View Topic

I'm in the process of updating the site design to make it feel more modern, and I would love input, even though it's still very much a work in progress. This is what I have so far: http://wintreath.com/forums/testindex.html

I had originally wanted to do a left sidebar, but I haven't thought of anything to go in it, and just having a list of links would make it look like an old website that uses frames, so what we have so far is a facelift of the current design. The current header banner is removed in this one, and I'd like to find another that is simpler and fits in the bar...some white space has been cleared, and the background elements have been given a bit of opacity to let the snow at the top of the screen come through. Additionally, the site menu in the sidebar was removed, because there's a site menu at the top of the page.

The reason I'm doing this is because we have three major parts of the website that to some extent have their own designs...the forums, the profiles, and the newsfeed (which hasn't been officially released). Once the design is finalized, I'd like to take some time recoding those pages to fit the new design so the site looks more unified, and to maintain that as new pages are added.

So yeah, would appreciate any feedback.

TBH I see nothing wrong with the current layouts, and they seem rather unified to me.

Well, although I hardly see any difference from the default, I can't help but feel the header seems a little bare without some sort of banner.

As I said, I'm looking for a banner that will fit in the navigation bar...unfortunately graphics are not one of my skills.

I have GIMP and a copy of Photoshop lying around somewhere. Maybe I can give this and a few other graphics projects the old college try.

That would be very much appreciated.

I've been working on the new design further, and this is what I've come up with:

http://wintreath.com/forums/testindex.html

The left-side where the header says "Wintreath" is a placeholder for a banner that fits there, but I imagine that's a lot of what it'd look like. I got the idea from this site. I really like how they did their banner, with the neat unique font and the little symbol. It stands out without taking up a lot of room.

Well, I gotta say, I do like it. It's much cleaner that way.

Eh, I prefer the current design...and our current banner.

The current banner really should be changed...it was made by Milograd, who is now PnG...

Personally I like the bar attached to the top over the current "ribbon" look    it seems more clean and concise.

Although I do still wonder about the "site menu" portion, it does have some useful links on it. Will the links on it be moved to part of the header, somewhere else, or are they simply not in the current example ?

Most of the pages on the front page site menu are already in the header site menu. In the future some of them will be moved to the header, and some removed (for example, NationStates guides will probably be moved to the NS website). As of right now, there won't be any changes to the site menu...this is just fixing the design as is on the test page.

I have installed the new header to the website on a restricted basis for developing and testing. If you'd like to be switched to the new header, let me know.

Should we PM youbor post here?

And while I am here,might as well suggest: I can use the experimental header

Either would be fine...I've added you to the list.

In any case, this is what the header looks like as of now:

Spoiler

The main thing is that the header is always at the top of the window, even as you scroll down, meaning that you can access the menus more easily. There are also new menu options!

Krone - Currently goes to the donation page, but in the future the wording of the page will be changed to buy krone instead, once that is up and going.

Minecraft - Link to the MC topic where you can get the IP address.

NationStates - Links to the region page, guides, laws, and WA status.

Site - Areas of Wintreath...chat, forums, and Steam group.

Your Menu - The news feed link has been added.