of course, this is also open to feedback. noctis suggested to eliminate the grid layout, and to use a static width sidebar, which would work with with a fluid width content area that has a min-width to prevent garbled text. it's something that is worth trying.

Am I rite that this site isn't tied to anybody having a financial interest of any kind, thus being likely to mess with the content in odd ways? If so it deserves to be kept alive, much like a beautiful species that is about to go extinct.

You decide if it's worth the effort and if you can spend the time. Your test site looks sweet. And as long as it doesn't result in popups springing at me at each mouse move I'm all for an upgrade of the code base.

Good job either way. Lovely initiative.

there's no financial interest that i know of. sujoy kindly continues to provide the means for esr to exist, volunteers continue to help submit, edit, and moderate content, and users continue to do whatever it is they enjoy doing here.

personally, i have no desire to monetize esr in any way unless it's required to sustain resources to run the site, and even then there are other options to explore.

and even then there are other options to explore.

Like donations for example?
ESR seems to be the right place to start donations incentives, it always ends up hilariously catastrophic.

i only mean in the most desperate hypothetical situations.

I am at least one of those.

lol this guy is one of something

What ends up catastrophic? it's been brought up a number of times, but never done. there is not really a reason to do it because there is no new 'killer feature'. the site is a reflection of the community which kind of revolve around the game, and it provides all basic features. donations for marginal improvements seems unnecessary.

Just to confirm. I'm happy for this site to be purely for the benefit of those that use it. If there was some money made, it would be nice to cover the server costs but they are quite low so I don't mind paying for it myself.

<3

The only things that I'd get rid of are the rounded borders in panels to the right. They aren't as visible in the current version but really stand out in the new one. Also shadows and drop shadows of any kind.

inb4 much flat design

What this guy said. ^

Also, there's too much empty space around the sidebar blocks and a bit too much between comments, IMO.

Other than those details, it's looking good. Keep it up. :)

Edit: Pluses look terrible, btw.

shadows are gay

Good initiative, but as Gary whatever said in the movie Soldier, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

This is regarding the UI of course. There is nothing wrong with the classic look and it has aged superbly (and I still borrow from it's structure on my own websites to this day).

Any work should be on the back end or minor UI functionality improvements.

This.

All that sounds nice, but people are hardly going to use those features.

Can you keep old site logo or at least the part with X-like logotype, ESReality and "Where gaming meets reality"? You can refresh it if you like but the general concept of the logo doesn't have to be simplified to Web 2.0 flavor.

Logo is a placeholder, who knows what the dirty minds can come up with when it comes to designing a new one

We already have people like hitsu and u wanna lower the entry barrier even more? This is not sweden brandan

our head admins are very sensitive, having accumulated lots of bittersweetness over the years, like a bad wine, so try to be gentle about any disagreements and feedback you're trying to convey

Looks good. The new look has my vote.

the letter spacing on the right preview looks kinda too high opposed to the intention of "giving a condensed overview" (take esreality.com for an example, it is a gaming site mainly for quake and they have a nice layout to get your POI)

background looks too bright, especially with the glow around the posts, mmight be just me or YOU might tweak it

but yes, esr could need a FORCED lifting

Long over due... How about mobile compatibility?

what is mobile compatibility?

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

I guess I mean responsive CSS to different resolutions (like what boilerplate does)

okay. this is something that is part of the plan.

One gripe I have is that ESR fits in the window on my low res, whereas it doesn't in the new one. Could it test for res or window size or something and fit things accordingly, or ?

this is on my mind.

the orange text on light gray background is hard to read.

don't like the blurred border of the comments or gay glow for new comments.

Looks good, keep it up.

I would replace the site heading (e.g. Latest news, News, ...) with breadcrumbs. They should have the same height as the float:right menu holding "show all · show threads · edit category filters
Latest News".

Live stream box is missing I think. Also the right side navigation menu ist missing in the forum view.

Oh and most importantly: Add some css rules for galleries and embedded pictures please.

