system and knows how to get in contact with the SMF people in case of said possible problem.

I just dont think that there is someone who is gonna be that much of an arsehole to want to destroy a small community of lisa freaks. :P

In the way of looks, this place is nice, the design is nice and calm on the eyes, but i can appreciate a change. a different color scheme might be nice for a little bit. if anything, it can always be changed back.

You never know. Hackers dont target one site, they target as many as they can find, and this forum can probably be one of those sites. It's much better to be safe than sorry.

In case you havent noticed, I am one of those SMF people. (http://www.simplemachines.org/about/team.php) I'm a Customiser, former Doc Writer. It's why I'm saying this stuff.

Like I said, hackers dont target one site, they target 200+, and being one of those 200 isnt a good thing.

Sorry if I seemed a bit harsh, you know I dont mean to be. And I didn't know that you were one of those SMF people, I thought that you just did stuff on your site for fun. Pardon my ignorance, i just dont put the pieces together on some things until I am told :P. Call me simplistic, but I just dont really look too deep into things.

Well, that and development of the software.

Well, in any case I'm going to upgrade this forum as soon as I learn how to beat my laziness... I mean, as soon as possible, so don't worry about that. If we make another theme before upgrading, we'll risk of doing the same job twice in the future. Gary, if you're one of "those people", expect technical questions from me soon. ;)

/me sighs, puts Zend Framework sources into the "Not For Humans" folder, and goes back to SMF ones

Well, I tend to specialise more with themes so you can pretty much ask away there. I'd prefer it on SM.org, but I'm not that fussed, so you can ask here if you want. :P

Like I said, I do recommend that you make the theme after the upgrade because there have been template changes between 1.1 RC3 and 1.1.4. So if you do it after the upgrade, you wont have to worry about it.

I do also recommend that you move all the custom smilies out of the $smileysdir/default folder as they will generally be overwritten in the upgrade process and create a copy of the default theme (which contains index.template.php, style.css, and index.php and all the images) and then just download any edited template files and upload them into the new theme's directory.

Sounds annoying, but since you overwrote the default files, it's your own damn fault. :P

And package up your custom stuff in the sources as a mod. :P

Okay okay, so the upgrades *are* important... but the colors are purdy... d'ouuh...  :homer:

/me is torn between his artistic side (colors! hihihi! Pretty, pretty colors! hihihi!  :love: ) and his techical/hackerish side (backdoors? in MY forum? I don't think so  :cool: ).

Well, after a little filling around in Photoshop, here's an example.
Any thoughts?

Warning: BIG IMAGE!

I've also made a lay-out for LTS and Empethree made the logo for this one. :lisa:

The logo's nice, but the rest could do with some work.

Yeah does need something between the logo and the buttons, as you said in chat...... mebbe a lisa quote in smaller text

I was actually refering to the whole thing, it's still too "core". Bright too.

Here's a basic idea that I whipped up, its not spectacular, but it can be fleshed out properly and has decent shades then it can work.

ALM
Well, I'm not stopping you from creating a theme for LTS. Go for it.

I like the logo Empethree, great idea with the spikes. :)

Well, personally, I don't mind the standard layout, it's clean, efficient, and it saves space. Regarding the colors, I like Marco's suggestion better. It's more toned down and doesn't hurt the eye that much if you look at it longer. The LTS logo with the spikes is a great idea, though, maybe you should make it a bit smaller, though, so it doesn't take up too much space. Not everyone has a 22" monitor, you know. ;)

I agree, except for the eye hurting part. :p

This screenshot was taken on a 15,4" monitor. And if I'd make the logo smaller, the buttons will still keep the header the same size. It's only 80px high anyway.

Well, only if you keep the buttons in two lines. ;) And actually, I just love the idea of putting them in the news bar, as it is done now. Very smart idea, kudos to whoever thought of that. :)

I think we should just forget the whole header idea than and just keep things as they are. Shrinking down the logo to 31px (button size) makes the S look weird and aliased, so that doesn't really work.

Dag probably thought of the buttons in the news bar thingy.

----

The reason why the yellow is really bright, is because it's a bright color by default. If you think it will eventually hurt your eyes, we should just stick with the blue we have now. I've included a screenshot which shows 2 posts. The background is #ffffdd, the top post is #ffffcd and the bottom post is #fffebb. All 3 of those colors are very close to white and making those colors darker doesn't really help improving the overal look of the colors.

And don't mind the spam in the screenshot. I just had to steal a bit of text somewhere. :p

Noo, it's such a nice logo :) Let's work it in, after all if empe has the original uncompressed it would be easy to resize it down, and iin the worst case it could just be redone.

As for the colors, i guess it becomes quite subjective. It's true that the yellow in itself is a more "heavy" color than blue, that's why in my try i had to desaturate it quite a bit after changing the RGB components.

