SpaceBuffs.com

[SmashinYoungMan]

Hello, folks. I was hoping to get a bit of feedback on http://www.spacebuffs.com. I recently switched this site over from a Joomla/SMF-based one to Drupal/vBulletin.

It's still not 100% done, but close to it. Mainly, I'm looking for feedback on the arrangement and usability of the navigation elements, though if you want to rip on or compliment the general look, have it it! :)

[PoetJA-1975]

looks really nice - not too busy and not so very cluttered...
But I suppose the busy part would be lovely LOL
Anyway - nice job!

Jacquii.

[SmashinYoungMan]

Thanks, Jacquii. I'm always trying to strike the right balance between eye candy and a clean look.

[Shelley_c]

Very nice theme, an even more excellent style. Colour usage is spot on and the way you intergrated everything into the logo looks very nice and uncluttered.

The different images on each forum was a nice touch, I would have expected this to be cluttered but the words "clean" "uncluttered" come to mind and this has to be one of the best space styles I've seen.

Very nice work. :)

[Rants]

Very nice site. I love how the graphics integrate.

[Luke Beale]

you dont seem to have many members but the theme of it is awesome

[SCRIPT3R]

Hiyas??? kinda goofy :Di would also drop the ads by google, at least until you get rollin'. i can't stand ads at all.

[hotwheels]

Very nice............I really like the way you have that set up.

[MRGTB]

looks good. Nice to see some space themes like that

[Adrian Schneider]

Very nice skin.

The only thing I can suggest is to fix your login area in the navbar. It's not aligned which makes it look bad.

[dnsimmons]

I think it's a very nice forum.

[+buG]

I'm jealous!

[SmashinYoungMan]

Thanks, all. :)

SirAdrian, I've since fixed that, thanks. I've done a bit more work since initially posting this iffins y'all want to take a second look.

[ForumDog]

I adore the forum section background bits...the quarter-moon icon followed by an interesting picture, absolutely beautifully designed. I can see I have to bump up my own a bit!

All tones well, superb design.

[OKIHost]

Awesome job, one of the best done sites I have seen in a while :)

[Neal-UK]

The site looks fantastic, and I actually found your site doing a search for space stuff, think it was yahoo but not sure, before I noticed this thread. I was going to comment on the site when I registered, not sure if I have but if not I will do now.

The style is unique, and i'd love to know who did if for you. If you did it yourself, can you do one for me?? ;-)

I'm quite sure it will do well. Well done!

[Shelley_c]

I've already commented on the style and it's one of the best space orientated themes I've seen for a very long time. however, I forgot to mention (being extremely picky here) that you should replace the stock vbulletin threadmarker icons.

I also noticed the IM Icons look a little shoddy around the edging. Either save them to the correct matte or maybe go with some custom instant messenger icons wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Not essential, though it would be nice to see some custom theme emoticons (maybe space themed).

Excellent style, top notch colour usage. :up:

[SmashinYoungMan]

Neal-UK, thanks for the compliments, and for signing up! I'm especially glad that you initially found the site through a search engine. I hope this means my SEO efforts are beginning to pay off.

To answer your questions, yes I created the theme. I'm a bit busy with other clients just now to take on more work, but feel free to shoot me a PM if you can wait about a week and we can discuss it.

Thanks again, Shelley_c! Customizing the threadmarkers has been on my to-do list for awhile now, but work for other clients while trying to add some content and features to SpaceBuffs' homepage has sort of delayed that.

On the IM icons, the matting is the same color of the alt1 and alt2 backgrounds. Though it could be I neglected to update them when I initally designed a somewhat lighter color scheme...I'll doublecheck. The Skype icon looks pretty bad when using SkypeWeb graphics...not too much I can do about that, sadly.

Thanks for the friendly thoughts and critique! It's always appreciated. :)

Oh, I also wanted to add that I plan on creating a few different skins, each with its own unique theme: Martian Landscape, Jovian Atmosphere, Moonscape, Rings of Saturn, etc. I'll bump this thread for critique on those once I get them done.