Edit: And make everything responsive for mobile view while you are it it please :-) :-) :-)

how to fully occupy a volunteer time, make this site responsive :P

actually, the only reason i even left that heading in place is because it is used for breadcrumbs in some situations.

what do you mean below by 'embedded pictures'? the ability to reference images from different sites?

I did some small tweeking with the css and i am intentionaly pasting the 1:1 screenshot so you can take a detailed look of borders margins, slight color changes in text; no more pure black or white.

I would also add to my design, spacing between character to tittles"schedule listings" and so on. And add 1px border #666 under tittles aswell

Also smaller font for 10-15% in the side boxes.

So here goes:

Attached Image: 106809-esr_HQ.jpg (601KB)

this looks very good, nice job

who knows maybe Brandan and the community will like it... if he wants i can help.

Your side boxes bg color appears to be darker than on the test page, which is good. Right now, the orange text is bold with me, but not bold and a lighter background make the text hard to read (at least on my screen).

Still, I thought the main benefit of brandan's effort - if I understood him correctly - was that the site could uniformly be styled through CSS once he's done. So the ergonomic fine tuning would then merely amount to final polishing, no?

ye i made bg color of sideboxs match the color of the page header, so it has more connected feel to it, i also made the sign-in bar a little more darker aswell.

... if you noticed i also used the shadows but instead of hard look, they are realy soft, just so you know they are there, but you dont realy take notice. And to soften the page further making the fonts dark gray and not black and not white but soft gray helps alot + you have colors black and the white reserved for more important akcents on the visual hierarchy.

I did notice. No hard edges but you didn't go for a blatant, into-your-face 3D look either (which is usually distracting). Fine piece of work.

something like this is a perfect candidate for custom css inclusion. i will try to make my changes to the site structured, so that it doesn't become too messy for you to keep up with. i'll post about it soon.

- less padding, less whitespace
- the current design has more hard edges and purely black areas. I like those.
- In the current sidebar, the links are bold. Can someone test this?
- not a fan of the orangy borders in the comments either.

I'm heavily biased towards the current design.

P

I love the classic style, hoping it stays optional if a new style is adopted.

About test.esreality.com first thing i dislike are on the right panel, the fonts are bigger, the space between letters is bigger, and it looks disconnected compared to current one.

I like the things they are.

"Change scares me."

it is working, why change it? and i also like the website's design and so on. :0

so what you're saying is that we should all play call of duty?

im sure this makes sense somehow...

Please implement Flash.

Nah, let's go with some java applets.

I don't think he's available.

I think it looks awesome, only thing I don't like is the orange glow around the comments. Runs pretty fast already too.

this...someone higher up suggested it was for new comments only but seems to be all? would be OK if it was just for new/unread comments

Latest threads too low down. "Other News" and "Latest Coverage" low priority imo

But I like the front page styling...maybe change the title e.g. "Latest News" to be a bit bigger

it is for unread responses. if it is showing for all of your responses, some info about your browser & version might help to troubleshoot why.

False positive, just cached...they change to read after a few mins

The news area isn't fixed width though: http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=93252

Don't be such wusses, move on to new things.

Hail to the new changes.

.

4MB gif = no

based xou

4MB gifs are welcome on pf :D

(Preview image is shown with a play button overlayed and size info below)

* N U K E D *

nice feature form pf :)

... hah take that esr :>

there's no rule against large image files. i don't know of any bandwidth restrictions on esreality. i think this limit was arbitrarily decided by xou in the past, and became a standard operating procedure? i don't know. it doesn't seem necessary to block somewhat large gifs.

ye it doesnt rly matter, i didnt even check it is that large of a gif, lol.

How about autoplay 4k youtube videos on front page ?

Would this become a go ? :)

yes, your irrationally extreme possibility directly follows from "it doesn't seem necessary to block somewhat large gifs".

