Saddlerrad
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2014
- Messages
- 4,077
- Reaction score
- 1,110
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Staffordshire
- Supports
- Walsall
We can officially welcome you to the Brand New, full capacity 1FF for the time!
A new skin is something that I had been looking at building over the summer time for quite a few months. Something that was a little more modern, something that allowed the site to expand easily and well, something that gave us a platform to continually build and generate a big and active member base. I'm not sure whether we have achieved that, but we have certainly tried (although it's not quite at 100% yet with regards to the header and logo).
So what exactly has changed?
The Logo & Header
Gone are the sponsors clogging up the main navbar at the top of the page and forward comes a secondary nav where we can allow any sponsors and advertisers to keep their position at the top of the website without causing the actual official site menubar to look a mess. We ditched the white background and moved to a 'boxed' feature. Something that isn't quite finished yet, but will eventually look very slick (few problems with the design being unresponsive to the mobile format, so it's not finalised by any means yet). You will notice that your PM box is now seperate to the menubar, nice and clear in the top right handside.
What have we added? What's changed?
The Hub.
Previously recognised as the home page, we wanted somewhere that brings all aspects of the site together with a simple click of a button. The Hub is basically the 'homepage' of the forum, where you can see 'everything' you would want all in one click. A page that lists, the latest blogs, the latest threads, the latest posts, who is online - virtually everything all together on one page.
'QuizMaster'
Quite excited by this one. The box has been the place to be when it comes to the annual 1FF evening quiz. However, this can no longer be the case. As seen below, we have a brand new plug-in to take advatange of. This is going to take some trialing but this has all sorts. The ability to build a quiz of your own, add time limits to answers, build any quiz you want, hell we can even build a league table of quiz-goers!
Media
We have to remove this plugin a few months back, this one is fairly simple. You can upload game highlights, team highlights, films trailers, virtually anything you want, within reason and then either embed it to the main forum page, insert it into a thread or just leave it as it is and let everyone see exactly what they want!
In addition to these new features. We will once again be running the prediction league next season. The software we run this forum on has probably the best, most simple automated system to predict on anywhere on the net at the moment. The blog feature is available to ALL 1FF members and any new blogs will be promoted to the home page where anybody will be able to feast on them at the touch of a button.
You will have noticed that in addition to 'new threads' - 'new blogs' has been added down the right hand section of the forum. Again giving the blog section some extra clarity as we look to push this and expand a new userbase in this department. The members online and site stats now sit at the bottom of the website in a much more traditional forum layout. This all without the brand new site store we intend on adding, the more obvious state of the art social media buttons and the ease of which you can navigate round the entire forum.
Just a quick point from me. This was my design idea and anybody that doesn't like anything, feel free to give me any heat and anything you'd like changing within reason, feel free to post - you will not offend. Simply put, without the work of TB and Russ from PixelEdit this theme would have had absolutely no legs to stand on, I am thicker than thick when it comes to the official workings of website designs - so a huge thanks to TB from me personally for having the patience to listen to me saying 'PUT THIS COLOUR OF BLUE ON THIS BAR PLEASE MATE' repeatedly.
Any feedback is great...have added a poll
PS - Anybody who detests it that much, the option to go back to the old skin is absolutely available on the very bottom left of your footer where it says '1FF' hit that button and the old skin will be available at the click of a button.
Welcome, enjoy and lets push on to be the very best Sports Forum on the net!
Saddler.
A new skin is something that I had been looking at building over the summer time for quite a few months. Something that was a little more modern, something that allowed the site to expand easily and well, something that gave us a platform to continually build and generate a big and active member base. I'm not sure whether we have achieved that, but we have certainly tried (although it's not quite at 100% yet with regards to the header and logo).
So what exactly has changed?
The Logo & Header
Gone are the sponsors clogging up the main navbar at the top of the page and forward comes a secondary nav where we can allow any sponsors and advertisers to keep their position at the top of the website without causing the actual official site menubar to look a mess. We ditched the white background and moved to a 'boxed' feature. Something that isn't quite finished yet, but will eventually look very slick (few problems with the design being unresponsive to the mobile format, so it's not finalised by any means yet). You will notice that your PM box is now seperate to the menubar, nice and clear in the top right handside.
What have we added? What's changed?
The Hub.
Previously recognised as the home page, we wanted somewhere that brings all aspects of the site together with a simple click of a button. The Hub is basically the 'homepage' of the forum, where you can see 'everything' you would want all in one click. A page that lists, the latest blogs, the latest threads, the latest posts, who is online - virtually everything all together on one page.
'QuizMaster'
Quite excited by this one. The box has been the place to be when it comes to the annual 1FF evening quiz. However, this can no longer be the case. As seen below, we have a brand new plug-in to take advatange of. This is going to take some trialing but this has all sorts. The ability to build a quiz of your own, add time limits to answers, build any quiz you want, hell we can even build a league table of quiz-goers!
Media
We have to remove this plugin a few months back, this one is fairly simple. You can upload game highlights, team highlights, films trailers, virtually anything you want, within reason and then either embed it to the main forum page, insert it into a thread or just leave it as it is and let everyone see exactly what they want!
In addition to these new features. We will once again be running the prediction league next season. The software we run this forum on has probably the best, most simple automated system to predict on anywhere on the net at the moment. The blog feature is available to ALL 1FF members and any new blogs will be promoted to the home page where anybody will be able to feast on them at the touch of a button.
You will have noticed that in addition to 'new threads' - 'new blogs' has been added down the right hand section of the forum. Again giving the blog section some extra clarity as we look to push this and expand a new userbase in this department. The members online and site stats now sit at the bottom of the website in a much more traditional forum layout. This all without the brand new site store we intend on adding, the more obvious state of the art social media buttons and the ease of which you can navigate round the entire forum.
Just a quick point from me. This was my design idea and anybody that doesn't like anything, feel free to give me any heat and anything you'd like changing within reason, feel free to post - you will not offend. Simply put, without the work of TB and Russ from PixelEdit this theme would have had absolutely no legs to stand on, I am thicker than thick when it comes to the official workings of website designs - so a huge thanks to TB from me personally for having the patience to listen to me saying 'PUT THIS COLOUR OF BLUE ON THIS BAR PLEASE MATE' repeatedly.
Any feedback is great...have added a poll
PS - Anybody who detests it that much, the option to go back to the old skin is absolutely available on the very bottom left of your footer where it says '1FF' hit that button and the old skin will be available at the click of a button.
Welcome, enjoy and lets push on to be the very best Sports Forum on the net!
Saddler.
Good work though.
