I'd like to ask you - which theme do you prefer?

Please note, that the poll is mainly for my reference, its results won't be "final". I want to gather your opinions, take them into consideration and see what would work best.

The thing is, I don't know when, but the day will come when the forum software will be updated. I expect few things to break when that happens, and I have some plans in general anyway, so I may be working on the theme from scratch.

As I've been mentioning earlier, maintaining multiple themes multiplies the work I have to do when doing any changes. That alone maybe would be okay, but there's a real problem:

At the moment the dark theme we have still has white blocks for posts. I left it that way, because I was worried, that some posts may appear not the way they were designed. Leaving them white in both themes ensures compatibility - that they look the same for everyone.

There's a common problem, where text copied from somewhere else copies the font color and background as well. I noticed sometimes members post white text on black bars. Now if I decided to make a proper dark theme, where posts also would have dark backgrounds, the problem would be more common, because this also applies to text copied from posts here on the forums. Copying text from posts catches the font color and the background it was on even if the poster didn't set any of this - it just grabs these defaults and sets them as actual style attribute, which is visible only when pasted on a different background.

So currently one can bump into white text on dark background, and likewise, while using the dark theme one could bump into random flashbangs, should someone copy&paste text while using the light theme. These things wouldn't be intentional, because one just can't see white background behind text on a white page, for example. These things are noticeable when one switches the theme. I injected a dark theme via browser extension onto forums that have only light theme, and that is when I realized how many of my posts have unwanted white lines and how often other users tend to throw flashbangs without them realizing that. These tend to be unpleasant once you get used to darkness. Now I'm trying to be careful with how I copy text, but to prevent that from happening one has to give up formatting from the copied contents altogether (bold/color highlights etc.), which isn't always desired. Now because I'm sneaking with the dark theme, I might be unintentionally dropping white text on black bars once in a while.

A solution for these potential inconveniences would be to stick to one theme, so that it all would look the same for everyone. No unexpected formatting invading the other theme would be appearing, and even if, the person posting this would be aware of that.

The question is, which should prevail?

Please feel free to leave feedback and/or share your thoughts regarding this in general.

Also I posted this at 4AM, my post (grammar wise and such) might be a mess, but I hope you get the idea.

In case anyone would be wondering that something is different, I've coded in some things into the site.

1. Sticky User Nav Bar - Your Handy Hotbar // PC ONLY

When you'll scroll down a bit, the user menu (notifications/messenger etc.) will follow you like a nice doge, sticking to the top. This makes notifications and other things easily accessible no matter how long thread you'll be reading. It was always kind of irking me, that one had to scroll all the waaaaay up to the top to reach notifications or access profile menu (the one you get when clicking your username in the upper right corner).

2. TAKE ME BACK TO THE TOP - Escape The Dungeon Button

When you'll scroll down a bit, an arrow will appear in the upper right corner. Clicking/tapping it will teleport you to town the top. Just like this, click/tap and WHOOSH without loading screens! EPIC!

 Of course, please note, that I've coded stuff myself, so obviously not everything may be working as expected and/or there might be some derps. I could have made a typo, I could have overlooked something, because I had to copy&paste changes into multiple themes, or maybe I'm just bad at html/css/js, you never know, but at first glance it appears to be working. If you'd notice any weird behavior, please report it in this thread. Thank you.

 These changes apply only to SKY and SKY NIGHT themes. Basic theme is basic, no cool things there.

I hope these changes will be useful for you. If you beg to differ or would like to just share some thoughts, please feel free to do so. Thank you for cooperation. c:

Today I made a small change, or rather fixed something.

So far if you typed stuff like :) c: D: etc. the text editor was automatically turning these into emoticons, which made it potentially frustrating to ones, who prefer to use the text emoticons, rather than these fancy smiles. For example, if someone wanted to put :) , the text editor was like "NO, use  instead, no need to thank " and then, that someone could be like "NU I WANT [ :) ], u have a problem with that boi?! " and enter an eternal struggle with the editor.

I set that to OFF in the first place, but looks like something glitched and it kept doing this anyway, so I went to ACP with my  and fixed that.

So yeah, if someone notices, that c: or :) will no longer be automatically turned into emoticons, blame me.

To answer potential questions: You can still bring emoticons by typing their names, like:

:smile:

- will turn that into .