There is an issue of embedded images, a BUNCH of 4MB embedded gifs are terrible drain, and there is actually a bandwidth cap on the server, but mostly its about usability for people who don't want to look at these gifs. Another reason is that the site is not an image site. There are image sites where people can spam gifs to each other that they couldn't have come up with, like tumblr, and ESR is not it. People who want that turn off other people who want to actually talk and are able to make original jokes.

i'm not sure what point you're making or how it applies to approving 4MB gifs.

i'm explaining the backround to gif size limit and saying it wasn't just xou

oh, so it's like why agents can put their fingers in your butt when you want to get on an airplane

These fantasies you have...

well then sonic is orityy much fucked and banned cuz he is postiong gifs?

the site is not an image site

Kreygasm

I use the Orange+ theme on a very dark monitor, I like the contrast and how simple it is. Shadows have always felt like a cheap trick, distract me and make things look blurry. I don't like having to click on the top right menu.

I think its a good initiative, here are some ideas, inputs and other stuff:

-as others have stated the orange outline is a little too much

- the plusses look a bit clunky, i think i get that feel about the whole site-- for me it kinda feels and looks heavier and slower then the old design

-from the old design i liked that you could hover over the top right menu with site text media and games and it would drop down and then you could click on where you wanted to go, now you have two clicks, thats slower

-i dont like that the logo at the top is so small, cause thats the one i click when i want to get back to the start page

-biggest complaint i have is that the right side with the polls and whatever is so big. I think i see the problem similair to how plsuforward was criticized at some point, that this huge side with nothing takes focus away from the text and after all esr is very text heavy

thanks

Phone support pretty please.

You mean like ... "Welcome to ESR hotline! My name is Brandan, how can I help you?"

site desperately needs a delete/reset user function, pretty basic functionality
some people have literally been on this site for over half their entire lifetime and not every 30-year-old is thrilled about what their 15-year-old self wrote (nor have time to go through and "."-edit 15 years worth of posts and change nick and wait for however long it takes to completely disassociate with the previous nick, shit's beyond archaic)

nice test site though, maybe a bit much empty space between columns (seems like wasted space compared to tight current layout) otherwise feels modern and nice, i'd use it

no
That would only be an additional incentive for horrible people to post crap believing they're anonymous and that their actions have no consequences for the future.

.

T1E!!!!!!!!

From an seo perspective the site is not good.

For every thread, every post seems to generate its own page with identical content. All of these are not indexed.

Randomly:
intitle:"video about competitive trackmania" esreality

Make sure to click "include omitted results".

http://www.esreality.com/post/2760829/re-vide...rackmania/
http://www.esreality.com/post/2760841/re-vide...rackmania/
http://www.esreality.com/post/2759629/re-vide...rackmania/
http://esreality.com/post/2759611/re-video-ab...rackmania/

And so on. These are the same.

Outside of the URL every page content is identical. This is terrible practice from content duplication perspective.

Found this looking for duplicate domains.
www.esreality.com
esreality.com
xsreality.com
test.esreailty.net

This has over 150 pages indexed for the exact same thing.
intitle:"REFUGEE CRISIS = FAIL" esreality

Also add <h1> tags. thanks!

BY JOVE HE'S GOT IT!

1. Optimize ESR's seo like a mad cunt
2. Fill the site with a load of Quake guides and resources for newbies
3. Get ESR to the front page of Google for anyone searching for anything Arena Deathmatch related
4. ????
5. PROFIT!

Quake saved. Not even kidding, it would actually be a considerable source of new players, just need a filter to hide muslim immigration & drug lord topics from unregistered users.

Its been a while since I agreed with someones entire post

Are you two serious? Do you want more details or are you taking the piss.

No, I fully agree. Google doesn't like duplicated content on different URLs but it does love H1s.

SEO is so 1998

some updates:

- less white space
- sidebar now collapses at browser widths < 800px
- sidebar margins & rounded corners removed
- links are now bold by default
- link color has been significantly lightened over darker backgrounds

can't believe you had the balls to remove the "::" bullet marks... what has got into you?

i'm drunk with power

And the round corners on the side blocks? WTF man?

