Rave reviews!

[Kim]

I suppose my opinon on this kinda sways back and forth.

I'll offer a fluid style yet I would blank out refuse a fixed width. Same with the styles itself, my styles are always light based though I'll never offer up a dark themed based, I just don't see the point in creating so many variations and then worrying about the maintenance involved. I say this from a designer resource providing graphics (not styles) although I can see kims point because she provides styles a fixed/fluid solution will always be provided. I can understand mjp reasoning simply because why even bother offering up a fluid solution? Why stop there, a dark themed variation? The list is endless to the point that you can be there all year developing solutions to compensate for everyone's needs.

Personally, I used to offer up many variations but the maintenance involved isn't worth my time when I can be focusing on providing content. If you don't like the style that houses the content the exit is anywhere you want it to be there are a million better stylers that will accomodate some but not all user preferences.

Back to kims point. Very valid points only because she provides styles, I'd expect this. I would offer up a fluid and fixed based solution if I provided styles but I don't so I wouldn't go out of my way spending time on catering for everyone's preference.

I've learned from experience is that you can't make everyone happy, nor should you try.

I offered the advice as mjp had posted a sarcastically titled thread about how some people HATE the new software (without realising that whilst they probably dislike the change, probably the real issue is they just hate the theme he has inflicted on them).

I offered this advice as I have a million years experience of providing Skins/Styles/Themes at a professional level, and with hundreds of paying customers, and a huge amount of Custom Skin clients in that experience, it was very obvious to me what the issue is for some of his members and the solution is dead simple.

I have never once offered a fixed width Skin, because they don't sell - however all of my skins have been adjustable depending on the customer - but fixed width skins just aren't very popular (in the IPB world at least, I know the vB crowd hung onto the 90's a little longer than most, but I would have thought if you are here, then you are ready for the new century!)

Sorry to disillusion anyone but people don't like using them... dispite what the odd person here might say, in my experience the overwhelming majority of people prefer fluid design for forums .

I also would never again offer a dark theme Shelley, as they don't sell, dispite some people absolutely LOVING them to death, reality is they are not popular, and unless you run a gaming or horror site, I would avoid that like the plague.. if mjp had of had a dark theme, I would have offered that advice too.

But hey, if mjp or anyone else wants to inflict only their preference on their member bases I guess that is up to them

The advice I offered wasn't about making everyone happy, it was about making the MAJORITY happy with an incredibly simple and no fuss option.

 

[Shelley]

I offered the advice as mjp had posted a sarcastically titled thread about how some people HATE the new software (without realising that whilst they probably dislike the change, probably the real issue is they just hate the theme he has inflicted on them).

I offered this advice as I have a million years experience of providing Skins/Styles/Themes at a professional level, and with hundreds of paying customers, and a huge amount of Custom Skin clients in that experience, it was very obvious to me what the issue is for some of his members and the solution is dead simple.

I have never once offered a fixed width Skin, because they don't sell - however all of my skins have been adjustable depending on the customer - but fixed width skins just aren't very popular (in the IPB world at least, I know the vB crowd hung onto the 90's a little longer than most, but I would have thought if you are here, then you are ready for the new century!)

Sorry to disillusion anyone but people don't like using them... dispite what the odd person here might say, in my experience the overwhelming majority of people prefer fluid design for forums .

I also would never again offer a dark theme Shelley, as they don't sell, dispite some people absolutely LOVING them to death, reality is they are not popular, and unless you run a gaming or horror site, I would avoid that like the plague.. if mjp had of had a dark theme, I would have offered that advice too.

But hey, if mjp or anyone else wants to inflict only their preference on their member bases I guess that is up to them

The advice I offered wasn't about making everyone happy, it was about making the MAJORITY happy with an incredibly simple and no fuss option.

Again you make valid points, Kim. My best advice to you (and I personally think your the best styler around) Anyone that doesn't want to take your expert advice which I feel is good and wants to resort to personal remarks... **** em (not literally of course). I got it in the neck a few days ago and still suffering from the severe whiplash that entails in helping people out. Again, ****em it seems to be a free for all atm. Did I mention **** em? But of course not literally.