Here's the original uncompressed version: http://ejnmedia.co.uk/simpsons/ltslogobig.png

i will say i do like Leons colour scheme and layout, not because of my logo, even without the logo, Its a warm colour scheme and i think the theme is uncluttered and not to "busy".

I also have the bare frame of the LTS logo I did in black and white, so if anyone wants to play feel fre to ask and I will post.

Hm, the problem with this is mainly the shadow that requires the background gradient to be exactly like the one in the .png

Empe, can you post the b\w version please?

Ok here it is:

http://www.ejnmedia.co.uk/simpsons/ltsblackwhite.png

there is also the original white version (without shadow):

http://www.ejnmedia.co.uk/simpsons/ltsbigwhite.png

Thanks! :) If it's ok with you, i'll try to fiddle with it a bit hoping i have enough time. i do think it's a splendid idea, having it matching the topbar with proper size would be awesome.

Fiddle away, will be nice to see how ideas progress :)

A wee bit of bumpage but... I love that LTS logo. I think it would make a brilliant website button to link to. ;)

*bump*

These days i'm making some work to try and give the form some different and new appearance... i started with the Logo.
I took the liberty to modify and enhance the great idea Empethree had with the spiky "S" and this came out. I have no experience in this kind of things, so don't worry if you don't like it :p it'll probably get redone.

Oh, and if you want to propose your logo too, feel free. we'll decide on it together. :)

The logo looks nice, but one nitpick that I've always had about the forum... can we drop the comma from "Lisa, the Simpson"? It really shouldn't be there in the first place and it's always kind of bothered me. Plus I think it looks bad in the logo...

Indeed, and the comma isn't there in the episode name either...

SimpReal
The logo looks amazing, with or without that comma... nice!

GeorgeHarrison
Gazmanafc
Well, the comma is in the forum title, so unless it's a grammar error (and I'm almost sure it's not), it should be on the logo too. Besides, it's one more spot of red color which makes the whole composition more balanced. But like I said, without comma it would still look great. :)

Dagdamor
Actually I think it is a grammatical error, of sorts at least. I mean, it sounds bad. Try saying "Lisa the Simpson" out loud. It flows. Now say "Lisa *pause* the Simpson". :confused:

GeorgeHarrison
*tries*
I'd say both versions sound wonderful... :love:

I think that comma is one of those things that make this place unique... just think, if we remove comma, we'll have "Lisa the Simpson" which doesn't sound perfect either (generally, there shouldn't me an article between a first name and a surname). And if we remove "the", we'll have "Lisa Simpson" which sounds still great but not original...

Hehe, nice idea, Marco, looks very unique! I must admit that the "L" with the dress looks a bit like someone has chopped off Lisa's head, though. :red:

About the comma, I think that it's grammatically correct, at least it would be correct in German grammar (and probably in Russian as well). You have a point about the episode title, but if we interpret it like "Lisa, the Simpson's middle child", as Serge intended, it would have to stay.

Dagdamor
Andreas
Fine then, but I still think it sounds weird. I'd rather it just be "Lisa the Simpson".

And I don't like the way the comma looks... if it absolutely, positively has to stay, maybe we can alter it somehow? Maybe make it yellow? But when it's orange against yellow letters, it stands out too much...

I like the comma, it gives some distinction to the forum's title. But i kinda agree with GH in what it seems to stand out too much... i'll try a second version of the logo with a couple of changes about it. Thanks for the comments guys :)

Just been speding a little time looking back through some posts... How the Hell could I have missed this one!!!!

Marco done a wonderful variation of that logo! Nice to see tjhe Idea progressed..... Sorry I didnt comment on this sooner...... guess it got buried again in the posts i missed out on when I was away!

As for the comma in the forum name... I personally Like it, adds individuality to the name..... either way... Lisa is good in any way of looking at it :)

I should try a modification of this forum, too. I'l post it then.

/me is ashamed for having forgot about this chance for improvement :( i still have the logos, i still need to do the work for the color scheme though...

it'll be great to see what you come up with, malefix :)

Dont forget, I can help in development of a new theme. Be it just advice, support, or coding the whole thing. :P

third one would be best, I just want to draw the thing as an image. I'm not good in making shape and size changes by code.
Sorry if you misunderstood my last post.

Marco...... feel free to PM or Message me via MSN or AIM/iChat if you fancy some brainstorming!

I never paid attention to this thread.  I know I've missed a lot, and that logo Marco is really something.  Is this change going to be made for real or it it  just if maybe.  It would be a great upgrade to the look and it will look groovy.  I mean nice! lol

Sorry I have currently troubles with Windows, Gotta begin again sketching.