[ZacUSNYR]

Looks great!

[SmashinYoungMan]

Thanks, ZacUSNYR!

I've made a new skin for SpaceBuffs called "Martian Landscape". Please check it out, everyone! :)

[Shelley_c]

Another fine example of perfectly implemented colour usage. :up:

You seriously have a thing going with this style and I don't think I can compliment you enough.

Have you submitted your forum to the forum of the month competition? if not, you really should.

[SmashinYoungMan]

Another fine example of perfectly implemented colour usage. :up:

You seriously have a thing going with this style and I don't think I can compliment you enough.

Have you submitted your forum to the forum of the month competition? if not, you really should.
Thanks, again, Shelley_c. :)

Spacebuffs is actually in the running for board of the month of October at vBulletin.com, so I don't think it would be appropriate to submit it here as well. Maybe next month, if I lose out at the other site. :p

[Mark.B]

Thanks, again, Shelley_c. :)

Spacebuffs is actually in the running for board of the month of October at vBulletin.com, so I don't think it would be appropriate to submit it here as well. Maybe next month, if I lose out at the other site. :p
I think I may go and vote for you actually.

Skins bore the hell out of me. Most are dull and uninspiring variations on the same theme, or else they are cluttered and unusable. Yours though is fresh, neat, clean, attractive and different whilst still being usable. A fine job indeed.

[SmashinYoungMan]

Thanks, Mark. B! For the words and the vote...if you voted for SpaceBuffs, that is; the other forums up for vote are quite nice in their own right, and if you picked another, I certainly couldn't blame you! :)

I've added a third style called "Moonscape". Making a style based on a subject as drab looking as the Moon appear interesting was something of a challenge. :p

[SmashinYoungMan]

Bump to mention the new Moonscape skin. I tried to make a new post earlier, but it kept insisting on merging it with the previous post.

[fsk1290]

best I have seen in a while

[MRGTB]

I see you've added two more skins to the collected. There really good. I love them being a space game fan myself. Very cool indeed.

But I will point out there is something wrong with the Moonscape skin regarding the background image just above the footer on the left.

take a look at the image I've attached

[SmashinYoungMan]

Thanks, fsk1290. :)

Gary, I'm looking at your attachment, but can't spot anything wrong. If you're talking about the Earth being closer to the Moon's horizon than it is in the famous original image, then yes, I did move it down quite a bit. lol

[MRGTB]

Thanks, fsk1290. :)

Gary, I'm looking at your attachment, but can't spot anything wrong. If you're talking about the Earth being closer to the Moon's horizon than it is in the famous original image, then yes, I did move it down quite a bit. lol


No when I view your background image. There are bits not blended in as though you choose the wrong colours. I'll take another screen shot and highlight some bits.

Maybe it's my monitor that shows this up only and not yours. The other two skins are fine. But that moon one with the footer image is not. When I take a screen shot, the image captured doesnt look that bad. But when I view that image on your site. I can see it dead easy, miles more that the screen shot shows below. As though you have choosen the wrong colour shade in adobe photoshop to blend things in.

I only pointed it out becuase I don't have that problem with any other skins you have installed. They all look fine.

[MRGTB]

see if another person can see what I can see. becuase it can be a Gamma thing with adobe photoshop if thats what you used. Were the monitor does not show the true colour that you use with Photoshop.

I had this same problem with dark colours on my previous monitor Dawoo monitor. Were it looks fine at my end, then another person told me the colour blending was totally wrong on his monitor when viewing the logo I created. And that was dark colours also

[SmashinYoungMan]

No when I view your background image. There are bits not blended in as though you choose the wrong colours. I'll take another screen shot and highlight some bits.

Maybe it's my monitor that shows this up only and not yours. The other two skins are fine. But that moon one with the footer image is not. When I take a screen shot, the image captured doesnt look that bad. But when I view that image on your site. I can see it dead easy, miles more that the screen shot shows below. As though you have choosen the wrong colour shade in adobe photoshop to blend things in.

