I got tired of listening to Ender complain about how damn fugly our site was, so I switched up the theme. This is taking forever to edit, but I think it’s gotten to the point where I can take it out of Maintenance Mode (awesome plugin, btw). I’ll keep making changes, so please excuse the mess.
What I Like:
- The colors are much better (at least the ones that are not bright enough to burn out your eyes).
- The rounded corners help the look, even if they are a pain, code-wise.
What I Dislike:
- The new comments form is all wonky and messy. The old one was infinitely more elegant. Overall the code is messier, and less capable.
- A lot of admin-type elements were overlooked. There isn’t even an Edit tag on posts for logged-in users.
- The two sidebars waste a lot of space. I feel one wider sidebar might be a better choice. Perhaps a footer sidebar would be nice.
Since the back end of the last theme (Sandbox) is very impressive and supposedly skinnable, I may try to copypasta meld some elements of the new theme as a CSS skin. I like the way the new theme looks a lot more, but the code is not nearly as slick or powerful. However, that probably won’t happen until this weekend at the earliest, as it will take a lot of time to meld the old back end and the new front end. Also, the shoddy IE CSS support seriously makes me want to punch my monitor sometimes.
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17 Comments
First to comment! mwhahaha XD
Liking the new layout, 100x better than the fugly one you guys had previously. Almost thought I had a different site bookmarked for a moment ^^;;
Pretty theme! The return of Ender and Kungfucius! Good job! Good times!
BTW any chance of Mobile Student Osaka returning? And the punny blog taglines?
(edit: Gah! Beaten by moyism by seconds! orz)
Although Osaka will always be our unofficial mascot, I like having more variety in the images that can be used for the headers. I am still moving everything around, so the taglines may return.
I am glad that the initial reactions are already more positive than last time…
I’m diggin the COOL AND SPICY redesign (well, may need some more “spice”, if ya know what i mean =D) I honestly didn’t think your previous blog design was that bad. It sort of grew on me *snuggles*, but I will admit that I’m liking this alot more! It has curves! (again, your gonna need alot MOAR of it! *nudge nudge wink wink*)
My only complaint is that you bring Osaka back! I mean, you have that changing image header thing on the top right? You can surly put in this “Mobile Student Osaka” I hear so much about!
While this blue in the comments section is disgustingly bright, the overall layout is much better!
Yeah, this blue is pretty blinding, but I am trying to get the code working before I move on the the aesthetics.
What the heck is going on! Right when I get used to one theme, it gets switched up again! Wahhhhh!!!! XD
The new theme gets a Biggu Thumb up from me! And just to be clear, an overwhelming majority of readers agreed that the last theme was mad fugly, as evidenced by the embedded poll.
The only downsides so far – the changing pun taglines have got to come back (even if they were very obscure half the time…), and the disparity between the two column lengths on the right hand side is a bit awkward. The return of Osaka would be nice too, perhaps as part of a rotating banner set.
I like the bright blue by the way.
I gotta say, I really liked the back end of Sandbox a LOT better, and there seem to be quite a few elements that don’t play nicely in this new theme. I’ve noticed that the comments.php file is especially buggy. However, the new theme definitely looks much better.
I am considering reverting back to Sandbox, and using the rounded corners theme as inspiration for a Sandbox skin CSS file.
Woah… the margins are pretty excessive. It wastes a lot of space, especially when it comes to the horizontal part.
Other than that, I can see potential in this layout. The space just needs to be better used.
Cheers.
Heh, three column theme. I like it, although the comments field here is outright fugly (perhaps as a side effect of comments.php being buggy?). Keep at it, will you? I’ve always had great respect for your handmade themes.
The layout really looks decent! The colors are easy on the eyes as well though things seem to be a little too much to the left.
I like the color scheme, though the text seems a lot more off-center than before. Otherwise, I like this.
Wow, not a bad theme, though I prefer a centered theme. Not used to having all the content aligned left :P.
ooh pretty! And I think I’ve found more good WP plug-ins through you than anyone else lol.
But yeah, I always hate it when you find an awesome looking theme, but the code is a mess.
Maybe I’ll try to start from scratch when I do my next redesign.
I don’t like the logo colours but it’s great other than that
I like it!! two thumbs up…even though it is kinda blinding!
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[...] it looks rather similar to the previous redesign, the CSS is actually completely rebuilt and customized. I have to say I have a huge amount of love [...]
[...] As I alluded to a couple of weeks ago, I was making a new design for the website and, well, here it is. I’m using the Sandbox theme, like Kabitzin over at Sea Slugs did in their redesign. [...]