The new look! [Archive]

ThePenguin

04-15-2008, 05:46 PM

I've talked about the Content Management System that the rest of the website is going to be in. Well, the Ledge will be separate from that. It's going to continue to be in its own software application. But as you can see, the color scheme for the first page has changed a bit in an attempt to match the new design.

I will point to the new design, but I know some of you devils will be unhappy with it.

Also, don't anyone (like Chili) start prematurely thinking I'm neglecting the original band members, because I plan to put their pictures in the big portal slot too. It's a work in progress people!

http://www.fleetwoodmac.net/fwm

strandinthewind

04-15-2008, 05:47 PM

^^^

Thanks for your efforts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stew_Matthews

04-15-2008, 06:14 PM

I like the new home page and the design/layout. A real improvement...... I appreciate it takes time and money to achieve this.

Ms Moose

04-15-2008, 06:32 PM

Sarah

04-15-2008, 06:41 PM

I think it's sweeeeeeet. It's been a while since we've had a change. I'm excited to see how it all ends up!

Thanks for all your hard work!

ThePenguin

04-15-2008, 06:44 PM

I am sorry - since a lot of thought obviously has gone into this (and I don't want to offend anybody who has worked hard on this) - but I don't like the new look at all, and I absolutely HATE that brown colour! :eek:

Please change it back again :shocked:

Ms Moose

Nope, it's too late. Everything is already written in stone. I don't think there will be another change (color and design wise) for a long, long time. Hopefully, content will always continually change.

kathy1

04-15-2008, 07:02 PM

i love the new look. i was wondering if the home page will ever change.

danax6

04-15-2008, 07:25 PM

Nope, it's too late. Everything is already written in stone. I don't think there will be another change (color and design wise) for a long, long time. Hopefully, content will always continually change.So, not even the illegible text? Those aren't petty complaints, those are very practical ones.

In graphic design class, the first lesson I was taught was: make sure your text is always easy to read. :shrug:

stevierocks87

04-15-2008, 09:15 PM

Thanks for your efforts, but I must say that the light brown thread titles are difficult to read against the white screen, and this font isn't as readible as the previous one.

blackroses

04-15-2008, 10:00 PM

I don't like it either, but I also understand that it's impossible to please all the people all the time, so the work and effort are appreciated. It seems that there are plenty of members who love it. I just personally hate this particular color scheme, and don't think these colors represent Fleetwood Mac at all. I would never think of associating these colors with the group, but that's just my opinion. And I also agree that some of the text color is too much the same as the background it sits on. Yellowish or tan background with gold text is not at all good for viewing. But many thanks for the efforts. I can live with it either way, but it's just not my cup of tea.

michelej1

04-15-2008, 10:18 PM

i love the new look. i was wondering if the home page will ever change.

Yes, eventually the home page will change into this:

http://www.fleetwoodmac.net/fwm

BTFLCHLD

04-15-2008, 11:16 PM

poopcentral :eek:

Madness Fades

04-16-2008, 03:33 AM

Wow Very Different. I Love the new Logo at the top of the page its very grand.
There should be more of a golden shimmer of that dark brown colour.
But very nice nevertheless.
Good work.
I would like to point out that if we had been used to this for the last few years then it changed to the blue colour i would not have liked it. I thought the blue was very wishy washy and annoying on the eyes.

GODDESS6

04-16-2008, 05:30 AM

love the new "Ledge" look!!! Kudos to the Ledge gods!

me too, what a pleasent surprise when i woke up~

suzyvermoesen

04-16-2008, 06:05 AM

Love the logo at the top of the page and i also like the brown a lot.
And after discovering that all the text goes dark when you move the cursor over it, i have no complaints at all. Nice work !!!

eric51078

04-16-2008, 07:10 AM

It really is fantastic! Great job!

sara1998

04-16-2008, 07:30 AM

I really like this... quite the change, but sometimes, change is good. We just don't realize it yet.

