New Look to SKnet

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
You may have noticed things look a little different around here. Well, it's an upgrade! It's been almost 5 years since the last major forum upgrade. This was long overdue.

What'd we gain with the upgrade? We moved from SMF 1.1.4 all the way to 2.04, so we gained quite a bit of behind the scenes speed. Pages will be loading faster, there will be less pause/delay between forum actions. It will also be more easy to add features to the site under this version. The text tools have been enhanced quite a bit as well, as you'll notice when making a post or a thread.

However, when we do big upgrades like these, we gain features, but we also usually lose the old look to the forum. The old themes (visual design of forum) are rarely compatible with newer versions. So right now we have a stop-gap theme. This works, and is similar enough to the old theme to make people not GO CRAZY for the time being. I will be working on a new theme over the next few months.

We also lost the chat for the time being. There is a way to get it back, and I am working on it...

If you notice other features missing, please let me know in this thread so that I'll remember to add them back.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Already lookin' good to me. I like the bone gray colors and added contrast. :badbone:
 
I like it! I just can't see my full picture, ewither in my post or the top right. Serpico is peeking over it hehhehe :iva:
 
Maybe I'm missing something, but is there a way to show the most recent forum posts near the bottom where the info center is?? I don't see them anymore when I'm signed in. Thanks.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
frankencowx said:
Maybe I'm missing something, but is there a way to show the most recent forum posts near the bottom where the info center is?? I don't see them anymore when I'm signed in. Thanks.
Fixed!

This is exactly what I mean by letting me know of things that are missing. I had forgotten about that feature, while dealing with a dozen others. Thanks!
 

Kompozinaut

Sylph Sword
Looks good to me! Very surprised when I logged on. I haven't noticed anything amiss other than larger avatars being clipped off on the right side.
 
Looks like the profile avatars templates aren't showing up. Went in to my profile to reset mine and am not seeing the option.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Delta Phi Zeta said:
I haven't noticed anything amiss other than larger avatars being clipped off on the right side.
Yep, that's among the more deviously difficult things to fix, since it involves editing code. Which I'm not exactly a pro at. Working on it!

ApostleBob said:
Looks like the profile avatars templates aren't showing up. Went in to my profile to reset mine and am not seeing the option.
Thanks, fixed.
 
Although I guess the changes and upgrades are always to be expected, I'd be lying if I said that I'm not gonna miss the old Skull Knight forum look :judo:

I noticed that the little "green beherits" that indicated a member's forum rank have been replaced by the generic little meter bars that you usually see in other forums. Also, another departure from the classic SK.net that I noticed is the member profiles are now shown arranged in a conventional rectangular forum format, with the usernames and avatars on the left-hand corner as opposed to the unique "squared" right-hand sided arrangement that has been an SK.net forum fixture for so many years. Are these changes permanent? I hope not, because as insignificant as they may appear, it is the distinctive little things like that are among the components making Skull Knight stand out from any other fan forums. Anyways, as Walter said, these changes are gonna take a while to be finalized and sorted out, so I look forward to the new SK forum being even better than the old one :guts:
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Johnny Apples said:
Although I guess the changes and upgrades are always to be expected, I'd be lying if I said that I'm not gonna miss the old Skull Knight forum look :judo:
I'm slowly molding things back into a recognizable shape. The final form of this new theme may closely resemble the old one, once all is said and done. I can't say that recreating the old theme is my top priority though.

I noticed that the little "green beherits" that indicated a member's forum rank have been replaced by the generic little meter bars that you usually see in other forums.
Easily fixable. Done. Thanks.

Also, another departure from the classic SK.net that I noticed is the member profiles are now shown arranged in a conventional rectangular forum format, with the usernames and avatars on the left-hand corner as opposed to the unique "squared" right-hand sided arrangement that has been an SK.net forum fixture for so many years. Are these changes permanent? I hope not, because as insignificant as they may appear, it is the distinctive little things like that make Skull Knight stand out from any other fan forums.
I like to think that our content and members help set us apart from other forums—in addition to the design of our ... member ... profile ... templates. :ganishka: It's honestly not something I've considered.

Anyways, as Walter said, these changes are gonna take a while to be finalized and sorted out, so I look forward to the new SK forum being even better than the old one
Maybe I should explain why there are changes to begin with. The theme you're seeing here isn't something I created from scratch. I modified it from an existing theme on another forum, as I have for every forum theme I've ever used for SKnet dating back to 2001. All themes are share-able on the Simple Machines Forum community.

What I've done so far is replace certain elements to make this theme more like our old theme, but completely reverse-engineering it is too high a task for someone with only an inkling of coding knowledge. I also don't think it would be a very worthwhile endeavor to undertake. I'd rather create something better, in the image of the old theme.
 
I have really bad memory, but I think there was a search bar right below where now is the user's avatar. If not, either way it would be a good idea, just to, you know, encourage people on using it :carcus:
 
Whoa, looks great and sounds like a lot of work. Good job Walter. Cool to see that green icon against the name to show who's online while you're browsing a topic/ page without having to see it on the main page. How many upgrades such as this as SK.Net had since it's conception? Was this the most fun or easiest one to do?
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Giovanna said:
I have really bad memory, but I think there was a search bar right below where now is the user's avatar. If not, either way it would be a good idea, just to, you know, encourage people on using it :carcus:
No, you're right, and it's actually the feature I'm working on right now. Hopefully shouldn't be too tough to add back. But I agree that it's very important to have.

IncantatioN said:
Whoa, looks great and sounds like a lot of work. Good job Walter. Cool to see that green icon against the name to show who's online while you're browsing a topic/ page without having to see it on the main page. How many upgrades such as this as SK.Net had since it's conception? Was this the most fun or easiest one to do?
It's never FUN. This one went much more smoothly than I had anticipated, but then again I'm still knee-deep in polishing things. I'd say the one in 2007 was probably the most dramatic change for the site, and had the biggest improvements. This change is mostly behind-the-scenes.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
IncantatioN said:
Cool to see that green icon against the name to show who's online while you're browsing a topic/ page without having to see it on the main page.

That feature was already present in the old version.
 
Top Bottom