XenFans new XenForo style... gotta love it

As it's a .png, you might as well get rid of all of the image that's covered by the forum list and replace it with a solid colour, to reduce the filesize. Seems a bit over the top to load a 280KB file for that gradient and little bit of green at the bottom ;)
 
well done, Floris !
The "Popular" is great stuff !

just the thickness at the right / at the search-box looks a bit not aligned in FF-browser.
 
Looks good, I am with Darfuria though, given it is mostly covered up you could create a new image that was smaller to achieve the same look :)
 
Everything looks fine but the Services page and Services forum should not be present.

At this time more than a community XenFans looks like a site where owner is trying to make money by offering products & services. I'm not saying that making money is bad, maybe he can put some ads... but offering services and selling products? Not a good idea for a community at all.
 
Everything looks fine but the Services page and Services forum should not be present.

At this time more than a community XenFans looks like a site where owner is trying to make money by offering services. I'm not saying that making money is bad, maybe he can put some ads... but offering services? Not a good idea for a community IMHO.

The best apart about it is that it's not mandatory that every user buys it :). Services are there for folks who are in need of those services.

As for the design not to found of where the bottom simply cuts off, maybe a change in background color or something, not too sure :D but overall nice customization on the forum itself.
 
Everything looks fine but the Services page and Services forum should not be present.

At this time more than a community XenFans looks like a site where owner is trying to make money by offering products & services. I'm not saying that making money is bad, maybe he can put some ads... but offering services and selling products? Not a good idea for a community at all.
That is one of the purposes for the XenFans site. To assist XenForo customers with their issues. Some of these services will be paid services. Many fan sites do the same thing. They're all over the internet for "the other forum script".
 
I don't think there's a problem with XenFans offering services to help more people to use XenForo. That's exactly what you'd expect a fan group to offer.
 
Everything looks fine but the Services page and Services forum should not be present.

At this time more than a community XenFans looks like a site where owner is trying to make money by offering products & services. I'm not saying that making money is bad, maybe he can put some ads... but offering services and selling products? Not a good idea for a community at all.

Why do think is bad that Floris offers some premium services alongside with lot's of free content on his own site?
His services are good and there is definitely a need for them.

Really confused :confused:
 
Well personally I think it looks great (I may be biased), would be a shame to take it down, and the attitude of "everyone should do everything for free" is a little disappointing tbh, look to let's say, vbulletinsetup.com (again, maybe a little biased) - this site before it was just a forum was solely based for services as WELL as a community, as Peggy said, there are alot of vBulletin and IPB 'fan' sites that do this also, I don't see any problem with it personally, and I don't see why it had to be pointed out in a thread talking about the fantastic new design elements Floris has added to the site ;)
 
I totally love what XenFans has come up with, look:

http://www.xenfans.com/

A nice background picture and even more so nicer glass border effect. It is totally simple (and as always that is a strength), but combined with the stock XenForo style it just looks beautiful.

Great advertisement for XenForo if you'd ask me.

Hey Grover,

I really appreciate your feedback, the current style is at a minimum. Only 2 template changes for all our customizations and only 2 plugins to power a popular page and something else. Upgrading will be a breeze.

After every upgrade I will complete more of the localhost version of the style I've made since alpha2 - and implement something I am sort of happy with on the live site. Upon good feedback, I push the changes through dropbox.

Yep, you heard that right.

With vBulletin we had a network plugin which also supported a remote CDN for optimization. Running a network of sites, unlimited designs, forums, sites, licenses, etc.

Since vB is so outdated we're limited by technology and performance. And so I've decided to discontinue the network and gather things up under the simplicity on top of the complexity of XenForo.

But didn't leave it at that.

The XenNetwork plugin I have running localhost powers currently 54 instances, with 25 different styles - among other things. And it has an ofcourse smart way of dealing with template changes.

Using dropbox, mobileme, isync, amazon, .. doesn't matter. It's now possible to have a MASTER-NETWORK style that has a few unique attributes.

If you like something, click on [approved] and it syncs to the network sites, updating those templates, respecting their customizations (simply replacing unique attributes).

So the old outdated vBulletin network plugin has been moved to a version 2, with 7 additional features. Including template syncing.

I got some positive feedback from the updates to xenfans, that I clicked on approve on the master network style, and the dropbox version got pushed to my localhost instances and the wetalknation.net web site.