 

[SilverCircle]

The main problem with any fixed width layout is that if you want to stay compatible with all visitors, you'll have to be *very* conservative with the layout width. Anything higher than 1000 pixels will force some users to scroll and a site that forces me to scroll horizontally can say hello to my mental black list of sites. Unless it's a very important site in which case I'll:

a) (politely) flame the webmaster / site designer.
b) find a way to fix it via a user style sheet tweak.

Contrary to popular belief, 1024 pixels horizontal resolution is not dead. Far from it. It's still in use on many older notebooks and most netbooks.

There must be a very good reason for making a fixed width layout and unless it's a site around non-scalable multimedia or flash content, it doesn't make much sense at all.

Most of the layouts I've done will happily scale down to about 750-800 pixels with no limit in the other direction. Fixed width layouts are a bad habit of the older days, when broken browsers without proper CSS support ruled and layouts were based on tables. It's over.

CSS3 will also deal with the problem of long lines of text through its support for the column-count/column-gap properties. Particularly useful for longer articles in blogs, Wikis and such.

 

[HannahP]

Sigh.. I should have known... you were never likely to take any constructive advice, anyway, good luck to you sir, may your forum flourish in full glorious fixed widthorama.

You're so difficult.

But I have been thinking about it, and I believe you are right. I changed the default to fluid and made fixed an option.

 

[Kier]

FWIW, when I am using a forum on which I need to do a lot of reading, I prefer a fixed width. Paragraphs of more than about 750px wide at ~72ppi become very tiresome to read, because your eye cannot comfortably see the end of the previous line when scanning for the next, making it a conscious effort to scan the text.

Further, if I have lots of different sites open in the same browser window using different tabs, some sites are going to want to use a lot more space than my forum tabs, so in these cases using a fixed style helps because the text does not expand to fill the space required by these other sites.

I know that fluid styles sell better, and that some people still run their browser windows maximised (something which I personally feel defeats decades of desktop UI research, but I guess it's a taste thing), so for these people maybe fluid us better, but for the best reading experience, a fixed width of just under 1,000px *is* a superior choice, and it is at that width that XenForo is designed to be viewed.

 

[dutchbb]

Don't know about the percentage of users that do this, but when I'm browsing the web I never have the window maximized over the whole width of the screen. As a user I really like to determine my own width by just narrowing the window to the most comfortable width. For forums I definitely prefer a 'liquid' layout, I just feel more 'free' that way. However I think most websites are better with a fixed width of 1000px - 1200px (ebay for example uses 1200px, not sure if it adapts to smaller screen resolution). The majority of users however will have screen support for 1000px wide layouts.

 

[Paul B]

Given the choice I have sites set to fixed width at every opportunity.

For the reasons already given I can't understand how anyone can comfortably read text which physically requires you to move your head when scanning each line.

It also looks extremely unprofessional when going from a portal/home/gallery/etc. page which is fixed, and has to be to control layout, to a fluid forum.
For this reason my site has only ever been and will only ever be fixed width.

Don't like it? Don't use it. That's the only choice I offer.
Sieg heil!

I'm surprised you buckled mjp.

 

[Kim]

FWIW, when I am using a forum on which I need to do a lot of reading, I prefer a fixed width. Paragraphs of more than about 750px wide at ~72ppi become very tiresome to read, because your eye cannot comfortably see the end of the previous line when scanning for the next, making it a conscious effort to scan the text.

Further, if I have lots of different sites open in the same browser window using different tabs, some sites are going to want to use a lot more space than my forum tabs, so in these cases using a fixed style helps because the text does not expand to fill the space required by these other sites.

I know that fluid styles sell better, and that some people still run their browser windows maximised (something which I personally feel defeats decades of desktop UI research, but I guess it's a taste thing), so for these people maybe fluid us better, but for the best reading experience, a fixed width of just under 1,000px *is* a superior choice, and it is at that width that XenForo is designed to be viewed.

On this - as you know - our opinions differ I could NEVER work the way you do, but I don't seek to impose my style on you, nor do you seek to impose yours on me, you have offered choice thank god, once you have created it, "how" it is used is beyond your control, and so it should be, it is the same in art, I can have a totally different interpretation of a painting than you do, and visa versa, doesn't mean your opinion is "more right" than mine, or visa versa .

