[Adam]

I constantly work to improve and enhance all four of the skins we have here on the forum; this thread is intended for statistical purposes so that I can see what's used the most, or if the skins are used evenly, or what needs more work!

Adam
PentaxForums.com Webmaster (Site Usage Guide | Site Help | My Photography)



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[Adam]

This poll will remain open for two months. Thanks for taking the time to vote!

[Canada_Rockies]

I have my preferences set to forum default - I'm guessing that it is the Green Modern skin.

[roentarre]

Modern skin for me. Gentle on the eyes.

[Ivan Glisin]

I use simple skin for one main reason: fonts are too small in other skins.

Other things I don't like in general:

1) Both modern skins are with colors too vivid, it is sometimes distracting, especially while looking at photo attachments. (Would we frame photographs using bright red or bright green frames or window mats? Probably not.)

2) All skins use a lot of space on headers, footers, space between posts, and so on. Short posts get entirely eaten up by "white space" and other elements of secondary importance.

3) Perhaps placement or captions on reply buttons could be improved. I often see a lot of people reply to the last post, not the the intended message. That makes following discussions a bit hard sometimes.

4) Threaded mode sometimes does not work in any skin: sometimes the navigator frame is simply empty, sometimes clicking on "More replies below current depth..." simply resets the threaded view to the first post so additional posts are inaccessible, and switching to Linear Mode is necessary.

5) Speaking of threaded mode: can thread navigator go after the message, similar to DPReview?

6) Finally, I would prefer a darker skin, with more efficient use of space, highlight on message body, and limited width. Here is the example of a type I like on Onexposure - it is very compact, with nice headers:

Onexposure - 1x.com - Photography forum - About forum "Photography"

Adam: is there is any manual or guidelines for making skins for this forum engine? I would like to try creating one if you don't mind.

[Ivan Glisin]

Free skins for vBulletin:

vB Skins - High Quality vBulletin Skins & Styles

Click on any skin and you'll see the "Live link - view" link. It will take you to their vBulletin forum and you can actually use it to preview the skin in real use! (In forum itself you also can change skins the usual way and see how all skins work for real without going to the main page.)

My favorite so far - Dark Futura:

vB Skins - Powered by vBulletin

I would just tweak it to change post fonts to brighter gray (just shy of white) and that should be it.

[hinckc]

I use classic skin, mostly for it's placement of the "Today's Post" link in the page footer.

It has much softer colors than the others, too, that don't compete with the photography so much. I'd like one that has a grey theme with black and or white accents, personally...

-Chris

[Adam]

Our skins here have a lot of extra space because they're "liquid" (can expand based on screen resolution) and not "fixed" (set to a fixed width, such as 800px). There are many problems associated with fixed skins that have made me decide against using them- although all four of our skins here can be adapted to a fixed layout at the click of a button.

The Modern skins are custom-made for PentaxForums.com- you won't find them anywhere else. I value the uniqueness that will only use a custom skin as the default design, though I'm sure I'll we working on a new theme later down the road.

I'm considering adding/creating some sort of dark skin later on, as well as a mobile skin with reduced functionality for increased mobility.

Skinning vBulletin is very simple, though you need to be fairly proficient with HTML to avoid running into trouble. Skins can be created through the style manager, found in the admin panel. Graphics need to be made in photoshop, etc. You need to be a vBulletin license holder to set up a board on which you can develop skins. Personally, I have experience with phpBB > vBulletin skin conversions, skin creation, and graphic design, so many aspects of the skins you see here are customized by me beyond their original appearance.

Also, threaded mode seems to work fine for me. Which browser are you using?

[magnum1]

Modern Green. Easy on the eyes.

[Ivan Glisin]

Also, threaded mode seems to work fine for me. Which browser are you using?

Mozilla Firefox.

Thread browser frame does not work only in some cases, most of the time works fine. The problem is consistent, so I can log out, log back in, and the same thread fails while the rest works fine. Also, it fails in all skins.

I will send you link to a problematic thread next time I happen to hit one. Have anyone else experienced this problem?

[roentarre]

Here is a bit of modern skin - a little sexy!

Modern Skin Version

[keithlester]

I answered the poll, which triggered me to try all the skins again. I still prefer Modern Red, thanks for asking.

[Blue]

I would guess that since many people run the default setting, which is "Modern Skin", the preponderance of people are running that and may not even know it.

I just tried out the others and actually like the Simple one best. I'm not sure why it is called simple.

[Adam]

Because it's got the fewest graphics and is mostly b/w

It works much better on dial-up than any of the other skins, if anyone still uses that

[woodworm]

I tried them all and prefer the default modern green skin personally.

I really appreciate the fact that this forum is 'liquid' and stretches across my screen and I really like the smaller fonts

What changes are you thinking of making?