Staff Post Lake Valor's New Design: Valcadia

it'll take some time to get used to but overall i like it? it's much more..smooth and clean looking if that makes sense.

 

screams
yes please
Love it!!

 

Wow, you weren't kidding about this taking some time to get used to. I'm just so used to the other themes that this is just a whole new experience for me.

 

It actually is a little easier for me. Doesn't help that my parents call my eyes "grandma eyes" but it's easier to read and the navigation took a few extra seconds but regardless it's an amazing theme

 

Obviously, I love Valcadia. I poured so much time and energy into it and I'm proud of where we've gotten. I hope you guys love it too.

 

Frankly, I don't think this theme looks that good at all. It gives off a rather dull and rushed vibe, but maybe that's just me, I don't know.

Just a question though; will the other themes remain available (such as Pallet Town) or is this going to become the only theme one can choose from?

 

I do respect your difference of opinion, though I also find your comment a little upsetting and rude. Please understand that hours and hours of work goes into these kinds of things, and it certainly wasn't rushed.

Naturally, we are open to feedback, but we are still people behind the screen. Words have weight. Perhaps if you let us know where you'd like us to improve, and maybe say something positive about the theme too, that'd have made this a lot better. That's all.

The old themes will remain available for a certain amount of time. We plan to hopefully port them over to the new theme framework and then remove them for good. They are heavily outdated, and a disaster to work on, update and fix. We can't do much more for them, even if we want to.

 

I'm really liking how smooth this theme looks: I do prefer the Lake Valor theme a bit more, but I wouldn't mind switching to this theme from time to time. I'm a sucker for dark themes and gradients...

The only thing that really bothers me is that everything on the right (like the new threads, status updates) is on the left now and the "bottom text" (where the like, quote, and reply buttons are) are too much of a dark grey for my tastes so it's a little hard to read for me, lol. Also I kinda miss the Pokémon userbars since icons don't feel as special to me ;w; But everything else is really good, I can tell the days of work on this theme payed off well. Especially the modern/minimalist feel and the bigger text, I welcome those with open arms.

(also just noticed the "OP" banner for the thread starter on their picture, nice!)

this has been constructive criticism with skittle lol bye

 

I like the inclusion of icons across the new theme, both for members and the subforums (the Pokémon icons are well made and add a nice bit of visual flair). The minimalism is good, especially considering that the theme is to be used on mobile too. Being able to smoothly navigate the site on different platforms without having to worry about vastly different appearances is also nice. That's more personal preference though, I'd take consistency between platforms over different layouts if I had to choose myself.

Being able to see which staff members are online without having to reference the member list is a good addition. Someone mentioned on discord that being able to differentiate between staff ranks would be a nice add if possible (I forget who mentioned it--sorry!!). Their suggestion was a colour glow around the icon but changing the colour of the username background while hovering would be a possibility too I guess.

The colour scheme is great, fits with the name of the forum and is very easy on the eyes (I liked the backgrounds of the previous designs but this is a lot less cluttered which is a big plus. It was difficult reading text in the translucent boxes towards the bottom of the Lake Valor theme). I'm not sure how feasible it would be but I imagine that the simplicity of the colour scheme would allow for customisation? I'm more than happy with blue but if there's a way for people to change the hues I imagine that would be taken to nicely, granted it doesn't take an ungodly amount of work to implement.

The expandable sidebar sections are v nice imo, I'm curious why the same option isn't available for recent activity and status updates though? They're very important parts of the sidebar for sure but being able to have one section open at a time would be nice I feel.

I like that you can search at any time now--the addition of search to the title bar(? idk design terms the moving bar at the top lmao) is very nice. Minor gripe--the drop down when hovering over the icons doesn't bugger off when I stop hovering unless I click elsewhere. It's not an issue by any means but I might as well mention it since it's on my mind. If possible maybe keep it open when you click the icon but have it disappear if you hover over?

Sidenote I don't know anything substantial about coding so my suggestions are purely that, I don't expect any changes. The theme looks wonderful-- thank you to everyone who contributed to putting it together!

