What ever happened to the new forum skin?

[Nicholas-c Veteran]

Hey guys (mainly developers...) i have been wondering about this for a while but why doesn't the forum look like the home/gamers/software news areas??

im sure there is a possibly a style in development or a good reason :p

Thanks

Nicholas-c

[Marshalus Veteran]

Mostly because a lot of the ways that the main page was coded just refuses to play nice with IPB's skinning engine. That is not to say it cannot be adapted, but the developers are working on some other projects that will negate the need :)

[Slimy]

The original plan was to take Shift (what is on the front page) and move it over to the forums.

It will be ported to the forums when its complete on the main site, right now we are getting it all compliant, finishing the CSS and making sure it looks the same in all major browsers. Having 2 seperate developments is simply not a good idea. For example, we already changed how the Tabs work in a later update and that means we would need to recode part of the forum style too, which isn't very smart.

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=457347

That's no longer the case. Currently, the front page is at Shift Public Release 8 and Swift Refresh for the forums. However, Swift is still available for the forums, so there is consistency, just not for Shift.

With IPB 2.2, Swift Refresh for the forums came a long, which was essentially a lot of tweaking, rewriting and streamlining of code to make further IPB upgrades easier and quicker.

Then the old & new colours were added back in for Swift Refresh.

And here we are. The latest information is as follows

Shift on the other hand, will most likely not see the light of day on IPB2.2. We're working on something else.

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...53&start=53

[Timan Veteran]

Don't worry, a little fish told me the next* look will be a nice unified experience through-out the whole site.

[Nicholas-c Veteran]

so you are working on new design for site wide?

Cool :p

[Ji@nBing]

Just curious if this is still going to happen. I remember it was supposed to be changed like 2-3 years ago, but still nothing. Still in development?

[User6060]

The same thing that happened to the new front page. scaled back and delayed indefinitely.

[The Teej]

Apparently it was supposed to launch with Neowin5.net, or, at least that's what I understood.

[Ji@nBing]

The same thing that happened to the new front page. scaled back and delayed indefinitely.

Well, the front page was at least updated and I think they did a great job with it. I'd love to see matching forums.

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=553462

Ah, so they are working on a new look for the entire site. Thanks :)

[Fred Derf Veteran]

[Threads Merged]

[Marshalus Veteran]

It'll happen when it does, the development team is focused on producing quality code rather then rushing out something with problems. Our current site seems to function well for most visitors, even if it is a little old ;)

[QuarterSwede]

Even though the site is a little mis-mashed still, in my opinion, it's easily the best looking and well organized forum on the web.

[Steven P. Administrators]

Even though the site is a little mis-mashed still, in my opinion, it's easily the best looking and well organized forum on the web.

Thanks! thats great to hear.

As for a new style, it is in development but as we have always said in the past we don't have dedicated coder staff on the pay-roll, while they might be rewarded for their work most are either studying or working in 'real life' so we are limited by the amount of time our coders can spare to the site.

That along with exceptional strict coding standards that are now being used make for a longer test and coding timeframe.

Whereas before we weren't really worried about being 'standards compliant' we were more focused on having the site look the same in ANY browser over W3C standards.

Hope this answers your questions.