New Sidebar Layout

[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.

[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.

[Kull]

Why is this implemented in the threads? I think it should be reserved for the forums. The threads with screenshots are now difficult to see.

Exactly - This is the "happy medium" approach. People don't live permamently in the threads. They have to return to the sub-forum sections to look for other threads, and that's when this "feature" can shout it's way back into your consciousness.

I can't emphasize enough how difficult it now is to navigate through long complicated threads with multiple long posts and graphics.

[irishron]

This isn't bad at all.

[Vipman]

Since most people are looking here instead of the older thread sorry but I'll say again I would prefer if the sidebar would be kept everywhere except when viewing threads and more ads can added to the top and the bottom to still be able to view posts as before and get more money to the site.

And to people that don't know, reducing the zoom in the browser (Ctrl+- in chrome) helps a bit.

[SoulGamesInc]

I'd get used to it eventually no doubt, but is it impossible to allow us a choice of having it set on/off etc?

[GrnEyedDvl]

Hey GreenEyedDvl. I have one concern as a blacked out theme user. The text on the side bar is a light blue colour and it's very difficult to see with the background. Could you give it a more contrasting colour so that we can see what it actually says?

We can look at some theme specific issues. It should be pulling from the theme itself but maybe not in a few cases.

So is this the format that you recomend from now on?

You mean with image attachment? Its always been a hodgepodge on how people do that. And we have also always had problems with people posting huge images that stretch the screen no matter how big your monitor is. I cannot count the number of them I have spoilered over the years because of it.

Since most people are looking here instead of the older thread sorry but I'll say again I would prefer if the sidebar would be kept everywhere except when viewing threads and more ads can added to the top and the bottom to still be able to view posts as before and get more money to the site.

There are lots of things involving ads that make that a problem. First is that top and bottom ads are limited to 729x90 size and advertisers prefer squares or skyscrapers. It would also be a huge pain to hack up every part of vBulletin to show one style ad on forumview and one on threadview and something else on newpost etc etc etc.

If I use the current ad size of 300x250 then the space in the sidebar is also big enough to use for other stuff, like the search widget (no comments on that yet I see, not too sure about that one myself) and the Polls and News blocks. If I go with a skyscraper at 160 pixels wide then you pretty much cant use it for anything else except ads as 160 pixels wide is not enough to put any decent information in.

And to people that don't know, reducing the zoom in the browser (Ctrl+- in chrome) helps a bit.

That's an option but by far most users are at 1440 resolution or higher.

I'd get used to it eventually no doubt, but is it impossible to allow us a choice of having it set on/off etc?

Not and still have ads in it. You cannot place ads in a window that can be toggled off and on. Ads aren't the only consideration here, but if they are going to be there then it has to be locked on. If they aren't going to be there then we could enable that, but having them there is going to be better than the 728x90 ads.

The 728 ads have lots of inherent problems. Advertisers generally don't pay as much for them, which isn't a huge problem for TWC as we are more than breaking even and have been for a while. The real problem comes in because they are cheaper to buy, lots of people try to sneak into the ad networks and buy them up and put crap on them. We have seen quite a bit of that, and I have even had problems with them getting into the AdSense network on the MCC site. Reducing the number of 728 ads reduces our exposure to that kind of activity. I knocked out half of them by going this route. If I simply removed half our ads and didn't put something back in then TWC would be losing money. Quite a bit actually.

So I am trying to find a balance here, and put useful information in the sidebar at the same time.

[SoulGamesInc]

If I simply removed half our ads and didn't put something back in then TWC would be losing money. Quite a bit actually.

Understandable, and like i said i'll get used to it being there. Fairly quickly i'd imagine...
Hopefully there is some compromise to be found but ofc the site needs to make it's income.

[Melooo182]

I think there was a thread discussing this beforehand.

(No links on my part but I am sure others can provide for one)

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...663059-Sidebar

thanks for the link but honestly never noticed this, since when i get to this site I just go straight to the SS forum and its subforums where i mostly post.
Also is hard to discuss about the effects of such bar if the effects are not perceived, now that that bar is in effect is that we can see how bad it is, for me at least .

Also im aware the site needs the ads to survive i placing them in a side bar might be the best way but, please make it scale with lower resolutions.

[GrnEyedDvl]

thanks for the link but honestly never noticed this, since when i get to this site I just go straight to the SS forum and its subforums where i mostly post.

Thank you for proving my point that the sidebar is needed.

Also is hard to discuss about the effects of such bar if the effects are not perceived, now that that bar is in effect is that we can see how bad it is, for me at least .

Which is why I installed it on another site running the same version of vBulletin and asked people to view that.

[Vipman]

There are lots of things involving ads that make that a problem. First is that top and bottom ads are limited to 729x90 size and advertisers prefer squares or skyscrapers. It would also be a huge pain to hack up every part of vBulletin to show one style ad on forumview and one on threadview and something else on newpost etc etc etc.

If I use the current ad size of 300x250 then the space in the sidebar is also big enough to use for other stuff, like the search widget (no comments on that yet I see, not too sure about that one myself) and the Polls and News blocks. If I go with a skyscraper at 160 pixels wide then you pretty much cant use it for anything else except ads as 160 pixels wide is not enough to put any decent information in.