It seriously staggers me that anyone would have an issue with simply offering the choice, hence the whole Admin Nazi comment... WTF difference does it make to you (Admins) if I like it full width...or the vast majority do.

By all means have a big old Fixed Width party for all I care, just offer the choice for the majority of your users who won't be joining you in the fixed width love in ... for gawds sake.

Forums are fundamentally different to websites, and if we are honest the majority of forum posts are a paragraph or less, to steal Kier's analogy, it defies years of research and awesome UI design to claim that only ONE size fits all with forums when clearly it doesn't - interestingly not ONE of the major forum software designers ships with a default fixed width skin (as the only choice).

There are a lot of things that are quite controversial in forum design, For example.. that VILE top down design in vB, it was never adopted into the IPB world, because it SUCKS - and yet I bet I can still drag out a bunch of people who think it's cool in a stick! It isn't! It never was, it is illogical and stupid and plain old ugly.

But do I care if you have that as an option on your site.. NO, not one bit, I will happily visit your site so long as you offer me the (Majority) choice of a fluid, left to right, light design...if you don't then be prepared to weather the storm of people *****in and moaning, and not even perhaps knowing why, and not to mention those of us who will just never join, or never join in, because we hate it so much.

Fix width on a forum at your own peril.

 

[Kier]

Well there's a reason I offer both fluid and fixed layouts here

that VILE top down design in vB, it was never adopted into the IPB world, because it SUCKS

To which design are you referring? The one used by vBulletin 3 or 4? If 3, can you explain how it sucks, as I thought it was rather excellent when I designed it back in 2003. Of course it's in need of a re-do now but... anyway, please clarify - I'm not actually sure what you mean when you say 'top-down design'.

 

[Kim]

Well there's a reason I offer both fluid and fixed layouts here
To which design are you referring? The one used by vBulletin 3 or 4? If 3, can you explain how it sucks, as I thought it was rather excellent when I designed it back in 2003. Of course it's in need of a re-do now but... anyway, please clarify - I'm not actually sure what you mean when you say 'top-down design'.

Eeks... perhaps I had better not say any more.

I was referrring to the design that has the avatar and user details on top of the posts rather than to the left of them.. If that is your design, my sincere apologies for any offense, but I never liked it, and it never took off in the IPB world at all.

It always seemed completely illogical to me (and others) to have that design.

Again, if it was your work, I apologise for any offense my it SUCKS comment may have caused, but I think you know me well enough by now to know I speak my mind, and often suffer from foot in mouth.

My work from 2003 sucks big time, I had the misfortune to discover some on a back up CD just yesterday, and I cringed hahahahaha.

 

[anotheralias]

Everyone preferred the top-down (horizontal) postbit on my board. I think they both have pros and cons. One of my pet peeves is a board that has a yard of stuff beneath the avatar on the vertical layout so that you're scrolling forever to get to the next post - in that case, use the horizontal, you can fit more information in a smaller space.

 

[Kim]

Everyone preferred the top-down (horizontal) postbit on my board. I think they both have pros and cons. One of my pet peeves is a board that has a yard of stuff beneath the avatar on the vertical layout so that you're scrolling forever to get to the next post - in that case, use the horizontal, you can fit more information in a smaller space.

That's interesting, I wonder why. Thanks for the official name too, not being from the vB world, I never knew it's technical name.

Of course Xenforo has made that totally redundant anyway, the removal of all that crud over there has meant no more useless scrolling forever past a one liner by an old timer with a heap of awards/interests/zodiac sign/country flag/group icon/sparkly I love Twilight badge etc etc.

The point I was making (horribly and quite rudely) was that whilst I personally dislike that style a lot, so long as there is choice, it shouldn't matter.. the same goes with the fixed width, what gets me is Admins who think their one and only choice for the board is the Ducks nuts and don't allow any other choices. I mean just why? I have yet to hear any kind of reasonable answer other than, reading is optimal at xxx px.

Bright yellow cars are statistically the safest, and yet we don't all drive bright yellow cars, clearly something being optimal doesn't make it better, nor even popular.