 

Geez, your new theme is just not my thing like I said. No need to get so touchy about this, honestly.
I’m sorry that you feel as though I was being rude; I’m well aware that you put work into it and kudos to your dedication but you can’t expect everyone to swoon and fawn over it JUST because you put hours of work into it: that’s not how it works.

Remember that whole shabang about that blank canvas that sold for several million pounds a few years ago? The artist spent hours and hours of staring at it but that didn’t change what it was: a blank canvas. The same thing applies here to my opinion: it still appears to me as though it was rushed and I have 0 obligation to say that I like something if I don’t like it. Please try not to take this the wrong way though, I appreciate the time and effort you put into all this just like most members of LV.

 

I think you should re-read my post. I told you to give constructive feedback, not just put it down. If you notice the two posts below yours that aren't from me or Ryan, they're filled with ways we can actually improve the design, what they liked and what they didn't like. In my eyes, your post was simply a put down. That helps no one.

I certainly don't expect you to fawn over it - no one here has and I've taken no issue with any of their posts. You're not obligated to like it also, and I don't expect you to, just as I'm not obligated to like the response you made, which quite frankly I felt was unnecessary.

All I'm saying here is that I feel you can work on how you respond to things like this. That's all. Keep an open mind. Just like I'm open to any constructive feedback you may want to give to improve the theme. If you don't want to, that's fine too! I hope you enjoy using our themes, no matter which they are.

 

If you think that disagreeing politely with what you think is good or aesthetically pleasing is unnecessary then by all means, feel free to think so.
All I'm trying to say is that it wasn't my taste and I don't think you should care so much about other people having different tastes than your own. I mean, I'm just a single voice of dissent in what could arguably be described as an ocean of agreement so I think you'll manage one way or the other.

As for the constructive criticism part, there's really good example to illustrate my point. You know how some people like Neoclassical architecture while others prefer buildings from the Neue Sachlichkeit period? You could try to argue that one should provide constructive criticism to the other, but if their tastes differ significantly, one is sure to at least partially ignore the other.
All in all, it seems that we disagree on significantly more than just the appearance of the theme layout here and it doesn't seem like this discussion will go anywhere or be productive in any other way.

I do hope you'll keep doing your best for LV! And of course, I'll gladly continue to make use of the other themes until they expire!

 

Valcadia looks really nice! I'm glad to see that our Admins work hard for this site, I've been on sites where the Admins have stopped working on improving the site- only updating when the format is completely obsolete, or updating things that really didn't need a update and breaking code or causing problems with members.

Something I wish to point out is that members with dark avatars (such as mine) may have trouble finding their profile information in the top corner as it just blends in with the background. (I only know that mine is up there due to the yellow/blue background of my avatar). I'm not sure how that could be fixed, besides changing avatars...
It may just be me struggling to figure out the new layout, but I can't find recent posts (not new topics).
The site feels a bit empty without our old pictures, but I'm sure I'll adjust until we get new themes to explore! ^u^

 

I think I’m starting to get used to the new theme

I’m more here for "suggestions". I put quote marks because I’m absolutely not sure of what the first would look like and maybe the second is kinda already implemented but I just don’t know it
And I have no idea of how much coding they would require...

So this is probably just because I got used to have a background image, but I thought... maybe we could have the possibility to use our own images (that we choose from our files) as a background image? This way if it looks bad, we can just find another image or go back to solid color background. Perhaps, if it’s even possible, get to choose if we want it to repeat, to shrink to the page’s width or to be full size...

And this is a little fear that I have about the Pokémon encounter being a clickable button on mobile – I think it’s a great idea to save some space, but... I’ve wondered if one time, I could not click and miss a shiny by accident. So the thing would be to make it noticeable on the button that the Pokémon is shiny in case it is. Of course something like this could already be here and I just met no shiny, but I have no actual proof unless I meet one or I get the answer by you guys... And I think the little fear will stay until I’m sure, so... here.

 

I like it, but I'll probably stick to Palette Town pink since it's what I'm used to.
I like the gradients though, I'm a huge slut for gradients.

 

Well just changed and my first reaction whoa, it is incredible. nice work both of ya