Xelation Forums!

[Arkham]

Originally posted by Xelation
After months of waiting with nearly 50 hacks installed and over 200 template edits its here! Xelation forums have officially opned it's doors!

http://www.xelation.com go ahead check it out, tell me what you think

It's all really good looking, though a bit too ornamental. Not as functional as I'd like to see, esp. on a narrowband connection. Can't wait to see the narrow theme!

I like that you've gone back to a vertical header, with user/post info above the post. Anyone who puts it at the top instead of the side gets high marks from me. There are only a couple forums out there doing that, and I myself have been planning this since day 1. (It was one of the first threads I posted on vbulletin.com last year - Ah..memories...). I much prefer that style, since it's the 'original' BBS layout. (Ha! Let's see InfoPop claim to have invented that one too...)

There's far too much dead space on the right hand side, though. Tighten it up and it should look better.

Unfortunately it's Yet Another Site with all that visual pollution in the header. ("PS Tutorial Header Syndrome", even if it was made from scratch.) That style was cool on '95 desktop themes, but it's far too common now. (Though your landing splash page is gorgeous... Here's to the Blob!! Whoohoo. I'd like to see that in the header instead.)

I think the default text size overall is too small, but then again it fits in with the techy feeling of the site. Good clear font anyway. Thread- and post-wise it's balanced nicely.

Too bad you're using that ugly font on the buttons, though. That style's getting a bit tired too. Way too many buttons out there using it; but hey, if you like it...

To add a bit more punch to the forum listings, remove the moderator column. Unless there are very specific reasons to have it there, I think it's a waste of space. More ego-stoking than anything, and it's visually intrusive.

All in all, a gorgeous theme with good colour balance (some of the postbit gfx could be defined better, but hey... it's supposed to be dark.)