#1LiddyBuckFan

04-16-2008, 09:01 AM

Fantastic! Very classy looking! :thumbsup:

Thank you for all the hard work!! :wavey:

WildHeart69

04-16-2008, 09:38 AM

yeah, really great new look! Much better! :thumbsup:

Villavic

04-16-2008, 11:17 AM

Yes, eventually the home page will change into this:

http://www.fleetwoodmac.net/fwm

I love the Ledge and homepage new looks !!!!!!

Villavic

04-16-2008, 11:22 AM

BTW.. I think you already are doing a great job. But, are there plans to update biographies? Some of them are a bit old, i mean no info beyond the late 90s or early 2000s.

gldstwmn

04-16-2008, 11:32 AM

Love it! :woohoo:

Steviefan49

04-16-2008, 11:50 AM

me too, what a pleasent surprise when i woke up~

I know.. I didn't get to come on yesterday at all due to being SWAMPED at work, and I SOOOO love the changes! Thanks SO much Michele!! Great job!:thumbsup:

ThePenguin

04-16-2008, 11:50 AM

BTW.. I think you already are doing a great job. But, are there plans to update biographies? Some of them are a bit old, i mean no info beyond the late 90s or early 2000s.

Eventually. One of the reasons that the site material is being moved into a Content Management System is so that updates could be made without having to access the database, which I could not do. When everything is moved, I plan on updating each section, but gradually. Once the bios are current, it will be time to update them all over again. But I suppose that's a good thing, if it means that FM continues to evolve.

Bella Figura

04-16-2008, 11:55 AM

I love the look, very classy and elegant...:wavey:

Madness Fades

04-16-2008, 12:41 PM

Okay now im totally uesd to it and it is much much better than the previous.
Well Done !!

BTFLCHLD

04-16-2008, 12:43 PM

yes the brown seems to be darkening...will take time to get used to the font...but otherwise...nice.

blackroses

04-16-2008, 12:50 PM

It looks different since I posted last night. The text is now easier to see. It appears there have been some color changes since yesterday. It's much better. The orange is a little overpowering though, but that's ok. :) I'm just weird about colors.

ThePenguin

04-16-2008, 02:57 PM

Indeed, the orange seems a bit incongruent to me as well. I think I want things to stay in the brown category. I imagine I was too influenced by the United Parcel Service's slogan: What Can Brown Do For You?

I know how easy today's websites are. I have a free blog and you can just choose from lots of different templates and make it look any way you like, within 5 minutes.

I also have a website with Yahoo. I think it costs about $11.95 per month and I just built it myself. I downloaded Sitebuilder software. It's got a windows interface that makes it like "Websites for Dummies." There are drop down palettes and preview boxes that make changing things very easy.

But The Penguin website is a bit different. There's no template panel to turn to. Things can be changed, but you have to know how to read or write script to do it. Just offhand, I never knew that symbols like "YYYCCCdd" could stand for the color green! So, on this website, change is not something I can effect myself. It's something that costs money, which isn't always handy. Sometimes you hire someone to do something and they don't come through. When the people didn't finish the Vbulletin (Ledge) part of the migration a couple of weeks ago, I had to go on one of those outsourcing websites to find help. So, the move was actually an international effort, with help from Romania, India and Russia!

Luckily the design is being handled by someone closer to home in California and I think it's going well. No one is going to like the final product 100%, including myself.
I'm just glad it's turning into something I can both live with and afford. Baby steps.

BTFLCHLD

04-16-2008, 03:00 PM

actually, where has this font been all mylife? I like it! :]

JazmenFlowers

04-16-2008, 03:04 PM

honestly, after being away for quite a while, in the time it has taken me to make 2 posts, I have a headache from these colors and fonts. sorry.

where is that damn "favorite fonts" thread? I know it's here somewhere. :lol:

David

04-16-2008, 03:22 PM

How come so many people hate this font? I love it. It's the same font as that used in the Gowers 1965 version of Fowler's "Modern English Usage." I have always had a fetishistic attraction to this font, regarding it as indicative, or even emblematic, of the 19th century look of philological tracts & Victorian-era printing.

Please leave font as is. Is it Georgia? It looks like Georgia.