 

[Kim]

Oh I forgot to mention, that one of the reasons I dislike that horizontal layout so very much is it is always teamed with my other favourite... fixed width... double whammy for me.

 

[anotheralias]

I get what you're saying - and I do offer the choice, I just don't put in the time figuring out the header CSS on both.

They liked the horizontal layout because we used the Yet Another Awards System and when you completed a game you got a little icon, which went on the right side of the horizontal postbit -- in a collapse box, for anyone who didn't want the clutter (mostly me - after five years of games those things really racked up).

I did put them in a collapse box on the vertical layout for awhile but nobody used it because (they said) if you uncollapsed the box it took up too much space, and nobody wanted to collapse tthe box because they enjoyed admiring their stash.

So for our purposes, horizontal worked out great.

 

[Paul B]

I have yet to hear any kind of reasonable answer other than, reading is optimal at xxx px.

Well reading text is the main reason and possibly the best one.
When newspapers start being printed in horizontal blocks from edge to edge then maybe I'll reconsider my position.

I have though already made another point twice.
If you have other pages in addition to a forum which must be fixed to control the layout, then fixing the forum at the same width is necessary to preserve that layout.
In addition, flipping to a fluid width when clicking on the forum link looks extremely unprofessional and amateurish.

However, I doubt anything anyone can say will make you change your opinion as I get the distinct impression you're not a fan of fixed width

 

[HannahP]

I'm surprised you buckled mjp.

Ha. Well, that's one way to look at it I suppose. Another is that I am open to good ideas, even if the source is of questionable sanity.

When I was running vB it always had a fluid width, but like some others here, my browser window is never maximized (except on the laptop), so it was always "fixed" for me. But honestly, after using the new layout for a few days I didn't like the fixed width, and my good friend here kept pointing out that it was simple to add the option, so I did. She was right about that.

no more useless scrolling forever past a one liner by an old timer with a heap of awards/interests/zodiac sign/country flag/group icon/sparkly I love Twilight badge etc etc.

Unless, of course, there are things like this in the posts:

Pot, kettle, etc.

 

[Dean]

Eeks... perhaps I had better not say any more.

I was referrring to the design that has the avatar and user details on top of the posts rather than to the left of them.. If that is your design, my sincere apologies for any offense, but I never liked it, and it never took off in the IPB world at all.

hmmmmm..... scratching one idea off my list.

From a functionality viewpoint, with smaller avatars, the horizontal post bit (user details from left to right between each post) frees up a bunch of screen width for pictures - and that screen width is very precious to us. We have many many pictures on our forum.

But with the larger avatars, I don't think horizontal post bit will work with xf. Especially when xf hides the user details on the left by default so it does not leave a large amount of wasted vertical space.

 

[Paul B]

From a functionality viewpoint, with smaller avatars, the horizontal post bit (user details from left to right between each post) frees up a bunch of screen width for pictures - and that screen width is very precious to us. We have many many pictures on our forum.

That used to be an issue for me on other software but with the dynamic resizing and click to view full size with XenForo, I no longer consider this an issue at all.

 

[Dean]

That used to be an issue for me on other software but with the dynamic resizing and click to view full size with XenForo, I no longer consider this an issue at all.

Our people don't seem to mind ads on the left/right that consume width, they do seem to mind ads going across the screen (other than at the top/bottom) such as between posts.

Having the current layout will be extremely expensive long term because there will be less area to post useful ads...

edit: I mean no matter how incredibly well xf is set up, and it is set up incredibly well, there would be an additional 150px horizontal space with the horizontal post bit, right?

 

[Paul B]

edit: I mean no matter how incredibly well xf is set up, and it is set up incredibly well, there would be an additional 150px horizontal space with the horizontal post bit, right?

True.

I actually agree with DF on this though.
I can't abide reading a thread in which every post is separated by all the user gumph, especially when the gumph takes up 3/4/5 times as much space as the posts.
I have signatures disabled for a reason so I tend to avoid forums which use that layout as it's just too much effort trying to separate the actual content.

P.S. Has this thread gone far enough off topic yet to qualify for a thread split?