Oh, right, we're talking about a search engine.
I thought we were talking about image hover stuff.

A HTML5 hover-over that displays the wiki card template would be super cool, but not really needed as long as we have an NGA Gatherer.

Could the following Magic-related smileys be added, please?

:land:
:creature:
:instant:
:sorcery:
:enchantment:
:artifact:

Can't believe I haven't ran into this situation as of yet other than I have less time to devote to DOTP and discussion and that brings me to...
I'm playing DOTP 2015, have Angelic Accord on the battlefield, play Lone Missionary and after he resolve on the board... wait maybe he hadn't hit the battlefield yet... hmmmm

Point is that a search within a thread feature would be awesome. I wanted to see if there were any bugs associated with AA this year and there's already seven pages in the bugs thread.

Anyway I Cloudshifted it and only got one angel token but maybe to hasty now that I think about it and cheated myself out of an etb.

Done:


At the very bottom of the page, on the left side, there's a little "Search for: " box. This searches in the current thread.

We've gotten this exact question enough times that there will probably be a more obvious search box showing up soon, though.

That's what I get for getting stoned after work.

Thanks Welder... I swear I really examined the whole page and didn't see that.

Is there any way to create more animated smilies?

Because if so, Jack keeps wanting to use a smiley with a wizard hat smoking a pipe. I mean..... yeah. At least twice a week. It's even taking over my avatar.

Edit:
It doesn't even have to be animated. A normal one would do.

Has anyone brought up possibly upgrading the look of the forums?

The overall look and format is a bit dated. Would be nice to see something a little more modern.

Also the "new topic" and "post reply" buttons could use some touching up. The left and right radius of the buttons could use the white pixels removed.

What exactly do you mean?

I'd be really wary of "modernizing" the aesthetic for the sake of it. last time a forum I was on tried that, it turned out like this.

Hehe no not like wotc. But it is a valid point.



The forums look fine and work so if it aint broke dont fix. But I just think its odd that the over all look of most forums have not changed. Just skins and themes to change your color pallet.

So much more can be done to change the layout, give some break up in the cascade of post bodies.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv28 ... pnuke3.jpg

Then with a little break up you can have a nice background image show through.

http://www.websitetemplates.bz/images/m ... _0827m.jpg

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/ ... 2zu5ol.jpg

So much more to a page than blocks and text.

Examples of different:

http://www.templates4all.com/wp-content ... -Theme.jpg
http://www.kappazone.com/kappacms/image ... ed_bb1.jpg

yeah none of those look good to me. please don't make the forum like any of those.

About to be heading to work so pardon my brevity, but here are a few notes Neqtan:

1) A suite of themed buttons is in works. Several of them are done already but as the user creating them is doing so for free we're on his time schedule.

2) I have half finished work on a new theme as well as updating both the Grey/Red and Payprus themes but I'm out of country currently so its on pause.

3) Gears are turning to have the site get art commissioned to our specifications. Until that point any logos and backgrounds etc all have to be screened to make sure that we're not using something without permission. But there are definitely plans to have professionally made site banner, logo, front page image, as well as all the various places where we need little things like the wiki logo, twitter, etc.

With all of that said though, we still want the focus to be on easy use and functionality rather than flashy images or glossy frames. Making the place look better is one thing but slowing down the userbase from reaching the content they want is bad. For example how WotC's new boards have the huge blocky buttons that waste space on every single page and the top 500 or so pixels of each page is useless theme pieces.

TL;DR - Several things are in works like buttons, themes, and commissioned art. But we dont want be the next WotC or Windows Vista and give up function for the sake of flashy.

The things I dislike most about those sorts of themes are the same issues WotC currently has:

The Biker Planet and Forged Worlds pages have a huge ocean of dead space for a banner that would eat up a large potion of the top of the page for every single page you view.

The Aion and Nebulae pages scrunch everything down into a sliver down the center of the screen in order to have a cool background on both sides of the content but that means that the actual forums only take up about 2/3 of the page on a normal screen. I use a TV for my desktop monitor and with WotC's current set up I have almost a foot of unused white background on each side of the actual board content because the site doesnt scale for screensize.

you're using it wrong, that empty space is so you can tape pictures of adorable animals to your TV screen without interrupting your forum experience. it's actually very considerate.

Those all look really, really Early 2000s. >_<

reminds me of what the forums over at WotC looked like before the current set up along with the complaints from that time too..what if i don't want to see what's going on in forums that i don't care about, what's with the large block of tags,can i get it to show tags i care about etc...

Sapper thanks for the response. All the additions in motion sound great. Look forward to seeing them go live. I can appreciate the stance on quality and ease of use. The links were merely examples of different styles and features not so much templates to base fully upon. I agree on dead space as well and utilizing a pages potential. Im using the papyrus theme now and I like the look of it.

Like Keeper said there is a feel of early 2000's in many of the examples but as it stands this current look feels mid 90's

trappedslider I agree with you about the link resembling an old wotc layout. But for its purpose that link was intended, to show a little separation in post boxes and a little character to there frames. Im just not fond of forum posts being jumbled together one on top of the other, a little break up in space looks good to me aesthetically. But my taste may not be mirrored by many and thats alright.

Obliviously I didn't take it to mean you wanted themes exactly like the screenshots, I was just pointing out the major flaws (in my opinion) of those layouts, which also happen to be those that WotC has fallen into. Making the used screen smaller while making the borders larger, buttons larger, and space between everything full of more dead space not only makes so less content appears on the screen at any give but also means you have to do more scrolling and it takes more time to get from one thing to the next.

I've always felt that adding more pixel count between posts only serves to fill the page with even more dead space... lengthening the amount of a page you must scroll to either find what you need or to read everything. The space cant be used for anything, even on the pages that let their background 'peak through'. Obviously if posts are jammed too close together its hard to sort out, but currently all themes have a clearly defined point between one post and the next in addition to the fact that alternating colors between posts helps break up the monotony.

Always feel free to post more suggestions, especially with accompanying screenshots, either here or in a thread specifically for the topic. ((There were previously threads for themes but at this point a new one could likely be started.)) But of course do keep in mind that people may critique them and of course remember that the further a theme layout strays from those in place the more work will have to be put into making sure it works correctly or that content displays correctly across all themes. For example some people enjoy a dark background with light text, but if a user is posting in colored text that shows up great on say Papyrus it might be totally unreadable on a black background.

Are the skins just written in simple CSS?