New theme: "Century"

[Topid]

Is it impossible to use the cooler side panel on the forum page? If so, why?

Just wondering.

The trial is gameside only, but if/when the new theme becomes the default, the forum will use it.

So does "default" that mean the old version will be available for use if we want to?

[Taledonia]

Doesn't change very much, does it? Only the side menu and banner. I'd like to see a different look to regions, nation pages, et cetera. Y'know, spruce them up a bit.

[PigPigBB]

it isn't too much of a stretch from the original. i love the banner!

[Just Guy]

I don't like it at all. Sorry I have nothing more constructive to add -- I would much prefer to stick with the old theme. It just doesn't work for me.

[St George of England]

I like it. but I can keep seeing the laurel crest thing as a hammer and sickle.

[Ebana]

I like it. but I can keep seeing the laurel crest thing as a hammer and sickle.

I believe that's the World Assembly's insignia.

[New South Hell]

I'm pretty happy by what I've seen so far of the new look (haven't gone to everywhere yet), with one big exception. I really don't like the look of the new Civil Headquarters. I find that having the name of the sender and the message text side-by-side makes things a lot more readable for me. I realize if there are long messages, this is a less efficient use of space, but for me, readability trumps compactness. If this aspect of the new look remains unchanged, I have a tough decision ahead on whether or not to stick with the old interface.

A minor point is that the Regional Happenings line-wraps at a width much less than that of the Civil Headquarters. This looks weird to me. (Firefox 3.6.12, Windows 7)

[St George of England]

I'm pretty happy by what I've seen so far of the new look (haven't gone to everywhere yet), with one big exception. I really don't like the look of the new Civil Headquarters. I find that having the name of the sender and the message text side-by-side makes things a lot more readable for me. I realize if there are long messages, this is a less efficient use of space, but for me, readability trumps compactness. If this aspect of the new look remains unchanged, I have a tough decision ahead on whether or not to stick with the old interface.

A minor point is that the Regional Happenings line-wraps at a width much less than that of the Civil Headquarters. This looks weird to me. (Firefox 3.6.12, Windows 7)

I prefer the RMG part like it is on the new one as opposed to the current way. I think if the white spaces were deleted, it'd look better.

[Lenyo]

This look is so much better.

Make this the default immediately.

[Lenyo]

I like it. but I can keep seeing the laurel crest thing as a hammer and sickle.

I believe that's the World Assembly's insignia.

I agree with St. George.

[St George of England]

I believe that's the World Assembly's insignia.

I agree with St. George.

All the best people do.

[New South Hell]

An idea I had that might make me like the new Civil Headquarters layout more would be to give either the message origin or the text a background color, and take out the separator between them. I'm guessing this based on the current WA page layout, which I quite like.

For some reason, the current format makes me want to read the message origin as a message itself (despite the fact that the present formatting does clearly distinguish the two parts).

[Pythria]

This is just a tiny difference, but somehow it stuck out at me. When mousing over a delegate's name (on the top of the regional page) in the new version, there's an underscore before their flag.
_[FLAG] Delegate Name
as opposed to
[FLAG] Delegate Name

[Oviabshe]

I'm going to join the bandwagon and say I hate the new top banner. It's very distracting and actually makes me dizzy when I look at it.

I like the look of the new sidebar, but some pages, such as region pages, almost appear squeezed because of its new size. I especially like the miniature flag graphic that is displayed next to my nation name on the sidebar, but it seems rather silly when I am on my nation page and see a full-size version of my own flag. If it could be coded to only appear when the main nation page is being viewed, that would be great, but I am not a programmer, so I don't know if that's possible.

The gigantic ad that appears on the side of my issues page is quite intrusive, much more so than the one that appears at the top with the old theme. I also love the small ad at the bottom for Max Barry's books. It seems very well-designed and pleasing to the eye.

This is a very minor complaint, but I don't really like how my national motto appears in italics. I use cyrillic letters, and I think they look rather strange italicized.

The space allotted for each individual telegram seems a bit large, at least for me since the telegrams I recieve and send tend to be rather short.

[Caelestius]

I miss the login field and password on the left frame. It was easy for me to simply click and login rather then have to click "Login" and go through the routine with each nation.

[Unibot]

An idea I had that might make me like the new Civil Headquarters layout more would be to give either the message origin or the text a background color, and take out the separator between them. I'm guessing this based on the current WA page layout, which I quite like.

For some reason, the current format makes me want to read the message origin as a message itself (despite the fact that the present formatting does clearly distinguish the two parts).

You might be on to something there. Maybe that is what's going on. Certainly having the sender info in a different column, organized the information, so our eyes generally just focused on one column. Maybe we need to just retrain our eyes to focus on every other row? Giving them a color would help to organize the information.

[Holy Roman Confederate]

The proposed look isn't bad at all. I for one welcome the changes. We all know you're a busy man Max, so I thank you for taking the time to put the update together.

[Crazy girl]

I'm pretty happy by what I've seen so far of the new look (haven't gone to everywhere yet), with one big exception. I really don't like the look of the new Civil Headquarters. I find that having the name of the sender and the message text side-by-side makes things a lot more readable for me. I realize if there are long messages, this is a less efficient use of space, but for me, readability trumps compactness. If this aspect of the new look remains unchanged, I have a tough decision ahead on whether or not to stick with the old interface.

A minor point is that the Regional Happenings line-wraps at a width much less than that of the Civil Headquarters. This looks weird to me. (Firefox 3.6.12, Windows 7)

I haz wide screen laptop...the new layout makes the RMB so wiiiiiiiiiiiide...it's annoying to read it this way

[Tarnell]

i do not like the ads.

[Laos Refugees]

I don't know, I like the new log in area. Sometimes I'd hit log out instead of Settings or region, got a bit annoying.

[Dimoniquid]

I like it.

[Kyuria]

It's nice. Not bad. but uh,... that big silver globe thing, kinda unbalances the page. Needs moar silver all over to balance it.

Other than than that I'm loving the changes!!!

[[violet]]

I should email you the raw image files (with layers etc), maybe you can work some magic.

For anyone interested in having a try at redesigning the top banner, here are some images!

• http://www.nationstates.net/images/tmp/NSbanner.xcf (GIMP format)
• http://www.nationstates.net/images/tmp/NSbanner.psd (PhotoShop format)
• http://www.nationstates.net/images/tmp/AVID11732.jpg (full globe image)

[Charlotte Ryberg]

It looks nice so far, but maybe make the globe a bit more subtle as to not overpower the logo. In future I'd be interested to see how we could have user-submitted themes. Not now, but perhaps later. Finally, we also got to add support for themes in the settings panel.

Perhaps switching ... with something like..

EDIT: Actually I'm not sure which I prefer, it definitely is annoying having the white space to interrupt the flow of the column's color, but it also it sort of boxy to have the main white frame boxed in by a column and a row of color.

Wait I have an idea! But I have no advice on how to code it.. hhm, I mock up a image.

EDIT II: That wouldn't work, I was planning to have the information on the side bar appear on a dark rounded rectangle, but then you'd have this strange looking white space as a margin on the longer pages. Err, I dunno.

It's a good idea, but then the edge of globe should then cover that image, albeit not overpowering it.

[Cerod]

I love it! Great improvement! I'd love if that was NS's new look!!