Typing " : " and two letters will begin search, where that fancy window with emoticons opens below your text cursor.

I only disabled these short codes like :) c: :D.

Also: Yes, I know that emoticon search tends to glitch along with mentioning. It's not our fault, it's a global bug within forum soft, to put that in a simple way. Not much I can do about that. 

Literally, I've bumped into a signature, that is as high as 1000 pixels, which is almost enough to cover the whole screen.

Members keep pointing out to the others, that they should put their code in spoilers. I also recall some reports regarding long signatures in the past, so I believe it is safe to say, that no one wants to get through these walls over and over again.

We always were reminding members, that the maximum allowed height for signatures is 200 pixels. While most of you respect that, there are members, who don't.

So now I present you a solution:

I have modified how these are displayed.

Basically in the editor ~ in your actual signature, you can still put as much things as you want (don't go wild with interpreting this though - obviously, harmfully long images for spamming purposes will result in troubles), but only 200 first pixels will be displayed. The rest will appear cut-off - not displayed, that is. Nope, I'm not yelling, don't you worry. I'm just highlighting the important information, as I can imagine members asking "why my signature gets cut-off in posts?". So now you know the answer beforehand.  

It is to make it all nicer mainly for you, not us. You are the ones, who point out / report these things after all.  

Of course as always, feel free to discuss that change. Feedfrontback is always welcomed. Thank you!

So far it was like this:

The remove reaction button was at the end of the list. Also, there was a bug (I think?), where that button was available even if you haven't reacted - basically removing your reaction, that does not exist.

Personally I prefer the way it works in topics (posts):

So- I've modified the reaction display in status updates, to behave similarly to how it is in topics:

I also have fixed that bug - now you cannot (try to) remove a non-existing reaction.

These changes apply only to the default theme, "Sky", at least for now. I plan to get rid of the other themes in the future, partially because of the fact, that I have to perform exactly the same changes in each theme one by one. It's simply harder and less convenient to maintain.

I also have more modifications planned for the default theme, mainly auto day-night cycle in background, as well as changing the background itself etc..

If for some reason you don't like these changes, feel free to express that below and state why.

I've noticed, that for a long time users kept posting their threads in wrong sections. Maybe it was because that area on the front page looked like this...

Even from moderator's perspective it was hard to navigate - the whole list of sections with exactly the same names, but different parents (makers).

So continuing with the 'Simplifying Forums Update', this area was reorganized.

Now what used to be subsections, are main sections. The makers being main sections were transformed into tags.

All makers/engines are placed together. For everyone's convenience, you'll have to select a prefix tag from the list when creating a thread. It will put an icon before the title, which will make things easier to recognize.

Programming section got its parts merged. Instead of script requests, support and learning place, there's one called programming. I've took a look at these and in all three there basically were questions related to coding, so it wasn't making much of difference.

Completed scripts etc. still have their own spot.

Hopefully this will make things easier to navigate and faster to work with. It's all for your convenience, so if you'll have feedback and/or ideas, please share these below.

Thank you!

Now it is time for her to join the forums as well, so that she can say "no" to project threads, when these don't meet the requirements.  

That said, she took the GAME PRODUCTION area under her wings, so she'll be one of the first people, that will see your amazing projects!  --and she may be the only one if you won't put enough of effort into your threads.  

Joking aside, she is there to help you. If you'll have any troubles with your project threads, you can totally count on her.  

Welcome to the herd Chibs!

I hope it will be a pleasant experience for you;

Good luck!  

Currently we're working on improving the user experience. We're aiming to make things simpler to use and follow by dropping few rules/requirements here and there for your convenience.

So with that being said, the first update applies to GAME PRODUCTION area with the following changes:

Submission Area no longer exists

Yep, now it's gone. Most of the time it was pretty much empty anyway. Now you have the ability to post your threads directly in Games in Progress and Completed Games. HOWEVER, all new threads will require moderator approval, so you're still supposed to follow the rules. Unapproved games won't be visible to anyone, except you and the staff.

Improved The Tagging System

You absolutely don't have to be worried about tags. All you have to do is to pick one required tag from the list, the rest is all up to you.

The required tags aren't just cosmetic, they aren't just to irk anyone, they actually have a purpose. On the lists with games you're able to filter threads based on the software they were / are being made with.