Firstly I'll say I know nothing of how easy or hard is to do things. I was thinking for no square adds to exists, just the content stuff, so no fluctuating ad types depending on what you view, which is what you said is hard to hack, but if there were no ads there, would removing the sidebar when viewing threads be easier to do or the same thing? If supposedly can be done, could the sidebar be hidden while viewing threads and have new skyscraper ad(s) instead, for all the pages, on the left side? (I suppose skyscraper ads on the right side is not possible with sidebar fluctuating).
Just an idea. Anyway removing borders and stuff to gain more space helped

BTW can you clarify how ok is it to use attachment feature? Was it suggested to limit attachments for updating to vb4 and now it's ok?

[GrnEyedDvl]

Firstly I'll say I know nothing of how easy or hard is to do things. I was thinking for no square adds to exists, just the content stuff, so no fluctuating ad types depending on what you view, which is what you said is hard to hack, but if there were no ads there, would removing the sidebar when viewing threads be easier to do or the same thing?

I can enable the removal of the sidebar, but the rules about advertising prevent me from doing that. Removing the ads from the sidebar defeats part of the purpose of having it.

If supposedly can be done, could the sidebar be hidden while viewing threads and have new skyscraper ad(s) instead, for all the pages, on the left side? (I suppose skyscraper ads on the right side is not possible with sidebar fluctuating).

The problem with doing that is that when you have the sidebar open, you will also have the skyscraper on the left side. It would be hugely intrusive to have both, which means that people would just disable the sidebar entirely, so it might as well not even be there. I have tried to limit the impact of this as much as possible, and what I have worked out is that its exactly the same now as it would have been (space wise) if I had just inserted the skyscrapers at 160 wide and not made any other changes. Well not quite exactly, within 10 pixels or so.

The difference is that doing it this way and making all the other tweaks is that there is now a lot more content, and not just an ad on the site, for almost the same amount of space.

BTW can you clarify how ok is it to use attachment feature? Was it suggested to limit attachments for updating to vb4 and now it's ok?

Images have always been about bandwidth, not about the forum version. A couple of years ago the site barely (and I do mean barely) broke even, and even some months lost money. We are in a better position now than we were then, especially with CloudFlare caching stuff like images. That costs us $200 a month for that service but probably saves us $400 a month in bandwidth. So you can use attachments though I would still prefer you use imageshack or something similar for images. Especially images that aren't huge and stretch the screen. But using them as attachments is also ok. I need to rework the album settings (and PM settings and about 1000 other things) so that everyone has exactly the same amount of space available, and then you can use that up to your limit. The way things are set now lots of different user groups have lots of different space allotments, its pretty much a cluster.

[MasterOfNone]

I've switched to 1366 (I have two screens) and everything now fits in Though the text is a little smaller than I'd like...

I know you do, and if I came across rude earlier I did not intend to. I was just pointing out that this conversation has been going on for a while and I even asked people to view it on the MCC site before I did anything here.

You know us modders. The mod. There is only the mod...

[rafmc1989]

Is this an example of "layout cutting"?

[Aradan]

Is there any chance of the new sidebar becoming collapsible? Or that a new custom theme makes it go away (take vanilla vbulletin theme and remove the sidebar)? Ok, sure, us low resolution people are a minority, but this makes forum usage really uncomfortable.


I trust we'll also have a metric provided this time next month that will inform us on how beneficial exactly the new layout is for the site.

[AqD]

yes

[alex86]

Hi! Some feedback:

Shrinking the page is not too much of a problem - just not what we're used to. It's probably good for 'optimal reading line length'.

But in threads, we get a lot of blank space on the right. That's a weird look. It's frustrating that it can't be closed.

The sidebar itself also doesn't look too good. I would suggest some spacing between the discrete boxes of the sidebar. And removing the 'search' section -- there's already a "search" elsewhere.

I was also going to mention a significant issue with its alignment (too much padding-top in some pages) but either that was fixed or I can't find the page where it was a problem.

Almost none of the items are useful. There are better ways within vBulletin to push out site-wide announcements, of which there should at any one time only be one or two anyway. So, it was a good way to find this thread, but for me -- not being a Rome II player -- it doesn't look like there's much utility there.

That said, appreciate the effort that goes into keeping this site in good shape!

[Hitai de Bodemloze]

I like it, compared to the old one. Nice to have a lot more news and info. But I'll echo others here and say that it's better when viewing the main forums and not specific threads. If it could be collapsible like the old one, or only for viewing forums and not threads, that would be great. But if that's not possible, then I'll learn to live with it

[alex86]

You mean with image attachment? Its always been a hodgepodge on how people do that. And we have also always had problems with people posting huge images that stretch the screen no matter how big your monitor is. I cannot count the number of them I have spoilered over the years because of it.

Ah, this should be a completely solvable issue. Just do:

.postbody .content img {
    max-width: 90%;
}

Or 95% or 100%; I like to leave a little wiggle room.

OK, it might be a little more complicated than that if you want to get into supporting IE. Supposedly Windows has issues scaling images, too, but I'm on Windows and have never noticed it. Here's a reference site if you want to be really thorough: http://unstoppablerobotninja.com/entry/fluid-images

[Sebidee]

Here is the blue colour of the sidebar text for Blackout. It doesn't look so bad in this close up but from 2 feet away it sort of blends in. I assume that the side bar is supposed to be glanced at but I have to lean in and study it to see what it says (I don't have perfect vision either so its a bit of a bummer).