I only pointed it out becuase I don't have that problem with any other skins you have installed. They all look fine.
Ah, okay! Frankly, I still can't see it, but the places you highlighted are just the places I cut and dragged to move the Earth (me powerful!...heh) and removed some specks in the original image. I'll need to crank up the brightness on my monitor a couple of notches to make them out. The sky in the original image is a bit darker than the page background, and the background I was working against in photoshop, so that's where you're seeing the difference I suppose. By the third skin, I was guess I was beginning to get a bit careless...shame on me.

Thanks heaps for pointing those out, and I'm going to fix 'em right now! :)

[MRGTB]

Well I wouldn't have pointed it out if it wasn't really obvious. But at my end quite frankly it looks really bad. So yeah, maybe you need to run the gamma tool in the control panel in XP to get the monitor and adobe in sinc with each other. It's a real pain. I know becuase I had the same problem with my old monitor and I could not get it right even after running the gamma tool. And it was always with very dark colours like dark grey and black

Good luck

[SmashinYoungMan]

It should look better now. You're right, I may need to recalibrate my monitor...that's not something I've done in a few months, and that's something that ideally should be done every few weeks.

Thanks again!

Well, I just recalibrated my monitor, and I can definitely see what you're talking about now. Ugh. :p

[MRGTB]

it looks OK now

[SmashinYoungMan]

Forgive me the bump, but I've done a bit of redesigning for those that might be interested. :)

[d8tabyte]

Good lookin site - I couldn't wrap my head around druple - I am a joomla man myself.

[Brian123]

That my friend is a very smart looking site.

[SmashinYoungMan]

Good lookin site - I couldn't wrap my head around druple - I am a joomla man myself.
I was a Joomla fellow myself for a long time. Drupal is very different in form and function, but I'm glad I switched and took the time to learn it. It's better SEO-wise, outputs cleaner code, and seems to be less buggy overall. In my opinion, at any rate.

Regardless, thankee. :)

That my friend is a very smart looking site.
Thanks, Brian! :)

[Justice]

this forum design is stellar

[SmashinYoungMan]

this forum design is stellar
No pun intended? ;)

Thanks for bumping this with the kind words, Justice. :)

[713JunctionP]

very clean and very nice website. :up:

[SkippySkippy]

Amazing site, the theme is absolutely fantastic. All of the thread markers, forum icons, logos, etc. all fit your theme spot-on. Great job, I've signed up!

-Skip

[cheat-master30]

Okay, I really cannot believe I didn't actually review this amazing forum before I posted this, because I know I visited before and liked it. Okay, to actually review, I can say hardly anything negative, at least about the style.

The only change I can ever think you need is the post icons. Which are default. Need to be space based, like everything else.

The logo says exactly what the site is about. The category icons are awesome. You have other pictures of space in the layout. The background goes with the theme perfectly. This is seriously one of the most comprehensive and awesome image changes as far as vBulletin skins go that I have seen, truly sticking to the topic in every way.

vB code is okay, although half don't work on the FAQ page. Nothing important though.

Smilies are excellent, and the space themed ones are the best. Planet emoticons are great, I will truthfully say the Hawkings and Einstein smilies literally made me laugh, but they fit the theme well.

Your forum has plenty to do. Nice gallery. Nicely built home page. By the way, what portal system is that, because it doesn't have a copyright but looks great?

Now, I only have one criticism so far. The low numbers of posts in some forums. You should really work on posting some interesting, in depth articles and topics about the forum subject in certain areas, such as the Astro Biology and UFOs forums, which are in need of more topics for discussion.

Overall though, fantastic style job on this forum, and I hope the forum becomes incredibly successful. If it doesn't become successful, then I will know something is very wrong with the internet today.

[Code Monkey]

The site looks wonderful but it appears to be abandoned.