Fathers' Right Forums
 

Ok, everyone, here it is. Please look things over and let me know what you think. I still have a ways to go but I would like your ideas on what has been done so far. And please be gentle. Pretend it's my very first time. ;)

http://www.bearfacts2.com/forum/

Nice style, gentle on the eyes but still very stylish.

Good spread of forums. Might be a couple too many to start with especially with the courts forums and the bears den sub forums.

Is there any particular reason why you have both the yellow unregistered bar AND the guest message on all pages? It seems a bit like overkill to me. I'd be tempted to drop the yellow bar, it doesn't look very eye pleasing there.

In your threads and forums (showthread and forumdisplay), you have a massive gap between the navbar and the thread title, then again between the thread title and the post reply button. It's probably an after effect of the quotes hack, but worth checking out.

Finally, is there any reason why you have the default style still available? If not, I'd remove it from public view.

Overall, looking good. Good luck with it.

I don't see a yellow unregistered bar anywhere. Where do you see something yellow?

The gap was something I added to make it stand out but now that I have made the thread and forum titles smaller, I don't need that. Thanks for catching that. I'll remove the extra breaks shortly. ;)

the default style was only still available as I was testing some things in unregistered mode and I needed to enable it to get to it. That won't be available shortly.

I will make the corrections and let you know so you can re-check it. And thank you very much for the feedback. ;)

Heres a quick screenie with the yellow bar in place. This was taken in FF (latest version) and unfortunately is a bmp file as I still haven't got round to reinstalling photoshop.

Ahhh, that. I forgot about that. I will remove it. Thanks! ;)

As far as the space between navbar and the thread title, I'm not sure how to get rid of that. I haven't added anything for that anywhere. Any ideas where I might start to look? The quotes box is what the guest welcome message used to be so that can't be it. You're welcome to take a look if you want. Maybe you can spot something I haven't. ;)

I'd say it's because the thread title is <h1>'ed .. try defining the h1 class in your custom css styles and make sure to define the padding.

It might be something to do with the placement of the h1 tags in the template along with the final <br /> in the navbar. It certainly looks that way. I might be able to come up with a work around, but it is the polls that cause the biggest problem as the gap between the title and the poll is fine, it's the new reply/thread buttons when it looks odd.

Yep, I am right... except for the padding part.

In your .css :
Change the 20s to 5s and it looks a lot nicer.

While you are at it, change the padding on the h2 class too to match.

How can I change this:

<h1 style="text-align:center;">$thread[title]</h1>

to just use font size and still be centered?

Actually, in FF at least, having the top one set to -10px gets rid of the extra space at the top.

Please check it again. I changed the 20 to 5 like you said. ;)

That is only used for the red lettering the in unregistered box at the top. I don't use that anywhere else.

Thats much better :)

Did he tell you he got a new phone?
http://www.bearfacts2.com/forum/show...?p=221#post221

Looks good Boofo, but 17 queries?! Come on... ;)

Thank you. ;)

I had to add another break before the polls to get it to show even. I think it is ok. Not too much space now is it?

You had your chance to help me with the queries, but you blew it, missy! I'm adding 87 more queries to the forumhome just to teach you a lesson. And I'm NOT telling you about my new cell phone. :p

Looks even in FF. Much better.

Thank you for helping me get that straightened out and for the feedback. I didn't get ripped by everyone as bad as I thought I was going to. LOL But the day is young yet. ;)

Hi boofo

Hello there, sir. How's it going? ;)

I agree with peterska2 in that your style is very appealing. I like the use of colors; no eye-fatigue factor here. :)

Thank you, sir. Coming from the greatest "backwards legacy postbit" maker there is that means alot, seriously. ;)

The colour scheme is nice, but I don't see why you're squishing your forum at that small width. I think you could make it a bit wider to reduce clutter.

You can probably do with a few less forums too. Under 15 is always good, so not much to cut.

