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Why is the forum center justified? How do I change this?

Started by
49 comments, last by LennyLen 7 years, 4 months ago

Are you referring to the blocks on the side? Keep in mind, iterative design.. those are easily added/removed, but to start we've attempted to standardize the sidebar across the site.

Yes, those.

A few complaints about really high resolutions. These resolutions are not normal and admittedly got less attention - our traffic in this resolution range is < 1% with 1600px width being the most common. We went with a fairly web standard 1200px content width with sidebar, so if the sidebar doesn't show then it definitely looks worse.
Meanwhile, considering ways to retain the design aesthetic while accommodating larger screen resolutions.
Some pages, like the forum index, will undergo more changes. But we wanted to get the design out so users can become familiar with it before we made even bigger changes to frequently used pages.

Make the sizing dynamic. The new design might work great on a mobile browser, but it doesn't work at all on a desktop. It should resize to fit the window. It is my choice to have my browser window maximized and I do so so that I can see more content.

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A few complaints about really high resolutions. These resolutions are not normal and admittedly got less attention - our traffic in this resolution range is < 1% with 1600px width being the most common.

I'm 1920x1200, on my main monitor, thankfully I also use Stylish.

iterative design

Count me among those who would prefer to see this iteration rolled back. Forced widths have always been irksome. For many years they were the running gag about the news industry, since many seemed fixated in 80 chars wide and everybody in the world had more text than that.

This one isn't much wider than those painfully bad widths used to be. It is a little wider, but still far too narrow for my tastes. If I want narrower widths, I'll resize my browser.

Here’s a quick user style sheet to maximize the content width for now:

Thanks for that. I wasn't looking forward to hunting down where those changes were. Typical browsing width resumed.

Make the sizing dynamic.

FWIW, the 1200px centered container is higher than your average gaming and media website. Very few do full-width, and if they do they use background tricks or make their columns unnecessarily wide.

I'm open to suggestions for those who want less side whitespace, but there's a basic layout that we're after here and any changes to accommodate larger resolutions need to keep the size and positioning of all elements in mind.

Also, this theme is developed and tested with 1920x1080, and in that resolution I see ~20-25% whitespace max left/right. Is your browser zoom level not 100%?

Admin for GameDev.net.

We've been having some discussions in private messages, it seems large monitors and high content density weren't really the priority.

My old script doesn't work to well with the new layout, so I'm starting a new one. I'm still refining it, but my new stylish script at least allows me to view several comments at a time. Still needs some effort to become beautiful. Mostly the changes are eliminating the enormous margins, borders, and padding; many were adding 10-20 pixels, plus the double-high heights that conspired to eat all the vertical space. That is in addition to reversing the updated horizontal space limits.


.gamedev-content-container {
	width:  90% !important;
}
.gamedev-content {
	float:    none;
	width:    auto;
	overflow: hidden;
}
.h3, .h4, .h5, .h6, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, .post_body, .post_block, .posted_info, .ipsBox {
    margin: 0 !important;
    border: 0 !important;
    padding: 0 !important;
    line-height: normal !important;
    height: initial !important;
}
body {
    font-size: 12 !important;
}


Still has much work to go and isn't beautiful, but I'm once again seeing 4-5 posts on my monitor.

I actually thought the same about the width being too narrow, but I think I might just need to give it some time to get used to - I'm already finding it more comfortable, and it looks like Khawk isn't wrong about it being in line with what other sites (which I don't generally think of as too narrow) use:

[attachment=34949:site_comparison.png]

(Note: For these screenshots I was viewing Gamasutra and TIGSource with ad blocking enabled, whilst it's off for GDNet.)

- Jason Astle-Adams

Here’s a quick user style sheet to maximize the content width for now:


.gamedev-content-container {
	width:  initial !important;
}

.gamedev-content {
	float:    none;
	width:    unset;
	overflow: hidden;
}

Thank you very much.

Is there any way to get the old 'latest forum topics'? Right now I can see at most 5. I liked it previously as I could quickly see what people were chatting about. Clicking on the 'latest forum topics' simply brings me to the forums.

Is there any way to get the old 'latest forum topics'? Right now I can see at most 5. I liked it previously as I could quickly see what people were chatting about. Clicking on the 'latest forum topics' simply brings me to the forums.

See the "Latest Content" link in the top right under the header bar.

Admin for GameDev.net.

Ahh thank-you :)

For me it isn't so much the narrowness -- although that is a part of it -- instead it is the vertical space and the density.

My comparison sites that I'd rather not post screen-grabs of because they may have sensitive information:

Facebook: 7-8 replies at once. (Fewer for long posts, images, etc.)
Instagram: 10+
LinkedIn: 8
Reddit: 10-15
Slashdot: 6+
StackOverflow: 6+ replies at once, unless they're actual code or longer answers
Twitter: 8
Youtube: 11+

Gamedev.net default theme: 2, unless they're long, then perhaps only one.

This newer theme also seems to include duplicate lines for paragraph breaks, or perhaps the editor isn't merging consecutive lines any more. Either way, it only exacerbates the problem of information density. As a reminder, the old GD.net Black theme before 2010 was about 5 replies per screen.

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