But even without that, it gives that fancy look to your threads!  

Simplified Rules and Requirements

That is something you'll like - we dropped few requirements. Now all you need to include is story, 3 screenshots and credits. The rest is absolutely up to you. Nevertheless keep in mind, that not putting effort into your threads will ruin the first impression, thus may successfully make users not be interested in your projects. It's your project, your choice; If you don't care about presentation, there are low chances, that the others will care about your project in return. Rules can be found in both sections, located above the topic list, marked in red. These follow the same guidelines.

If you'll have any questions or troubles, feel free to throw them below.

If you have ideas for further improvements (regarding the whole forum), then of course feel free to share these too. We have some plans, that are in the works, but it's still good to hear potential ideas/opinions.

The themes were completely redone, so hopefully, they should be fixed now.

I'm not sure of the dark theme though. I think it looks terrible, but editing it is a pain (I'm terrible at HTML/CSS). I've made stuff darker here and there, but not sure if that looks good.

Either way, if you'll bump into any issues, such as unreadable font, please let me know! 

Eventually I'll get rid of the dark theme.

Now he's a more important NPC and has tons of new quests to offer!  You may find him in Creative Area and Off-Topic sections. 

Welcome to the herd, @Nirwanda!

This is a small, tiny change.

On your profile page, you could see your warning points along with the whole history. Even if things were no longer relevant, it was haunting members all the time.

I've did some little changes and now that should be gone, unless somebody has more than 0 warning points.

So now, if you don't have any active warnings, you shouldn't be able to see anything, so it will no longer yell at you whenever visiting your profile.

You'll be able to see it along with the whole history once you'll have more than 0 points.

Feel free to share your thoughts. If you don't like that change, you all can vote for bringing it back like it was before.

Thank you!

What has changed?

No submission section. Yes! You don't have to wait for your threads to be approved. You can post them directly into resource areas. But of course that doesn't exempt you from the rules. You can find them in section descriptions.

Sections were moved here and there and/or merged to make it all take less space, thus more readable.

We hope it will make it all more user friendly.

THEME

SKY (NIGHT)

Changes your theme to the dark one with clouds,

stars and of course, the Moon.

34.5% reduced overall brightness

63% reduced background noise

100% reduced wind

29% increased amount of stars

stars have 4 additional shapes

stars have 3 additional colors

14% increased Moon size

100% Moon visibility

Cannot be discarded, sold, nor traded

"Looking at the Sun may hurt after a while,

if you have enough of that, extinguish it."

You can set the theme at the very bottom of the page.

Now this one was a little bit tricky, because the build-in color editor is heavily limited, or I'm just blind. Unlike with the bright theme, where pretty much everything was left by default, here I had to change these to make them darker - and I noticed, that not much can be changed to be honest. With that being said, I had to modify things manually via code. I had to browse forums here and there to locate things, that needed to be changed and then add/edit/remove some properties to/in/from these objects. I tried to cover everything, but there may be still some things left, that I could overlook. If you'll notice any terribly-looking whiteness or something else, that makes things unreadable, please let me know. So.. consider this theme as experimental for now. Please report any issues in this thread.

NOTE:

Text Editor / Posts / Typing Fields are kept white on purpose. I was thinking, that it will be better to just leave them without any colors. For example some colored text in posts (especially ones with blue content) could be kind of unreadable if there would be a blueish background. It would be even worse, if there would be a black background - making invisible text in default theme would give a totally different result in the darker one. That's why it's just better to keep the very default, white background.

TRIVIA:

The 'overall brightness' mod's value is actually not a random joke. I've took screenshots of the same page with the day and night themes, then scaled them down to 1x1 and compared the pixel's color value. It's a somewhat accurate comparison of how much darker it is than the bright theme.  

Enjoy the calm night!  

It's bad I know, but always something for now.  

You can set the theme at the very bottom of the page. The very default skin is still available, so if any problems would arise, you can abandon ship and have fun with the default skin.

Enjoy the bright new day!

Since RPG Maker has specific features, such as eventing or scripting, it has its own sub-section, to make things easier to find.

Everything else, such as purely programming with a specific language compatible with many engines and not only, helping with stories and characters etc. goes directly to Workshop area.

