Made A Few More Updates To The Forum

Ok, so I've made some changes - nothing big.

First, in order to test the pagination (the ability to break up topics and categories into pages) I had the number of topics per page and number of comments per page set low. The pagination works fine so I've increased those so we'll see more topics and comments on each page.

Steve - you mentioned how the user profile bio didn't save paragraphs and I fixed that. And so everyone knows, the profile section is going to be much, much nicer than it is now - including the ability to upload photos for your avatar and a gallery showing all of the photos you've uploaded to various topics or just to add to your profile. There will be a "timeline of events" where you can enter events like graduating from school, getting your CDL , landing your first job, making your first solo run, etc. There's gonna be more but I won't list everything here. Just letting you know it's gonna be really nice.

I also added a search engine as you probably noticed. That is a google powered search engine and it will only search this forum - nothing else. It will be highly effective. The last forum had an awful search engine, this one will be great. There are no results yet because nothing in the forum has been indexed by Google yet. Within a few days there will be.

As you've also noticed I significantly decreased the size of each box for the main topic page so more topics can fit on the screen. I'm not sure if I can significantly decrease the size of the box for each comment within a topic without chopping off all of the information from each person's profile. However, I will be building a specific mobile version of this forum just for phones and I will be able to significantly decrease the size of the comment boxes to reduce scrolling significantly.

Now I have two questions I would like help with:

1) Whenever there is a new comment in a topic, the background color of that topic box will be a greenish color instead of blue. When you go to that topic, the background color of the new comments will be that same greenish color. Also, any topics you have commented on will have a darker, thicker border around them. What I'd like to know is if everyone is seeing these color and border changes?

2) The topic boxes are pretty large and I mentioned I could only make them smaller by hiding a lot of the information about each user in their mini-profile for each post, including location, number of posts, driving states, and date joined. Would you like to see a version of the topics where the comments are more condensed by hiding the mini-profiles on each comment with a little arrow to show more if you'd like to see it? For mobile - don't worry about this right now - they're going to be greatly condensed for phones. I'm just thinking of tablets, laptops, and desktops right now.

But we're coming along nicely. I'm steadily adding features and making improvements. I really appreciate the feedback you guys have been giving me and I look forward to hearing more opinions so we can make this forum spectactular!

Hi Brett,

This new forum looks cleaner already. I've noticed the background color is shaded light to dark, top to bottom. That looks good but as you get closer to the bottom the text has a white shadow. It's creating some eye strain for me and feels a bit painful to read. Perhaps eliminate the shadow effect?

Seeing the color changes and the border changes with no problems. Looks good on my Android phone, too.

as you get closer to the bottom the text has a white shadow. It's creating some eye strain for me and feels a bit painful to read. Perhaps eliminate the shadow effect?

Ok, that's a good point. I noticed I have the text shadow set to white, which is great for lighter backgrounds, but you're right - it's harsh on darker backgrounds. It's important to have it because it makes the font real crisp, but it has to be the right shade. I'm going to change it to a medium gray - let me know if that looks better to ya.

Ok, I eliminated the text shadow from the darker regions entirely. I tried changing it to something more mellow but it didn't look right so I just took it out of there.

Thanks a lot for the feedback!

Brett, I'm not seeing a greenish color on the topics with new replies.. Its still a blueish color.. More brighter... Pic below of it..

Is that the color your talking about??? The top 2 posts are unread, the rest below I've read already..

Also, Is it possible to remove the Topic # ?? Like how it says topic 29: Seams a little wierd seeing that..

Is that the color your talking about???

Yap, that's it! I don't know what to call that color. It's like Miami Dolphins teal or something. But yap, that's the one.

Also, Is it possible to remove the Topic # ?? Like how it says topic 29: Seams a little wierd seeing that.

Yeah, I wasn't sure if I wanted that there or not. I know for me as the Admin I need that so I can look things up and make changes and such. The only reason I thought others might want that is to refer to other topics but now that I think about it that was never really necessary for the other forum.

Yeah, I'll remove that.

Is that the color your talking about???

Yap, that's it! I don't know what to call that color. It's like Miami Dolphins teal or something. But yap, that's the one.

Also, Is it possible to remove the Topic # ?? Like how it says topic 29: Seams a little wierd seeing that.

Yeah, I wasn't sure if I wanted that there or not. I know for me as the Admin I need that so I can look things up and make changes and such. The only reason I thought others might want that is to refer to other topics but now that I think about it that was never really necessary for the other forum.

Yeah, I'll remove that.

Yea that is a strange color... Does look kind of tealish though...