Today at college, I was browsing this site a bit. A friend of mine was looking over my shoulder and commented on how nice the forum skin looks.
So Accel, don't try too hard. The skin is good enough as it is now.

yeah, I was thinking of creating an entirely new css file from scratch because the current one is so disorganized and redundant, but that's kinda stupid since cleaning it up would be much faster if I just fixed its issues individually.

I spent a lot of time working on the new layout today. I finished the new News page:
http://www.interguild.org/testing/news.php
I moved the browsing options to the bottom, and I added links to browse by category.

Look around and click on the posts and tell me what you think of how it looks.

Epic color scheme.

not epic, but, it's okay on my end.

I don't really like  the colour scheme. I don't know why, but I just cannot tolerate those colours. Why not add some 'light' background option?

I was originally planning to, but that's too much effort.

So, you're just going to be lazy?

Well, then. Are you going to implement it later?

I think I was being overly ambitious when I decided to make two layouts. I'm just worried about getting this one out first, and I don't think I'll ever add a light one anytime soon..

Lol, I guess it's a not so epic color scheme. Well atleast I like it.

at least we can agree that it's definitely better than what we have now.

btw, do you think we need those category images for news updates? I'm thinking of getting rid of them

I think we don't because the most common new posts are weekly updates and comps, the others don't happen as often.

I actually like our current layout. I mean, maybe it's not the easiest to navigate through, if you're a new member, but I wouldn't know, cuz I'm not a new member. I have no problem with our current layout, and never have.

Well, other than that random background image. It's just weird, and on my downstairs computer, it ends before my screen does, because of how wide my screen is. So I had no problem with the original one. I liked the plain background color way back when it was first released.

Yeah. The background looks really weird on widescreen.

Nope. This colour scheme is better.

Well, the new color scheme succeeds in helping everything look simpler. Part of that is just b/c the design is better, but if we had more colors, like blue, it wouldn't have the same simple feel.

It would, though, have that cool, good-looking feel.

Blue is a great color. I keep wondering why it's behind White in my favourite colors list...

You have a favorite colors list?

Yes. Why not?

Next Question.

Oh i posted about the colors in another post lol. So do you have the ideology that this page would look good simple because thats what google have stuck with and they are now the most succesful search engine ever? cos i think a colorful creative layout would be awesome.

On the contrary you could have a theme to this layout on special days for example easter or halloween and that like google does (as it seems youre already headed that sotra direction)... again just a thought lol

I guess I kinda worked my way into the simple design just by fixing things that I didn't like. I guess I could've tried to be more flamboyant with the design, but for some reason I felt like that inevitably wouldn't work well. And it's not because I didn't want to put the effort into making something like that, because the current new design actually took a ton of effort make: finding a working color scheme for a dark layout is torture. Not to mention the fact that I had an earlier design that I've been occasionally working on since December, which I ended up throwing away for the current design. I guess I reached the point where I just want to release the thing and not consider anymore faults with it.

Speaking of a release, I wonder if I could get it up and running before i have to go back to school next Monday. It would mean that I would have to cut back on some upgrades I was planning, but at least it means moving forward.

I say complete it fully before you realese it because then ur gonna be back at skool and get loads of work to complete and end up not having time to complete it and will eventually u may forget about it (not likely but u will prolong finishing it). no one likes a half done job. this layout isnt bad for now and the users will be used to it, so u should just keep working on the layout until its 100% done and it will be much better recieved by this sites members. plus then it wont stuck at the back of ur mind that the site isnt fully realesed.

i know with websites its a bit different than say a peice of artwork, but this is just my perspective on the matter. please take it into consideration, after all this is a democracy (im guessing lol)