Author Topic: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)  (Read 19045 times)

Spectere

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Re: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)
« Reply #15 on: November 13, 2008, 11:21:30 PM »
CRT monitors are the big ones with the picture tubes.  When the displays get old they sometimes have a tendency to get dimmer.

LCD displays as the flat panel monitors.  Generally, if those are dim it's because the backlight is either failing or the display is cheap.  Cheaper LCD displays tend to have poor contrast ratios and generally aren't very bright.
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Bobbias

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Re: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)
« Reply #16 on: November 13, 2008, 11:30:33 PM »
CRT monitors are the big ones with the picture tubes.  When the displays get old they sometimes have a tendency to get dimmer.

LCD displays as the flat panel monitors.  Generally, if those are dim it's because the backlight is either failing or the display is cheap.  Cheaper LCD displays tend to have poor contrast ratios and generally aren't very bright.

Well, last I checked most LCDs had better contrast ratios than CRTs did period, even the cheap ones.

And CRTs do have a nasty habit of getting darker. My old CRT was so dark that with all settings maxed, ingame and on the monitor, the dark areas in Diablo 2 (say, the unlit areas inside a cave) were literally BLACK. It died shortly thereafter.
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Alice

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Re: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)
« Reply #17 on: November 14, 2008, 12:50:52 AM »
what

There was a builtin theme that looked exactly like that for my school's computer club board

also it was the best of the available so I ended up using it, and it totally kicked ass

instead of red & black, could there be an indigo/purple & black option? :o

Spectere

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Re: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)
« Reply #18 on: November 14, 2008, 02:19:46 AM »
Well, last I checked most LCDs had better contrast ratios than CRTs did period, even the cheap ones.

Oh god no.  If you are ever given the choice between a cheap LCD and a cheap CRT and can't actually look at the merchandise always pick the CRT.  The cheap LCDs I've seen are literally half as bright as a cheap CRT.  I've sure cheap LCDs have drastically improved since the one I saw that was like that was made, but still.

instead of red & black, could there be an indigo/purple & black option? :o

I played with black and purple and I didn't care for it much.  It doesn't really look very striking or stylish.

Black and pink is a definite possibility.  That color combination looks pretty sweet.
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Bobbias

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Re: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)
« Reply #19 on: November 14, 2008, 02:43:15 AM »
Yeah, blank and pink, as much as I hate pink,  works really well.

I'm also a fan of bright green on black (like #00FF00 or like #33CC33 over #000000, lol)
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Leorina

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Re: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)
« Reply #20 on: November 14, 2008, 09:27:40 AM »
CRT monitors are the big ones with the picture tubes.  When the displays get old they sometimes have a tendency to get dimmer.

Ok, yeah, It's a CRT then because it is one of the bigger monitors, thanks...but anyway, back on topic to the new theme, The shading and gradients look really well and blend into a great look.
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Spectere

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Re: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)
« Reply #21 on: November 14, 2008, 03:50:54 PM »
Yeah, blank and pink, as much as I hate pink,  works really well.

I'm also a fan of bright green on black (like #00FF00 or like #33CC33 over #000000, lol)

Yeah, bright colors tend to work very well on dark backgrounds.  If I continue to do this, the next one I do will probably be pink on black.
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Spectere

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Re: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)
« Reply #22 on: November 16, 2008, 06:21:24 AM »
Haven't had much of a chance to work on it this past few days (because of the wedding and all) but this is the result of staying up far too late tonight:





Changes
  • Replaced the blue menu tabs (and mirror tabs) with reddish, uncurved counterparts.
  • Made the "profile updated" div actually look nice.
  • Added a few selectors that really should be in the default theme (like the aforementioned "profile updated" style, which because successbg.
  • Changed many elements in the profile pages to use the darker windowbg rather than the lighter windowbg2 because it looks better. :D
  • Darkened the background behind the avatar on the collapsable information bar on top.
  • Condensed the SMF logo in the upper-right corner.
  • Finally named the theme -- Charred Rose.
I doubt this is going to matter to anyone here, but this theme is going to look like complete and utter shit on IE6 due to its heavy-ish use of *gasp* PNG alpha channel translucency.  For example, I highly doubt that there's a single opaque section in the new SMF logo, and the anti-aliasing for the menu tab graphics is all alpha translucency.  It looks perfectly fine on IE7 and up, of course, as well as Firefox.
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Bobbias

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Re: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)
« Reply #23 on: November 16, 2008, 12:02:51 PM »
Holy shit. That looks awesome.

I love the diagonal lines and such in some of the menu thingies.

How do those gradients work, anyway? I've kinda wondered what they are made with.

Also, requesting IE6 mangled screenshots.
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Spectere

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Re: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)
« Reply #24 on: November 16, 2008, 12:57:30 PM »
How do those gradients work, anyway? I've kinda wondered what they are made with.

Basically, what I did was make a quick gradient image in Photoshop (I generally used red to grey for the color values) then set them up with the background-image property on that particular class's entry in the CSS file.  To be more specific, I set them up to appear on the bottom, repeating on the X axis.

Also, requesting IE6 mangled screenshots.

I don't think we have a system here that has IE6 on it, so I don't know if I'll be able to deliver on that one.  Basically, just imagine all of the images that have translucency being on top of a medium-gray background.  Quite fugly.
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Bobbias

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Re: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)
« Reply #25 on: November 16, 2008, 02:47:11 PM »
Ahh, no other problems with IE6 fucking things up? Since I know there are tons of layout things in IE6 that can easily end up mangling a page in it.
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Spectere

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Re: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)
« Reply #26 on: November 16, 2008, 03:10:33 PM »
Nah, SMF has a style sheet dedicated to dealing with IE6's "eccentricities."  The only thing it'll choke on are the images, and given the number of PNGs with alpha translucency, it'll probably look kind of bad.

Now that I think about it, I think our HTPC laptop might still have IE6.  If it does, I'll try to remember to grab a screenshot of its, uh, magnificent rendering.
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Alice

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Re: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)
« Reply #27 on: November 16, 2008, 04:31:16 PM »
wares mah neon pink on blak? :o

ps: Charred Rose looks quite sexy

Bobbias

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Re: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)
« Reply #28 on: November 16, 2008, 04:41:55 PM »
Oh, and how do you go about getting some cool AA using alpha blending? I've been wondering because I'd kinda like to update some of my icons for games that look like ass by making a vectorized version and alpha blending the edges to get nicer AA. I found a program that will insert large (ex. 256x256) icons into programs (since no resource hackers support that, and it's practically impossible to force even the visual studios to use icons that size, not to mention they are usually compressed as well now.
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Spectere

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Re: Opinions Desired (new theme, incoming!)
« Reply #29 on: November 16, 2008, 06:42:18 PM »
wares mah neon pink on blak? :o

I'm not even done with this one, nigga! <3

ps: Charred Rose looks quite sexy

Danke. ;D

Oh, and how do you go about getting some cool AA using alpha blending?

I do it the lazy way.  Basically, I start a new RGB Photoshop document with a transparent background, draw a line, and make sure it's set up to use anti-aliasing.  Nothing too fancy. :P

The SMF logo was done by taking the small logo from the GIF that SMF comes with (see the upper-right corner of this theme) pasting it in a new image with a transparent background, setting the fill of that layer to 0% and giving it an light red inner and outer glow.

Most vector programs will automatically anti-alias the images when it exports them, so if you redraw the icons with a vector drawing program you should be all set.

Also, there really isn't a need to insert the icons into programs.  Just dump an ICO file somewhere and link the shortcut to that.
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