See "Modern English Usage" (Oxford University Press) for an example.

strandinthewind

04-16-2008, 03:23 PM

JazmenFlowers

04-16-2008, 03:31 PM

the problem with the fonts is that the letters of each word are sometimes too close to each other to be comfortable for everyone. this font is also a lot more "loopy" which can also make it hard to read. especially, like Michelle said, for someone like us that have recently had LASIK.

and is it just me or are the fonts all different on different boards and user CP areas?

Gypsy-Rhiannon

04-16-2008, 03:53 PM

What font should I be seeing?

Quite a change... certainly woke me up when I came on this morning!

blackroses

04-16-2008, 04:43 PM

I could not understand the comments about the fonts either, which is because of the browser I use, and it's settings. I just opened my Internet Explorer, which is set to use the webpage's fonts, and it looks completely different. The only thing that was bothering me before, was the color of the text blending too much with the background, but it's better now.

If you hate these fonts, you can change your browser settings to choose your own fonts. If you don't want to mess with settings (although changing the fonts back and forth is quite easy), you can get another type of browser for viewing this site, and set it so that it ignores webpage fonts and uses the ones you specify. It's just an idea, but these fonts look OK to me. Maybe changing the font size in your settings will help? Also, you can even set the browser to ignore the colors on the webpage and choose your own. Just some ideas for those who hate the colors or fonts. :)

Gypsy-Rhiannon

04-16-2008, 04:45 PM

I could not understand the comments about the fonts either, which is because of the browser I use, and it's settings. I just opened my Internet Explorer, which is set to use the webpage's fonts, and it looks completely different. The only thing that was bothering me before, was the color of the text blending too much with the background, but it's better now.

If you hate these fonts, you can change your browser settings to choose your own fonts. If you don't want to mess with settings (although changing the fonts back and forth is quite easy), you can get another type of browser for viewing this site, and set it so that it ignores webpage fonts and uses the ones you specify. It's just an idea, but these fonts looks OK to me. Maybe changing the font size in your settings will help? Also, you can even set the browser to ignore the colors on the webpage and choose your own. Just some ideas for those who hate the colors or fonts. :)

Ah yes... I see what you mean. I use Firefox and I just opened the site with IE... I prefer how the font looks on firefox

blackroses

04-16-2008, 04:56 PM

Ah yes... I see what you mean. I use Firefox and I just opened the site with IE... I prefer how the font looks on firefoxYes, there will be a difference. The formatting tends to look different in various browsers too. Just keep in mind that you can also change the settings in IE so that it looks different too.

danax6

04-16-2008, 05:06 PM

In both IE and Firefox you can change the font to your own liking. You don't have to stick with this current one if you don't like it.

Thanks for updating the color scheme. This makes it a lot easier to read.

blackroses

04-16-2008, 06:14 PM

Just for fun, I made a screen shot of this board, showing how different it can look by changing your browser settings. I went with a metal look, aluminum and gold text, to match the logo. However, this is not necessarily the color scheme I would have chosen, but is only meant to show you how drastically you can change the look of this board on your own computer.

http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/8301/ledge3py9.jpg
Click the magnifier to enlarge.

estranged4life

04-16-2008, 06:56 PM

Like the new looks, Cool design...Cudos...

and cheers!!!

Brian "the M.I.A. Ledgie" j.

goldie

04-16-2008, 10:48 PM

love the new look!!!!

billwebster

04-17-2008, 09:23 AM

Oops, now it looks comfortable like a couch made of leather. :eek:

CrystalVisions

04-17-2008, 09:47 AM

I just wanted to say how much I love the changes, the colors, and the new site design, Michelle. Great job! I know how hard it is, too, having designed and maintained my own site for years, and I also helped Marty with some of the graphics here, on the old pages. I love the font ~ it's my favorite, and the one I use on my site too. Congratulations and keep up the great work! :thumbsup:

David

04-17-2008, 11:18 AM

I just wanted to say how much I love the changes, the colors, and the new site design, Michelle. But who is this Michelle? This mystery woman? This Distant Voice from the Valley? Is she Helen of Troy? Is she Isolde? Is she Maid Marian? Is she both Death & the Maiden? What makes her tick? Where do her crucial ironies cluster? Does she stand apart -- or within & withover -- the normative tradition of Ledge owners & operators? Is her font built on a rock? Can redemption be her motive, or motivic development be her redemption (as in my case)?

