With vBulletin you can provide a few different skins that are very simple recolors or graphically enhanced looks to your already configured content/feature set. I did this with my wife's VW forum, and have helped a few other Euro car forums work some up as well. If don't right a graphic skin to a site should not affect your database at all, and only your server CPU/bandwidth very little (optimize, optimize, optimize...) ... But always leave a default, stripped down, bare bones option for those that don't want the added flashy graphics, or need to appear like they're doing what they're being paid to do (which most likely isn't hang out on an internet forum and gawk at great cars all day!) Infact there are skins out there that remove ALL graphics from the vBulletin system, or even disguise it as another "respectable" news site. Last skin project I was working on was going to offer our users on my wife's forum with options to make their surfing on our forums match the interior trim (to a degree) of their VW CF accents, leather, and "dash board" inspired menu bar along the top. My art skills weren't up to snuff but I laid it out on paper and a skin maker was able to tell me it was VERY possible and wouldn't be that hard as long as I had a few high-res CF and leathe texture pics. Testing some super UN-optimized graphics on the forum, raised the CPU level barely... and didnt' impact the database at all (did not need to add any addtional features to the software, just the skin). I say put out some nicer looks for those of us that enjoy the visual possibilities... but keep a clean simple one for those that are just here to read, or don't want to be noticed in their cubicle
It is very easy to completely destroy the looks of a forum with some graphical overkill. But I agree that FChat looks kind of... dated. The guys over at racesimcentral faced the same problem, and the solution they came up with is great, imo. Take a look here, it looks modern and stylish, but is still clearly arranged, no blinking avatars or any of that stuff. http://forum.racesimcentral.com/
don't over-bling the forum, till it starts lagging. yes, the forum is pretty dull, i agree, still, it's one of the fastest forums for me. so that works for me.
Yep! I find this one of the cleanest and fastest websites I use. Every site I find that 'adds features' really just clutters it up with crap.
I think it's fine as-is. I'd only suggest two enhancements really: - update the rather primitive private message interface. Compared to other sites, this one is very basic. and - correct the seeminly bug where visiting one seciton of threads marks all other sections as read (un-bolds them). Is this just me or have others noticed this? I find it the single most annoying thing with this site! Otherwise it's very user-friendly due to it's simplicity.
...one more suggestion, would be nice to have a way to see what was last posted as opposed to simply opening the whole thread and paging through and then manually finding 'where you left off'. Again, could be a lack of my knowing how to do this.
Why do we always need/want to overcomplicate things. The site is easy to use, easy to understand, and IMO works well. Why complicate it? +1 on KISS
I have the same problem--then I am left looking at the first 10 threads trying to figure out which has a new post...
