New Template

[ivor]

Hi everybody!

I have a new template to brighten the place up a little.

If you look on the home page in the first column towards the bottom, you'll see a Template Chooser.  To see the other template select 'ja_avior_ex' and click select.  If you have looked at this template before then you may need to refresh your browser.

Right off you may notice that it doesn't go with the 'Black22' theme in the Forum.  The template that goes with 'ja_avoir_ex' is 'SMFOne_Blue.'  To use this template with the forum, click on your profile.  Click on the 'Look and Layout Preferences' link in the left column of the forum, not the left column if the site if that is visible.  Close to the top there will be a bold entry for 'Current Theme.' To the right of the currently selected theme there is a link titled 'Change.'  Clicking on that link brings up a list of the current themes.  A little way down the list you'll see the 'SMFOne_Blue' template.  In the right hand corner of the SMFOne_Blue theme box you'll see the 'use this theme' link.  Click on that link to use SMFOne_Blue.  Don't use the other SMFOne templates yet as I haven't modified them yet.

Now that you have the SMFOne_Blue template selected I will talk a little about the special custom features of the 'ja_avoir_ex' template.  If you notice in the upper right hand corner of the site on the home page you'll see some faint links that change the way the template is displayed.  I won't go into them individually as they are fairly self explanatory.  If you hover over them with the mouse-pointer they tell you what they do.

Another cool feature of the 'ja_avoir_ex' template are the color selectors.  If you look under the pictures of the Toadfish in the upper left hand corner there are some color boxes.  If you click on the colors you'll notice that the colors change, even in the Forum, if you have java enabled and your browser supports alternate stylesheets.

The available colors are the default ones.  If anybody would like some different colors I will see what I can do.  Maybe we can have a poll on new colors.

Now the disclaimer.  If anybody has any problems with the new template please post here.  This template is brand new and customized so their may be some problems.  You can just flip back to the old one if you run into trouble.  If you can't flip back just delete your cookies for this site and you should be back in business.

Oh!  Also the forum has been upgraded to the latest Simple Machines Forum and the Joomla SMF Bridge has also been updated to the latest version.  I think that has taken care of a few problems here.  If you run into any problems, log out and log back in and see if it still happens.  If you can't log out from the home page go to toadfishmonaster.com/forum and log out.  Then log in from the home page.  If you still get the error then PM me.

Thanks,
MB (Your humble whippin' geek. )

[Griffin NoName]

Hey MB it's fabulous.

I know how much work must have gone into this - bravo !!!

I hate to leap in with an immediate issue.

But I am going to.....

The pale blue used for items, example "Main Menu" items - Home - Museum - Forum" on the leftmost column of the home page are hard for me to read as they are too faint against the backgrounds. The backgrounds are good, I've tried them all and like them all very much. It's just the text pale blue is hard for me to see. The roll over colour is good, but bit of eyestrain just looking when not rolling over. 

[ivor]

Actually I think that is a bug.  It seems to think I am still using the old template for some things.  I clicked around inside the forum and it went away.  I hope it doesn't come back. Send me a screen shot if you want and I will confirm it.

MB

[Griffin NoName]

Yep, bug. Gone away now. Good show.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Niiiice!  and thanks for the step-by-step in the announcment - I had tried the different template using the template-chooser on the home page, but the results were usually unreadable.  I did not realize that the "look and pref" settings needed to be tweaked as well.

I'm using the green one.   

Again, niiice.

[ivor]

I like thre green one too.

This phantom template problem seem to be happening when I change colors.

MB

Edit:

Hmmm.  I'm only seeing it in FireFox not IE6.  Is that true?  I doubt it.  I am just not seeing it.

[ivor]

Oh!  That little image next to the search text box shows/hides the header.

[Opsa]

Wow! It's gorgeous!

It took me a while to figure out where the SMFOne_Blue area was, particularly since i was trying to read the blue on grey, but I finally got it.

Then I switched to green. I like green, too.

It operates a bit differently, especially the PMs, but I think we'll enjoy getting used to it.

It's loads more cheerful!

Nice work, MB!

[ivor]

Thank you!

I've been working really hard on it.

The PM weirdness is not too bad.  At least they work.  It's still way better than the old template.

If anyone is still seeing dark grey, refresh you browser.  I fixed a couple more issues.

If you have IE6 but use FireFox, use IE6 for a while if you want till I get these little problems fixed.  Not that I think IE6 is a better browser, it's just does not appear to be having these issues.

MB 

[Griffin NoName]

Rather than continue my Moaning Mertle Act, I pulled my finger out and altered the General Board to the new template. Mea Culpa if this is a problem.

[ivor]

It was that bad? 

MB

[Griffin NoName]

Merely a teething problem. The baby is doing fine.

[ivor]

At least it's a better looking baby this time. 

[ivor]

Rather than continue my Moaning Mertle Act, I pulled my finger out and altered the General Board to the new template. Mea Culpa if this is a problem.

You know what's funny?  The General board is set to SMFOne_Blue but it's using SMF Default.    Weird.

Things keep changing on me.  I think I am just tired.  If anybody gets a page they can't read just click somewhere else and come back.  If that doesn't work try using the forum directly at toadfishmonastery.com/forum  I think I will tackle this again tomorrow when I am fresh.

Wait.  I think I know why.  Sorry kids.  I am making the SMFOne_Blue default and ja_avoir_ex the default.

MB

[Griffin NoName]

Well I'm just confusing you too. When I said "General Board" I should have said "General Discussion Board" or even "General Discussion Section" or even "General Discussion Forum". I missed out the word "Discussion".

I am probably further confuzzled as it appears to me that sometimes SMF uses the words "Board" and "Forum" inter-changeably.



The General Board does look slightly different to what I'd expect, at least it did five minutes ago, but it is perfectly fine - readable I would think by anyone.


EDIT ...and in the time it took to post this it has become perfection.    SLEEP MB.