Let's all face it, the Shack's layout is not good. Images and names (cough) can break the format, the entire forum is crunched into a small part of your screen, and from what Nefari has told me, its myBB version is outdated. With a new admin in place, a new layout is now possible, so this is the perfect time to suggest this.

1. Update the forum's version of myBB.
This is definitely the most obvious, as it could potentially fix many issues with the forum, without any other input. It can also allow for new features. myBB 2.0.0 is coming out very soon, and it's easier to update to newest versions from more updated versions, so it's definitely very important.

2. Add scaling for larger monitors.
This is definitely the most glaring issue to the common user. It's absolutely ridiculous that this forum does not have automatic scaling. Here is a picture of my screen when I go on this site. The actual forum takes up barely anything, compared to those huge blue rectangles! Combined with the user info on the side of every post taking up 1/4 of the actual used area, forum posts are scrunched into really small areas. This needs to be fixed immediately.

3. Fix format breaking.
This is definitely a bug that will most likely be fixed from updating myBB, but it is still a rather large issue. If someone quotes or spoilers a picture, creates a really long string of quotes, or has a really long name (again, cough) or user title, the format goes to shit. Just look at one of Baron's posts. I don't know how easy this will be to fix, but it will almost definitely be worth it.

Miscallaneous things

1. Rating threads. As DHD explained in this thread, this is a smaller issue, but still an issue. Here is an image supplied by DuckHuntDog, showing how little of a difference there really is. It would probably be better to remove thread rating, as it's not used, but if it won't be removed, it might as well be made more usable.

2. Dark Mode.
As suggested before by myself, this would darken the colors and backgrounds of the forum to be more suitable to use at night. Along with a little switch to toggle it at the bottom of the page, this would help many users like me who browse the shack at night, even if the colors aren't too bright.

3. WYSIWYG Editor.
If you don't know what a WYSIWYG editor is, when adding italics or quotes to a post in the editor, it shows them in the box, so you do not have to constantly hit "Preview Post". Other forums have this, along with an option to see the "raw" text. The Shack is the only forum I have been on that does not have this. Adding a post editor like this would modernize the shack and make it much easier to quickly edit posts.

4. New banner.
The current banner has nothing wrong with it aside from the pony, but if scaling is to be added, then this banner will be unfitting. A new banner is needed if scaling is to be added, unless it'll be removed, or just left the way it is and look bad with the scaling. Without any ideas, however, this can't be implemented, so new ideas for this would be appreciated.

This list is rather small right now, but I encourage you all to add your own suggestions, and I will add them to this list.

The only problem is I feel like we shouldn't be trying to do so much all at once. There's a lot seeker and the mods are trying to work out right now and having a giant list of changes would be a lot to ask. I just don't want everyone expecting too much out of them not specifically you but everyone because once one person asks for something a group of people start asking for things, we don't wanna overload them.

(12-04-2016, 02:06 AM)HONEYPANTS!! Wrote: The only problem is I feel like we shouldn't be trying to do so much all at once. There's a lot seeker and the mods are trying to work out right now and having a giant list of changes would be a lot to ask. I just don't want everyone expecting too much out of them not specifically you but everyone because once one person asks for something a group of people start asking for things, we don't wanna overload them.

I really don't think this is something that should be considered when suggesting new things. Don't worry about overloading us with ideas.
There are things we've been trying to work on, but that's no reason not to consider other changes that could happen in the future. Also, updating the forum version is a huge priority and needs to be done as soon as possible, so I'm glad other people are considering and posting about it.
If there is something that's preventing someone from enjoying the forum, we should be encouraging them to post about it.

(12-04-2016, 02:06 AM)HONEYPANTS!! Wrote: because once one person asks for something a group of people start asking for things

You treat these as little, unimportant add-ons like a buddy system, but these are pretty major flaws. an outdated version, while unnoticeable to regular users, is rather large, and a lack of scaling is extremely obvious and can make it harder to use this site.

(12-04-2016, 02:06 AM)HONEYPANTS!! Wrote: because once one person asks for something a group of people start asking for things

You treat these as little, unimportant add-ons like a buddy system, but these are pretty major flaws. an outdated version, while unnoticeable to regular users, is rather large, and a lack of scaling is extremely obvious and can make it harder to use this site.

Note: they're long-overdue because many people have suffered issues like the size of the forum base screen for up to four years and it's really time to make the upgrade. As we have new mods and a new admin these changes are much more possible. It seems fitting as we have new changes of moderators and administrators to make new changes to the growing forum as well, which will help in the long run, even if they take a really long time.

It's absolutely a necessity. It's a very, very basic requirement for most forums, and I'm honestly shocked that we didn't have it.
So, a few things:Why doesn't it scale now?
The Shack is currently sized so that the board perfectly fits underneath the banner. This is so that the board itself appears the same exact width to everyone. However, on larger screens, this means that the size of the blue background bars on either size of the board will increase in size. Here's the example that Baddy linked.Here is how it looks on my laptop. As you can see, the banner looks exactly the same (950px!) on both of them, while the blue bars are of different sizes. Because the forum appears larger to me on my laptop, I'm able to browse the forum without needing to squint and lean forward to distinguish the things on my massive, overexpensive monitor.
So, if we adjusted it to scale, Baddy would get the same amount of proportional blue space as I do.

Will the banner scale up with the rest of the forum?
Unfortunately, no. Currently, the banner you see in the header is the largest version of the banner we have. Without a way to upscale the size without losing quality, we're unable to scale the banner to fit with the forum width.
This means that Baddy would see more padding--the dark gray background in between the banner and the blue background--than I would on my smaller screen.

What are the current dimensions, and why is the current size a bad thing?
The banner and the padded border--i.e., the entire forum width--currently take up a total of 962px.
On my laptop, the forum takes up 70% of the screen.
On a 1680x1050 monitor, the forum takes up 57% of the screen.
On larger monitors like Baddy's, it takes up even less.
An average forum takes up 70-80% of a user's screen. We should aim to stay within this range. <57% is unacceptable.

Is it easily fixable?
Yes! Actually, I already have the code prepared, and can send it to Seeker at any time. Before going through with that, though, I want to make sure everyone is aware that, once this is updated, larger monitors will see more black background when viewing the forum. However, the overall amount of space that the forum takes up will increase proportionately to fit your screens.