The Dink Network

After spending far too many hours spitting in the face of Cascading Style Sheets, Internet Explorer, and Firefox, I think I've come up with a half-way decent design for the new forum that will debut sometime this year.

You can check it out here.

None of the links work or anything. I wanted to keep it threaded, so posts that are in reply to another post are properly indented.

I also removed the subject for the messages: it was rarely used. 90% of the subjects are either new or "Re: Subject".

If you have any compliments/complaints/suggestions about anything (color, placement, etc) please let me know. The colors aren't final, as I would like it to look a little bit better than it currently does.

We will have different forums to chooose about right? like of-topic, and development and such?

Cool look! I love it! A great improvement. I don't like the loss of the subject, but oh well, it ain't my decision to make. I also second glenngleen's question.

Yes, there will be different forums.

looking good. I don't like the reply buttons though. the current ones kick more ass.

Looks good but I don't like how new posts are separated from the old ones. Different border colours are a much better choice.

Yeah... hrm. I was thinking of something more drastic (and optional): for old posts, simply display the username / date. If you click on a little button next to the date, then it shows the whole post.

I may come up with a test to try that out soon.

That could be cool if new posts would be marked read only after you read them and not in some amount of time like they are now.

Yes, that would be cool, and I would like to implement that feature.

Er... as a question, what happens when there is something like 300 consecutive replies? Would we be looking at a medar-board-type-effect here?

We need the subject line. A good subject line is like a summary of the post. When I don't have much time, I only read the posts with the most interesting subject. A post without subject is like a book without a title, or a recipe without a name. Or an IP without a human-readable URL.

i dont like the indents, it looks stupid and will retract from readability. i think its fine that one post is just all one thread. no need to confusitize it.

It's an optional feature. Don't like it either though.. I prefer good ole quoting.

It's difficult when there are optional features... then we'll have half of us using indented and half forum-style, and everyone will be equally confused at times (as is happening now).
Can't we drop one, either one, with this new forum? It'd make things so much easier. Everyone will complain, but let's just ignore that.

Oh, and the preview looks really cool. I liked it. It looks more like it belongs there than our current forum does, maybe. Very good!

I like the forum as it is. I don't like those complicated ones which shall be so "easy to use"

I like the forum as it is. I don't like those complicated ones which shall be so "easy to use"

The what? Mind giving an example?

He dissapeared fast when you said that

Well, I just thought that I would stop by, and I noticed that generation 9 appears to be as immenent a threat as ever. Personally, I like the current look and feel of the dink network forums. It feels polished and profesional. Also very unique. All the proposals for new generations seem to look like every thing else out there, and a little slapped together. I know that these are only the early versions but I still like the current generation. Some tweeks and minnor redesigns would be cool though. I guess I've just never been one for change.

That's the feeling I had when we changed to the current generation. Back then I didn't like it at first and then ended up liking it more than the previous one. Now I already like the new generation better...

The subject for the main topic would be there, of course, but any subsequent replies wouldn't have it. So you're referring to the replies, not just the main topic?

There would be a maximum-indent level, unlike now.

Right. I'll be programming both the indented and flat versions into Miasma 3 (which I plan on possibly releasing for others to use), and the administrator will be the one to choose one or the other. So we can have a poll, I can decree my will, or something.

And thanks for the compliment

indents are fabulous.

Indents allow you to see if a post is in reply to another one easily... but yeah, it doesn't seem to jive very well with the general structure of the page. Hrm. I may have to come up with an alternative solution... gears are spinning in my mind right now.

Okay, that I can understand. I mean magicman's comment about the subject, but I think you are right about the replies not nedding. Noone uses it for reply topics really. I mean I am the sort of person who is probably more likely to use it for a reply and I have done so only once...

but how would relpies look like in search options?
now it is like this:
i search for boobies, and i get this

boobies rule.......joshriot
re:boobies rule.....God
re:boobies suck.....merlin

well, just wondering.

EDIT: lol, wtf, eat_the_rats appears to be God. Strange things happen to dinkers who leave, i guess.

The eattherats -> God thing has an interesting history.

Rey ICQ'd me an idea. He would post something along the lines of "I am GOD! Anyone who disagrees, please speak my name!" in a new topic, while I would make the forum replace his name with God.

I agreed, but I didn't put the replacement in because I thought it would be funnier if people were really confused by Rey's behavior.

He went through with it, I laughed, and I think Rey has been the one sending me death threats lately.

But I put it in like a couple hours later, to see if anyone would notice. I don't think anyone has until now.

I just removed it, too.

Edit: and to answer your question, the main topic would show up in the search. So it would say something like:

started: boobies rule.......joshriot
reply to: boobies rule.....God
reply to: boobies suck.....merlin

or something, so you could see if the poster started or replied to the thread.

Okay, as long as the main subject line stays there. I agree there's not much need for the reply-subject line.

"boobies"

[search]

"Your search yielded no records."

I can assure you that I posted nothing about them sucking. Now maybe about them wanting to be sucked?

you are so dirty