Rikifive and Seriel have taken over as the Admins and I am sure everyone agrees that they earned this reward and will breathe new life into the forums.

I will stop by and say hi- but my time running the forum (although enjoyable and fun) has come to a close.

A new forum for resources has been created.

Now you can post much more than resources for RPG Maker series.

Due to this, the ability to create threads in the old resource area has been disabled.

All threads from that forum will be slowly moved to the new one, but feel free to report your and others' threads, to give them higher priority, or just mention them below in a post.

Yep! You can help by giving us a list of threads you want to keep. they don't even have to be yours! We'd appreciate that! 

There are new rules posted all over the place for your convenience. I hope they're much simpler to follow than they used to be! 

If you'll have any questions, suggestions or if you'll find something not right, just let us know! 

Also, feel free to rant on things! 

Thank you for your patience!

FAQ

Q: Aww, Recourse areas were reorganized not so long time ago. You asked us to update our threads with these tags and such, do we have to do that all again? 

A: No, you don't have to!  If you've updated your threads with those fancy tags before, they've been moved to the new section for you already. You don't have to do anything! They're okay! You can still edit them if you wish, the tagging requirements have been lifted (kind of).

Currently there are some changes happening on the forums in order to fully jump to the sea of new possibilities.

What does that mean?

Well, as you may have probably noticed, we're now supporting more than RPG Maker series. There are some fancy, empty sections already, but there needs to be more!

Many things still focus only on RPG Makers, so there are many things yet to be done.

To avoid changing everything at once and throwing a confusing wall of text explaining those changes, we'll split updates into parts, so that it will be easier to discuss and follow these.

So what's this update all about?

Creative Area is now more friendly.

You can post all of your works, that aren't intended to be used by anyone else, no matter if you require feedback or not.

You're allowed to post your various artworks, fanarts, music tracks, stories, poems, movies, animations and everything else you'd like to share.

Show your skills and discuss these with others!

I've noticed some more changes though, what is this sorcery?

Yep, that's true!

Sections were reorganized. Some forums were moved up; some down, hopefully for better. 

Don't worry, it will be getting worse! 

In the meanwhile, feel free to share your thoughts, ideas, suggestions or just tell us what you don't like. Of course, don't forget to point out typos and other mistakes! Those silly villains like to mess up things from time to time! 

While things are still work in progress, you're free to post your threads with questions and such, as well as your projects/games in the Game Production area.

In case if somebody doesn't know what Game Maker is -

Game Maker Studio is a software, that allows you to create games from scratch through using build-in drag&drop functions, to coding things on your own. It is capable of making both, 2D and 3D games, though it focuses mainly on 2D games as there are better alternatives for 3D games. Platformers, top-down/sidescrollers, shooters, RPG's, point&clickers, tower defense, etc., etc., it all is up to you!

For a comparison, it is more advanced software than RPG Maker series (difficulty-wise), due to lack of a pre-coded game, but it allows you to nicely step into the scripting with its user friendly editor. Few tutorials and simple games for testing will be enough to give you the general idea on how things work, which will allow you to approach more complex projects.

If you're familiar with scripting in RPG Maker, you'll find it easier to learn to script in Game Maker.

If you'd like to see what Game Maker Studio can do, here is a video showcasing some recent games made with it:

You can purchase Game Maker Studio for $99.99 (Desktop Licence) on their website. They also offer a free trial if you'd like to give it a try first.

Have fun and feel free to discuss the software on the forums!

Although we still have support for RPGMaker Ace and MV we also have support for other makers it therefore follows that any maker can be posted in the Game Production area.

Of course you still have to follow the game submission rules,

You can invite your friends by giving them this link: https://discord.gg/k6gcyW7

 
 
SERVER RULES

 
WARNINGS

This is the first of many upcoming changes.

The next major change will involve upgrading the board to the latest and greatest or quite possible a new board software. Right now we are on the upgrade path but that may change. We'll keep you posted. 

Things that are coming up but haven't been fleshed out yet:

-New forum integrated front page

-Game/Asset marketplace 

-Board RPG -  We're a community of RPG enthusiasts, why not create a browser (or client) based game that lives and breathes with the community?

We will be making announcements as the new features get closer to release and see what you as our community would like to see in said new features.

Thanks!