Besides that, I gots nothing else to say. :)

I had some users that were still at 800x600 on my lasat site so I set it like that for them mostly. If I expand it, I have to get a new header. What do you suggest to expand it to?

I did remove so forums already. I'll see what I can do about tweaking some more. ;)

And thank you, sir, for the feedback. ;)

nice design.. you made it yerself?

Yes and no, I guess. It's been tweaked so many times that it doesn't look anywhere near what it did when I first started out. I've had a lot of help along the way, so that is the no part. ;)

Many (trend setting) web designers are opting to go with fixed widths for their layout (generally between 760px to 780px). Fixed widths are easier to read (less eye movement from left-to-right) and placements of buttons/links are closer to one another. Unless you have loads of information on a page you want filled on a screen without the need to scroll then I'd leave it as you have now.

The main table width is set at 777. I think, like you said, it is easeir to read and looks good the way it is. And I'm ready for those few and far between dinosaurs that are still using 800x600. Seriously, though, there are a lot of people that still use 800x600. When you get older, the ol' eyse ain't what they used to be. ;)

Thank you, sir, for the feedback. )

Thoughts: small j on join, bold participate not browse, hide quotes box from unregistered, add child support forum, merge PAS and custody issues. Good job getting all those blues to mesh.

I can't hide the quote box from unregistered users. The way I have the forums split, it leaves an empty table and a space if I take it out. So I was planning on showing quotes to registered users and some sort of Father statistics to the unregistered users. The table for the quotes box is actually split between 2 templates. No way to get around it, I've tried. :(

PAS isn't really about custody, although it is about the kids. Custody has more to do with the law as PAS has more to do with the psychological part of it, if that makes any sense. That's why I didn't include it in the courts area. I will be adding more forums as we get more activity. A child support forum is one of the first ones to add as we need it. I just didn't want a lot of empty forums to start out with. ;)

Getting the blues to mesh was a nightmare at first but then got easier as we went along. I'm no designer and I suck at HTML and CSS, although I am learning some nifty little CSS tricks lately, thanks to a few members here. And having a ball doing it. ;)

The main CSS trick I had always wanted to learn was how to change the color of the text in a link and still have it do the default mouse-over color of the rest of the links. Just doing font color = doesn't work. CSS saves the day again. And now I have it working on the site in a few places. ;)

Good catch on the text mistakes. Changed now. ;)

And thank you very much for the feedback. ;)

P.A.S. = Manipulating children = Lasting affect on Child(ren) = Sad

As for CSS, it's the BOMB! :classic:

My oldest son is the classic victim of PAS, and that is the harderst part in all of this. I've lost so much with him, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to get it back. :(

And yes, CSS is great. I still have a lot to learn about it, but hopefully, I will. ;)

I'm sorry to hear about your situation, Boofo, in all seriousness. While I'm no authority in the subject matter I do empathize with you. I've handled a few cases that involved children in a tug-of-war between soon-to-be or divorced parents.

For CSS I'm constantly learning too; that's the cool thing about it. If you ever need help let me know. Then again, with your drive to learn I'll probably come to you in no time. :)

Thank you for the kind comments. All I can do is stick it out because without me, my kids don't have a chance. ;)

I've still got a long way to go in the CSS world. I'm sure you'll be hearing from me soon in that area. And thank you for the offer of help. You will probably live to regret making that offer. ;)

Just from what I'm gathering you'll stand strong for your children. Continue to be proactive. BTW...I replied; was running back and forth in the process.

Nah. I'm learning at the same time so it's all good. We'll just work it together. :classic:

Thanks again for the kind comments. It does mean a lot. ;)

I'm sure there are some neat little tricks we can come up with in the CSS area. Looking forward to brainstorming with it. ;)

NP. :)

I'm looking forward with any CSS ideas. :classic:

Primetime lawyer? o_O

Well you know how I already feel about your site ;) Great job Bob :D