Betsy

04-17-2008, 07:01 PM

After the stress of the Ledge being down, and now having a newly decorated place to visit, and have company, I commend you, Michele on the new digs.

Thanks for caring.

TulsaMINI

04-18-2008, 08:52 AM

I like it! It's a very refreshing change. Good job!! :thumbsup:

Blue Lamp 64

04-20-2008, 08:48 AM

Hello everyone long time no see :wavey:
I really should come here more offen LOL

I want to let the Admins know that you all done a great gob for upgrading this wanderful forum :thumbsup::thumbsup:
Look great!! :angel:

kathy1

04-21-2008, 10:00 AM

i love the new home page also.

eclipse

04-21-2008, 11:25 AM

I love it- Looks classy and I love the brown,
I sense, almost more of a subdued feeling when I saw the first page.
As I am sure lots of effort and hours went into this--
excellent job!!!!

Ms Moose

04-21-2008, 03:37 PM

I am sorry - since a lot of thought obviously has gone into this (and I don't want to offend anybody who has worked hard on this) - but I don't like the new look at all, and I absolutely HATE that brown colour! :eek:

Please change it back again :shocked:

Ms Moose

A lot of ledgies seem to love this new look.....and I feel like a sour old bat now because of my earlier comment. I didn't even like these colours in the seventies when they were really trendy, but there you go I am already getting used to it....

One thing I must say though is that I really like the logo at the top of the page. That is really nice.

Ms Moose

Blue Lamp 64

04-23-2008, 02:19 PM

I like the background color:)
It alot better than the white was here also bring out the forum better:]

BTFLCHLD

04-23-2008, 03:29 PM

love the header quicklinks :thumbsup:

michelej1

04-23-2008, 03:34 PM

love the header quicklinks :thumbsup:

Well, they aren't all filled in right now. But at least they're there!

Michele

Gypsy-Rhiannon

04-23-2008, 03:37 PM

Well, they aren't all filled in right now. But at least they're there!

Michele

They seem to be working for me

BTFLCHLD

04-23-2008, 03:54 PM

Well, they aren't all filled in right now. But at least they're there!

Michele I know babe, but it looks fantastic...I am very excited about the new stuff now.

michelej1

04-23-2008, 09:01 PM

They seem to be working for me

Some of the content hasn't been transferred over (like Blue Letter Archives and Second Hand News), so when you click on the navigation button, you don't get anything, yet. But it's still accessible if you start from www.fleetwoodmac.net as the home page.

Glad you were able to change your avatar. I wondered if that was working for you or not.

Michele

Gypsy-Rhiannon

04-24-2008, 03:39 AM

Some of the content hasn't been transferred over (like Blue Letter Archives and Second Hand News), so when you click on the navigation button, you don't get anything, yet. But it's still accessible if you start from www.fleetwoodmac.net as the home page.

Glad you were able to change your avatar. I wondered if that was working for you or not.

Michele

Yep.. the avatar thing works great now! Thanks for sorting it out!

shackin'up

04-25-2008, 03:53 PM

I like it. It's just the font. It's BEAUTIFUL. But still, for online reading on a messageboard, it doesn't fit imo. I get tired very quick, which I normally don't do...

MacMan

04-25-2008, 06:46 PM

I like the new look.. I just checked out the "Home" page.. Pretty cool. Will look really great when everything is up and running.

As for the font... Seems fine to me, I read somewhere (and I don't know what type of font this is), but that fonts with a little turn on the end, like "Times New Roman", is actually easier to read, then say a font like "arial". I suppose it's all a matter of opinion.

The only thing that doesn't stand out for me is if I've read a thread or not... there's not much difference between a bold thread heading and a thread that I've already visited. But other then that... looks great!