[Plushy]

Well... I have a proper thread on Mybb showcase but actually I'm more interested on a proper feedback based on design + functionality + tips to improve some sections since I'm not a developer myself and my programming skills stills basic.

Fist of all, I didn't do the theme from scratch, I took a basic theme who looked like this
https://image.ibb.co/bMg5E7/1.png
And with a full year or work look like this
https://ibb.co/0XV6DV6

More on index with zoom from a laptop
https://ibb.co/4gyPqw5
https://ibb.co/bvtvnPp

Forumdisplay with zoom
https://ibb.co/tDC0Wt4
https://ibb.co/DgRLZd7

Post
https://ibb.co/S6B4CRN
https://ibb.co/yhHh71V

Custom Profiles
https://ibb.co/bvXxnkx
https://ibb.co/9gqzJQ2
https://ibb.co/jbbnFb5


Since the forum is heavily focused on fanfiction, I used xthreads for some new fields like a summary and genres
https://ibb.co/nbwMHnT
https://ibb.co/xmkwYcJ

Also, we have a gallery using xtreads but possibly this is de weakest aspect of the forum since I varely knew how to use flex boxes when I made the design and I haven't had enought time to make an improvement. So, if anyone can suggest some tutorials or ideas to make it better it will be super appreciated
https://ibb.co/1bD4jc1
https://ibb.co/sHnJ3PX

[Lain]

Honestly, I hate the blue lol. I don't mean that in a bad way, but jeez, it gives me sooo much eyestrain after like 15 seconds. It's like, dark, but the B in RGB is maxed out. Idk.

I like the template mods, adds a TON of personality to the page and doesn't make it look like every other MyBB site. So I'll give you props for that, most MyBB devs just ignore it lol

That being said, there's a lot of room for improvement:
--Vertical centering on things like forumdisplay and the page header
--Horizontal centering on the images in the gallery
--Image themes vary a ton. Not necessarily a bad thing, but if you're trying to improve the theme, a big thing is consistency. Right now, userbars are pixel art, there's a drawing on the index page, the table/forum/section headers have a sci-fi wave kinda thing, and on the profile, the 'sections' i guess or buttons or whatever are flat icons. Too much variety IMO.
--I'm also not a fan of the default postbit style (the part with the user, postcount, etc.) since it tends to get cluttered and uses a LOT more space on the page than the classic postbit (I mean look at all that empty space in the middle, and it makes the webpage 'longer' to scroll down.)

But of course, I'm by no means a pro web designer or anything, and these are just pointers that I (generally) try to follow when designing something, and it seems to work pretty well.

[Darth-Apple]

Hey I love blue!

It's honestly very clear that you've put a ton of time into this. It's overall very detailed. There are certain things where I think the visuals are a bit much (e.g. on the postbit with the purple background), but it has quite a bit of character to it.

Backgrounds are a mixed bag. They were something we avoided adding here for about six years before we finally did it (namely because they detract from the "content" itself.) I think that making it more content centered on certain pages will go a long way.

The gallery looks great. xThreads is one of those plugins where the sky is the limit it seems. I love your implementation of it.

[Plushy]

Honestly, I hate the blue lol. I don't mean that in a bad way, but jeez, it gives me sooo much eyestrain after like 15 seconds. It's like, dark, but the B in RGB is maxed out. Idk.

Imagine when I decided to change to purple-pinkish-velvet e.e

Since our community is mostly writing based, we really need to have a dark theme by default. But most "dark" forums are just... grey shaded and in the worst cases... black #000 with a red or blue bar. Finally we decided for a semi colorful scheme zubat blue/purple since is the most representative cave pokemon.


I feel the main actual problem is the header. The steelex picture was a commission for one of our members when the original theme was dark green, blue and grey, but with the new changes the colors feel out of place. Another problem is the only member from our group who really knows digital edition well.... lives in Venezuela... and his computer died so...

Anyway... I try a little edition.
https://ibb.co/Dr6sWTV
https://ibb.co/YyVd22b

Ah, and about the postbit...
On most forums classic postbit looks better if you make them fixed along the post, for my particular case horizontal postbit is necessary. As I said before, the main focus of the site is hosting fanfiction. Regular discussion post are around 100-500 words, even less for spam/game topics. But I'm talking post being chapters of 4k-8k word each one! With the vertical I'm loosing space and with the fixed property to show the avatar and info i'm creating a visual distractor

https://ibb.co/HhvGjLK

On this way, yeah, maybe the user's info can feel clumsy, but scrolling makes thus focus will be 100% on the post content

[Darth-Apple]

I like the look of these. The header background fits well. It looks great on mobile!

[Lain]

Honestly, I hate the blue lol. I don't mean that in a bad way, but jeez, it gives me sooo much eyestrain after like 15 seconds. It's like, dark, but the B in RGB is maxed out. Idk.

Imagine when I decided to change to purple-pinkish-velvet e.e

Since our community is mostly writing based, we really need to have a dark theme but default. But most "dark" forums are just... grey shaded and in the worst cases... black #000 with a red or blue bar. Finally we decided for a semi colorful scheme zubat blue/purple since is the most representative cave pokemon.

Have you tried something along the lines of a Solarized (Dark) theme?
It's dark but not just grey, kind of an unsaturated very dark blue with offwhite text.
Of course you could always modify at your own will, but it's designed with eye-strain in mind and doesn't look like every other dark-theme forum.

But the tradeoff is that it's a really common theme for programmers or whatever, so unless you modify it pretty extensively, people who look at your site might get the wrong idea.

---

The updates look good. Makes sense about the horizontal postbit and all, now that you mention it. Wattpad and all those other sites use similar styles and I get why.

Not gonna comment on mobile theme since I'm already heavily biased against mobile browsing, but one thing that I noticed pretty quick on the desktop version was that the fonts for the menu (white) and the fonts for login/registration (blue) are different. Makin my OCD go nuts lmao.

[Plushy]

Have you tried something along the lines of a Solarized (Dark) theme?

Oh.... no idea that scheme exist as a standar pallet.

Welp... I made some test...
On one side... yes, the 'blue' base along with the whitish colors are better for reading.... unfortunately even the dark one stills too green that looks out of tune with the rest of the pantone
https://ibb.co/LPjJFkn

For now, I'm gonna keep the blue post_body color along with the white solarized and for a version 2.0, maybe for the 1.9 mybb version I can use all the Solarized pantone in all the forum.

In other hand.... i'm not quite sure how to improve the gallery section. I'm thinking using the Grid CSS layout but since I've never use it I'm still need read about it and analyse how use it along the templates and xthreads variables.

[Darth-Apple]

I registered!

Looked around for a little while and I love it. The way that youv'e done the registration page, forumbit sectons on the index, alerts icons, logo hover effects, etc. are all well done. There are a ton of little things you've done a nice job customizing.

The quick reply and show thread pages look great too.