Anyway. For now: A new background and simple glass border around the content, and I can focus on the content and our free resources again. Thanks for your feedback, it helps me motivate to keep doing what I like doing.
 
yep yep I like that alot.
Thanks for the kind feedback. Glad to hear you like it. The theme on defend xenforo web site is pretty subtle - allowing you to focus on the content. Which for that purpose is pretty good choice.
 
As it's a .png, you might as well get rid of all of the image that's covered by the forum list and replace it with a solid colour, to reduce the filesize. Seems a bit over the top to load a 280KB file for that gradient and little bit of green at the bottom ;)

The file is certainly not optimized, it's even under-par quality. But it's not a gradient, kinda. It actually is transparant and smoothly goes into the actual background color. It's just an example and one of the many wallpapers that is hosted. Thankfully it's a full url, so once cached it shouldn't be problem. I appreciate the feedback though, it's worth considering alternative examples that are a lot smaller. But it's part of a module I am making that I think people will really like once it's out. Just can't say anything about it just yet.
 
well done, Floris !
The "Popular" is great stuff !

just the thickness at the right / at the search-box looks a bit not aligned in FF-browser.

Thank you - the popular section is a plugin by kier, with my new features on top of it. Which Ceri May has helped me code. More about that plugin in the coming week(s).

I have only loaded the current design in Safari, assuming it's the same in Chrome. I will take a look after the weekend in FireFox and compare.

If the design we're making doesn't work in IE - then I recommend users with IE to install an additional browser and then I welcome them to the real Internet :)
 
Looks good, I am with Darfuria though, given it is mostly covered up you could create a new image that was smaller to achieve the same look :)
It's 100% spreading, so on a bigger monitor the house is visible, like on my 20" where the browser matches up. It keeps it playful. There are more tweaks needed such as a side gradient so the image can be smaller and wrap around the design more. But I don't really want to go public with those images and ideas yet. Baby steps :) The original image is 1024 big, so I can imagine with a forum fixed to 976 that it's filling up your screen. Appreciate the feedback, I've updated my todo list with more checks for the future.
 
Everything looks fine but the Services page and Services forum should not be present.

At this time more than a community XenFans looks like a site where owner is trying to make money by offering products & services. I'm not saying that making money is bad, maybe he can put some ads... but offering services and selling products? Not a good idea for a community at all.
Anyway :) A more realistic and serious answer ..

The Service and products pages were originally under the blog and stand alone. We've integrated the blog content and are testing out to use an old fashioned forum with products/ services chat in it, or sorta static pages via node: Page.

Adding advertisements to the page is a complete no go for me, but not something that's not on our list. I do however strongly believe in not polluting a site with header ads or something. We're not after money, we're after building a fan community for xenforo enthusiasts - helping promote the xenforo via word of mouth. While at the same time being there helping users.

But with the daily requests for install help and convert help etc, we're simply spending a lot of time, while the hosting bill comes in eventually again. To cover the time we provide free resources, available to both premium members and registered members, and we provide a few services covering our time. Users are free to inquire and decline, or not bother to contact us at all.

We share a difference in opinion about what a community is, how to build one and run one. That's fine. I appreciate the feedback to a certain level, and it's something we have to consider; but we kinda already have: No ads to make money, we're not a money making site. We're there as a free resource and discussion site - and whatever else comes with it - for the xenforo community, our own little spot in the xenforo universe.
 
The best apart about it is that it's not mandatory that every user buys it :). Services are there for folks who are in need of those services.

As for the design not to found of where the bottom simply cuts off, maybe a change in background color or something, not too sure :D but overall nice customization on the forum itself.
Can you perhaps point out to me where the bottom cuts off? This should be rare since we're a young site and haven't filled the page beyond the fold yet.
 
Well personally I think it looks great (I may be biased), would be a shame to take it down, and the attitude of "everyone should do everything for free" is a little disappointing tbh, look to let's say, vbulletinsetup.com (again, maybe a little biased) - this site before it was just a forum was solely based for services as WELL as a community, as Peggy said, there are alot of vBulletin and IPB 'fan' sites that do this also, I don't see any problem with it personally, and I don't see why it had to be pointed out in a thread talking about the fantastic new design elements Floris has added to the site ;)
Thanks for the feedback and your input Mikey.
 
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