Most of the time if you see a thread made by me, it has something to do with the site design. So, what a surprise, here I am once again. But this time, I'm talking about a complete reimagination and reinvention of the ATRL site design.

It's true that a new design isn't really necessary: the current one is just fine. But it was an interesting way to kill a few hours of boredom. I wanted to make a new design that feels more like an actual page, free of the boxes-galore style that you see everywhere on typical message board layouts. I also wanted to make everything just one click away, reducing all the drop-down menus. Finally, I wanted the entire look to be clean and simple.

As a result, everything looks completely different! However, note that the actual content of each page hasn't changed at all, only the presentation has.

Try it out for yourself. Using the style switcher in the lower-left corner of this page, or the Edit Display page in Settings, choose one of the styles beginning with Light or Dark. Light Blue is the default, and the others go along with the other colors currently available, as you'll quickly figure out.

I have no plans at this time to replace the current design with this one, unless there's like overwhelming support. So, I'm interested in what you have to say. Any thoughts or suggestions about the new design? Opinions on whether or not it should be the default? Hateful comments that totally insult the work I put into it? I'll take anything you got.

UPDATE 1: New design launched! See this post for details
UPDATE 2: Additional layout options! See this post for details

I love the presentation of the test layouts, I think you got all of the aspects you wanted - they are very professional looking, appear more like information pages then a board and has a clean, easy to read, efficient look to it. However, everything comes out much smaller on the test layouts i.e. the text, and I have enough issues without developing eye problems Perhaps that's just for the test preview though and wouldn't happen if they were actually applied?

I love everything else, and other then size I think the main problem is losing the forum essence and it's somewhat difficult to diffrentiate between posts even though the lines are still there it appears as a long roll of writing rather then definite seperate posts. That can be seen as good or bad I guess and it depends on preference, either it's good and makes the topic seem more fluid with less distraction or it loses it's sense of individual identities posting with the stronger box lines. It's almost like the test ones are more about the subject and the current one is more about the personalities. I like the design either way though, the current one is very comfortable and I could easily get used to the test ones if they ever came into effect.

Wow these new layouts are great. But I agree with Pandora that the text is a bit too small and it's difficult to see when a post ends/begins.

I really like this new style, however the problem that I have is one that's already been said. The text is too small. Other than that, I think I'll keep this style for a while.

Holy ****. I love the new style. Its really original and not like any other forums i've seen. The only negative things i have to say have already been mentioned - the text and differentiating posts. But apart from that its awesome, i definitely prefer it to the default style, briliant work TC.

Edit: I just noticed that you can't see who the person was who last replied to a topic which could get a bit annoying

I most certainly like it, with mostly reasons that Pandora provided. The whole different from forum look is quite a refreshing change and the look just seems comfortable to the eyes. I especially like how you have previous color schemes for the test design. Hmm, I guess, because most people have different preferences and I, myself, like the small text, one could just increase the page text size on their own when it comes to font size or the default font could be bigger? It'd be like me preferring a much more cleaner look and avoiding avatars to be shown.

I guess I can also see how the lack of information on who replied last can get annoying but perhaps there could be a way to allow some people to see who replied and when versus just when? I don't have any suggestions for the overall look, other than the ones i stated to help with the problems already mentioned, but I do agree with those that think the style is awesome and I think it deserves the compliments. Again, great work there.

You know what's amusing though? The ATRL logo looks smaller and nicer, not that it didn't look nice in the other one, in this design despite being the same logo.

The small text doesn't bother me at all, but i'm used to reading smaller text anyway.

I would wait to see what others think about it, but I am personally loving the new layout, it looks really professional and like a website, like you intended. *thumbs up* Another winner.

I like this new layout...the text doesn't bother me at all. Good Job.

Most of you have mentioned that the text size should be bigger, so I increased it to 10pt for posts. I think it is still highly readable at 8pt for forum/listings, because of how each line is visually separated. However, the posts benefit from the size boost.

I also added more visual separators between each post, so hopefully that's easier to distinguish now.

Addressing Jay's comment: You can see the last poster for each forum or thread, all you have to do is hover over the last post time, and it will pop up.

Thanks everyone for your comments so far!

I think the redesign is great.
Only thing that 'weirds' me out is the avatars being on the opposite side.

But it's all good. Nicely done!

Agree with the new design it's better than this one but i'm not sure about the avatar position but it's OK

everything is cool with me

EXCEPT one thing. The avatar thingy and username moving over to the left seems really weird to me

I put pretty much thought into the placement of the avatars and user info on the right.

Because of the left-hand sidebar on every page, another column for the avatars on the left would shove the content of the posts over to the right side of the page. But with the avatars on the right, the post content is in the middle of the page, where it's the easiest to read and follow.

Well, when reading a post you start at the top left.. it's easier if the name of the person who wrote the post is near that area. But I understand what you mean.

Wow.Good Job TC.I really like this new design of it.You did a good job.so its cool with me.

Meh, looks smooth, I'm just not sure I'm in love with the left column thing. I'll try this out for a little while, though; I could get used to it. I like the avatars on the right better, actually.

I like it a lot
only thing is i like the avatars on the left side

Loving it! Looks AMAZING

And I'm sure we'll get used to the avatar thing in a day or two

I dig.