Official New Design Thread

Constructive criticism rocks. You, Sir, rock.

 

The Pope said in this thread (some what many pages ago) that RTT is supsosed to be changing this.

 

Kinda hard to tell the difference between these when scanning through the 'New Posts' search...

Maybe one could have a purple 'net' circle?

 

I just followed a link from another site to the bit-tech article on the xbox controller and I didnt even realise I was on bit-tech

 

You'll get used to the new design, like we all will, given enough time.

 

Yeah, that logo at the top doesn't give too much away really

 

I was futher down the page tbh. Just reading the content.

 

Well that's hardly fair is it! That's a fault of most sites I'd say.. like quack said, you'll get used to it, in a few weeks it'll be like it's been like this all the time.

 

"Ads! ads! Everywhere! And not enough webpage to think!"

I'm viewing this at college on a horrific 640/480 screen and with all the banners and border ads, it's a nightmare to navigate comfortably. I pity laptop and old-computer users who surf the tech.

At least the 'retro' grey is still an option.

 

I would imagine any website is a pain to navigate with a res like that. Think auto width could be worse.

 

Gordy: link from whom out of interest?

Scotty: ouch - I almost can't even imagine that! If anyone is interested, 1280x960 has now ousted 800x600 in the Top 5 resolutions used, relegating 8x6 to 6th place with less than 3% of readers. And 1280x1024 is about to overtake 1024x768 for top place - shows more people are buying 17 / 19" TFTs and the like.

 

The site isn't designed to run at 640x480.

 

Cant remember tbh had loads of tabs open

 

I'm sorry, bigz, but one of the prime rules of web design...second only to cross-browser compatibility...is that a site should be able to run comfortably at ANY halfway standard resolution. The W3C even puts that in their tips and tricks - backwards compatible and readable. That feature could be changed, and easily so, by some css work or some php. 640 is still a used resolution, particularly on handhelds. Your comment is like saying a game just isn't designed to run on mainstream systems...wouldn't sell, and neither does a site that can't run on a large variety of screens.

For instance, I used to be able to port the forums updates to my handheld for a quick read while in a class or seminar (that i really didn't want to be able to pay attention to). The resizeability of the old site allowed me to not have to monkey with 15 programs to do it. Now I can't, because it takes this CSS right banner and such, too, which is 3/4 of my pocketpc screen.

This isn't meant to be a knock on the new site yet again, because both kna and rtt know I've said this before, its just a response...but maybe after the site gets the real bugs squashed, the code can be cleaned up on the forum template to allow for a little better resizeability.

And people, PLEASE don't use adblockers. BitTech isn't doing this to be annoying. Bandwidth costs money. If you're gonna read the site, the least you can do is support it by not intentionally screwing their funding.

 

640x480 is hardly standard, as The_Pope stated: resolutions are increasing. The standard is currently 1024x768 but it'll be 1280x1024 soon enough.

 

Not standard, but still used. PocketPC screens are almost all 640x480 now. So are a lot of public web terminals around my area, so that people with vision impairments have an easier time reading them. And 640 is only an example of the problem. 8x6 also can't read easily over the ads, and my 1024x768 has problems when my browser is not maximized. But all of this has been discussed before...I was just pointing out something.

 

Yes if you are aiming your site at the general public, a tech site on the otherhand is aimed at the tech-savy of the users and so will be made so it will appeal for them (and in doing so not support antiquated resolutions)

To be truthful I hardly ever see sites for anything less than 800x600 nowdays.

Anyone running lower than 800x600 is prob on windows 3.11 anyway

@pocletPC comments: bit-tech is not built to be a mobile site!

 

Also, not everyone browses in a maximized browser-window. It's not because they have 1024*768 that they aren't viewing the site in a normalized window half the size of that.

Perhaps Bit-Tech should exploit these new, rapidly growing markets like tiny mobile devices to earn more money instead of adding more banners, pushing more and more people over the treshold of blocking them.

I'm sure that the profit vs banners statistics show a bell-curve, and bit-tech just might have passed the point of highest profit.

 

I would just like to point out once more that I am not complaining about the ads being the problem, even on the pocketpc...it's the lack of flexibility in the css presentation.

Though I WOULD love to see the site have a nice pocket-pc translation!!!! Perhaps this is a market you could explore? Maybe make a poll as to how many users would take advantage of the site on mobile devices. After all, bit tech forums is really a community, and I'm sure I'm not the only freak who is looking to take it on the go.. At least, I hope..

Oh, and kna, NICE CHANGE for the "thanks for posting" page. I notice that the background color is now the skin background. Very nice.

 

Just checked back and the thread is huge, should have guessed really

Anyway, thanks for adding the "old school" colour themes back in, im having a much easier time reading it