Also, the space between threads should be the same for those that have %'s and those that don't.

technically it is, but i understand what you mean.

ESR hotline pls.

add xou on skype

keep link color same since it's now bold

I voted to continue but i wonder...how do you improve greatness?

I'm honestly pretty happy with the way ESR looks now.
But that is the result of visiting this site since the XSR days. so i know my opinion might be biased.
As mentioned a few times already.. the only thing really missing is the mobile friendly version.


But since we're on the development subject.. i'm using NoScript so every time you add a new outsourced web API (or there is a url update of an existing one) i have to go thru the list of currently blocked sites to find the one that is needed to have the same functionality as before.

I like how it's shaping and defo vote to continue the work. After all it's 2015 + the design is refreshed, not changed drastically.

http://www.esreality.com/?a=users&user_id=7
Level: Banned

Uhm...

Yep, here goes nothing.

ESR becoming Game of Thrones: Everyone gets banned.

coup by twista

Don't worry, he's just inspecting the brand new Supermax prison wing first hand, needs to spend a few nights in one of the cells to get a true feel of the place and make sure everything is working as intended.

A man's admin.

banned for being his own buddy...kinda harsh =(

i'm not planning to stop development.

does anyone have any info on why he was banned?

He set himself to banned as far as i know.

ah ty

It's not the first time for the director.

Shot himself right in the head. :(

Candid question: will it be possible to have a "classic layout" available at start and keeping ESR just like it is now for anyone reluctant to change ? :)

I like the current design way better.

Feels as if there is a bit to much light to me.
I would like this if it tried to match the colors of the current site.

force push please,

and autoba(h)n haters.

I hate 'modern' sites design like fps pulse - hard to navigate. ESR is aesthetic and intuitive to use. The only thing from layout i would change is the font to be more softer (~myriad or something similar) and expand main menu.

Something seems to be quite borked on test.esreality.net - many threads aren't showing the majority of their comments (like the way I can currently only see 3 comments in this one...).

Unless you're going to turn the POST button into a titty, so when you submit the post, milk squirts all over the screen and dribbles down, to reveal your post, I think I'm good.

Please don't change it to this, you manage to spoil pretty much everything.

The fuck?

Just use the mozilla firefox red theme, it looks so, so much better than default or even your modified one.

Why go to all this work when there is an immediate, easy solution?

you know something john snow.

Do I get back-stabbed now?




PLEASE NO DON'T HURT THE SNOW

... nah, you are okey. :)

Don't change it it's perfect.

So test.esreality.net was reverted, guess esr will stick with its timeless design :)

I've been been using the Nicky theme since the beginning of time because I'm madly in love with her.

too bright.

Let me choose my actual fucking time zone. Don't force me to select the closest region that's just confusing for people who actual know their real time zone.

Probably not gonna happen:
http://us3.php.net/manual/en/timezones.others.php

doubt it

This website hasn't changed much since i lost my previous account, which i like- but yeah there's no aesthetics to it especially the profile- which is why i try not to show much except my avatar

Also forgot to add that esreality lags, dunno if its just me ;/

This page loads in a few seconds for me.

i like this website, but what i really don't like is tons of threads that are obvious troll bait. no reason to waste peoples times keeping this wheel of pain going, i would really like to see better moderation using bots or any other means necessary to stop trolls as soon as they get a slightest idea to make yet another useless thread.

go to reddit if you want your safe space

oh yeah, a nice comeback from someone who just wants to waste my time.

Doesn't want to waste time and keeps coming to ESR. Solid logic. PS: Not sorry for wasting your obviously worthless time.

by that logic i should also consider your time worthless

I take responsibility for my own time and don't go around blaming others if I get an answer I don't like.

yeah, like why then have esr at all, makes sense to me. if i want to waste my time i go to esr.

Mission accomplished, then. I'm glad you got what you were looking for.