New Sidebar Layout

[Melooo182]

Im pretty confident im not the only cough by surprise with this bar thus i think it would be just to submit this to public opinion again now that its effects are obvious to everyone using the site, just a suggestion, take it or leave it.

I am not totally against it, but users should be able to turn it off or be visible only on the main page. The trade off is simply not worth it currently.

+1

also i think the poll didn't contemplate the option of "I don't use it because I don't want to lose my precious screen area"
or
"I don't use it because i'm not interested in rome II news" xD i think that was already said.

I'm ok with having a bar but as long it can be minimized and/or scales with lower res i'd be happy...of course this is me with a 2009 macbook and its 1280px res.

[Sebidee]

Still, now most of the right side is just empty block that makes entire layout look bad.

Plus, on the official poll pretty much most of the people were against it.

View Poll Results: Do you use the Sidebar?

• I use it
  
  19.05%
• I do not use it
  
  63.49%
• What is the Sidebar?
  
  17.46%

I am not totally against it, but users should be able to turn it off or be visible only on the main page. The trade off is simply not worth it currently.

That poll does not say that people don't want a sidebar. It says that they don't know what it is (that's what I voted for) or that they rarely use it. GreenEyedDvl took that to mean that people rarely saw it and then decided to make it more visible.

I think this could be useful. Already several things have caught my eye - including this thread. It should also make the front page announcements more powerful for advertising peoples mods.

I have Notifications, the workshop and my hosted mod on my bookmarks bar so I'm never on the TWC main page. I also rarely venture out of a few specific forums. This could be good to introduce people to other parts of the website.

[Melooo182]

I do agree with sebidee.

perhaps it can have the option to minimize but is maximized by default when you open the page, so you at least look once what it has before hiding it.

[GrnEyedDvl]

That poll does not say that people don't want a sidebar. It says that they don't know what it is (that's what I voted for) or that they rarely use it. GreenEyedDvl took that to mean that people rarely saw it and then decided to make it more visible.

I think this could be useful. Already several things have caught my eye - including this thread. It should also make the front page announcements more powerful for advertising peoples mods.

I have Notifications, the workshop and my hosted mod on my bookmarks bar so I'm never on the TWC main page. I also rarely venture out of a few specific forums. This could be good to introduce people to other parts of the website.

Exactly right. That is the main point of this, to get information to people who might not otherwise see it. I am trying to balance a useful size here with current use of the forum.

I do agree with sebidee.

perhaps it can have the option to minimize but is maximized by default when you open the page, so you at least look once what it has before hiding it.

Ads cannot be in a layer that can be hidden, as already stated.


I tweaked some of the themes a bit, going through a couple of others now.

[Veteraan]

If the images are posted as attachments they should blow up and overlay everything.

I understood posting images as attachments took a big toll on site resources and was therefore not encouraged.
That was the reason for me to open an account on an image hosting site. As it is you who is suggesting to use attachments, I must conclude that I must have misunderstood this.

As I already stated in the first thread about this, especially on my 1366x768 windows tablet the sidebar is taking away too much space.
I wonder though why there is still a fairly big border around the forum pages now that the sidebar uses more room and is present on all pages of the forum.
I mean the dark brown parts with the pattern that is on either side of the pages.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[GrnEyedDvl]

I wonder though why there is still a fairly big border around the forum pages now that the sidebar uses more room and is present on all pages of the forum.
I mean the dark brown parts with the pattern that is on either side of the pages.

Yes some of that space needs to be taken back. I cant do it all at once though guys. There are lots of other places we can gain space as well. I posted screens of it on the first thread I started.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Just gained back 30 pixels on each side of the main global body, for a total of 60 pixels. I doubt you notice where the missing pixels went, it was mostly padding between different parts of the site.

[Veteraan]

Yes some of that space needs to be taken back. I cant do it all at once though guys. There are lots of other places we can gain space as well. I posted screens of it on the first thread I started.

That would be good, especially if all space gained can be assigned to the available "posting" space. It might end up being close to the previous dimensions.

Edit: You work faster than I can post.
Probably took to long too make sure my 1000th post would not be plagued by spelling errors.

[GrnEyedDvl]

That would be good, especially if all space gained can be assigned to the available "posting" space. It might end up being close to the previous dimension.

Yeah I am trying to get there now. I have gotten back approximately 100 pixels so far. This is stuff I couldn't do before I set the sidebar up because I couldn't really see how close it was for each theme. There are about 5-10 more pixels I can get on the right of the sidebar now, and then I have to run around to the rest of the pages like PMs and quick reply vs advanced reply.


EDIT: I got back another 10 without screwing things up, so more than half of the sidebar width has now been gained back. Net loss on posting space is about 150 pixels after adding the sidebar at 330 pixels and removing a bunch of blank space.

[Melooo182]

perhaps the space where the avatar is can be reduced as well, there too much superficial clutter there anyway

[GrnEyedDvl]

Edit: You work faster than I can post.
Probably took to long too make sure my 1000th post would not be plagued by spelling errors.

Its still a work in progress. I had to take time out to respond to stuff so that people didn't go insane but I always knew where the issues were and what I needed to do to get some space back. In the end we are adding a bunch more content and losing about 150 pixels of thread reading space to do it. Considering how much stuff has already been added its a LOT more than you would have suspected you could gain for a 150 pixel trade.

And I notice that some people have been using the search widget. I haven't had a chance to yet, but I see there are some search terms cached there already.

[GrnEyedDvl]

perhaps the space where the avatar is can be reduced as well, there too much superficial clutter there anyway

I trimmed a bit off of that, but not much. It HAS to at least be as wide as the badges with a few pixels for a border. If I make it much smaller we will have to tweak the awards settings so that one less award per row shows.

[Melooo182]

Im surprised by the improvement of removing the borders
well at 90% scae it seems bearable now

[GrnEyedDvl]

Im surprised by the improvement of removing the borders
well at 90% scae it seems bearable now

I knew I could get it tweaked I just needed the time to do it.

What resolution are you running?

[Melooo182]

1280x800

[DAVIDE]

Twitter like layouts are a waste of time and just awful to look at. The common average modder\player of mods here, who is interested exclusively in modding sections\mods, does not care (i put it kindly) to read news or threads about politics or publications made by 10 years old kids at all. The common average modder\player of mods will keep doing and attending what he was doing and attending before. Exclusively modding sections\mods.

If you want to keep sidebars, at least make them hideable. Now there is, now there is not, by pressing a button or moving the cursor on them. Or better, create a script in which you can enable sidebars from user settings so one can decide by preference to see them or not

[Sebidee]

The text on the sidebar (except for the poll) is perfect now.

[Veteraan]

Time to get some sleep, but in case you haven't yet noticed I would like to point out that my "my account" page looks a bit strange now. Rep rings partially covering text and folder icons doing something similar. Resolution = 1920*1200
I'm sure you get it all sorted out though.

[GrnEyedDvl]

1280x800

Care to take a screen shot for me?

Twitter like layouts are a waste of time and just awful to look at. The common average modder\player of mods here, who is interested exclusively in modding sections\mods, does not care (i put it kindly) to read news or threads about politics or publications made by 10 years old kids at all. The common average modder\player of mods will keep doing and attending what he was doing and attending before. Exclusively modding sections\mods.

That's your opinion, and you are entitled to it. But the simple facts are that the political section is by FAR bigger than any modding section on this site. Bigger than most of them combined actually. And most of the people participating in that section are also here for games and mods, which is why they came here in the first place. There is lots more to TWC than just mods, and most people do use other parts of the site. You happen not to, which is ok. But statistically your opinion that the "average modder/player" doesn't have any interest outside the mod forums is just plain wrong.

If you want to keep sidebars, at least make them hideable. Now there is, now there is not, by pressing a button or moving the cursor on them. Or better, create a script in which you can enable sidebars from user settings so one can decide by preference to see them or not

This has been addressed already. Read the entire thread to see it.

The text on the sidebar (except for the poll) is perfect now.

The poll one is giving me fits for some reason. It looks good on everything except Blackout.

[irishron]

Search isn't bad.

Found Reduced City Textures for M2 and Medieval XL. Both are old.