• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

NeoGAF 2.0.0.1 Update: A Space Odyssey

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Hi folks. Since our announcement back in June, the team and I have been hard at work on a comprehensive design overhaul for NeoGAF across both desktop and mobile browsing experiences. Today we're excited to unveil the NeoGAF 2.0.0.1 update (short for 2.0.0.1 Patch Level 9 Release Candidate 56; we've been at it a while). This update focuses on bringing you a polished, modern look, fast rendering and efficient use of screen real estate, intuitive navigation, vastly improved mobile foruming, and will serve as a strong foundation for all the custom features we still have in the pipeline. We've given it a few extra months of beta testing, iteration, and bug squashing to deliver something we're confident you'll begrudgingly tolerate today and probably even enjoy by tomorrow. and made sure to have full parity between your choice of light and dark themes ready for launch.

First, let's blow everything up with some surprise scheduled maintenance, and when we return we'll jump into further detail about the new design and accompanying features, explain how it all works, and open it up to community feedback.

Thanks!

-Tyler
 

Avasarala

Emoji Emperor
Staff Member
Surprise!

What we begin with is a clean, responsive, modern look that bears enough similarity to the existing site that you'll feel right at home.

o9KbMgN.png




My photos have been taken across a variety of platforms and operating systems. I'm here today to showcase some of our new features and highlights, and since it's already live, you'll probably be exploring them already.


5mswLbm.png




The design itself incorporates a few important changes that streamline the general flow of site navigation. First and foremost the top and left areas have been replaced with auto sizing and orienting navigation panes, keeping all of the most important site navigation tools immediately accessible. We've worked hard to customize both themes with active rollover highlights, as well as high contrast color choices to emphasize readability.


To the immediate top left, a hamburger menu (It's an industry term, I swear) opens or closes a left vertical navigation pane. The Forums dropdown defaults to open, with Gaming, Gaming Communities, Off-Topiic, and Politics clearly visible against the dark background. Below are quick navigation tools, including the the new trending link! This is an automated section that populates with the latest and most popular threads on Gaf!


Within the Forums themselves, logged in users will immediately see their avatar next to the 'New Thread' active bar. Click New Thread -> post. Please make the most out of this convenience! :nougat_rofl:

After posting within a thread, you will now also see your avatar next to the OP's; it's clearly visible that you've participated in the thread before!

Additionally, there are now bookmarks available near the watch thread controls. You can now save posts to your profile for later reference.


4S3FbFb.png



Last but not least, you may have noticed but gaming communities is now a forum rather than a component of gaming. Off-Topic Communities is still within Off-Topic, just not visible within the site's main navigation menu.

Without intentionally understating things - Communities will be receiving further updates in the future to add new ways to discuss the latest games and connect with other users.

Look forward to seeing everyone on the live site!


:hidden_Þ:


img
 
Gaf Staff... you are awesome. Looks real good.

*Going to explore the site on PC & Mobile

Dark theme is tits for mobile. But I like Light theme for PC. But it doesn't save that preference. If I go Dark on mobile it's Dark on PC. Is there a way to set it for each individual type EviLore EviLore and Avasarala Avasarala

Overall tho...
tumblr_inline_nq4prkyBpj1t26qoy_500.gif
 
Last edited:

Redneckerz

Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
Its funny as i just wrote a lenghty book to Bill O'Rights Bill O'Rights about this.

Feels good so far. Site seems to adapt. Orange a bit too much, but to the entire team, congratulations! Better than expected.
 

bitbydeath

Member
Looks good, did notice a space was missing under a thread name where it states who replied and when they replied.

EG. Bitbydeath repliedToday
 

Cunth

Fingerlickin' Good!
Nice. My only complaint is that the difference between the bold text that shows a thread with new replies versus the regular text that shows no new replies is too subtle.
 

Joyful

Member
so actual feedback

add a divider/gap between sticky threads and regular threads
add buttons to gaming/offtopic at top and bottom of pages pls
the font when u are typing in the quick reply box is different than your post which is odd to me
 
Last edited:

THE:MILKMAN

Member
Wow. Very different but first impressions are good. looks very similar to Discord. Seems to be running/rendering quicker as advertised so that is good.

I'll update if I have any issues. Good job mods/admin (you did the upgrade very quick!).
 
It has more pizzazz to it, but it also feels a little disorganized. For instance, there isn't as much of a clear distinction as I like between sticky and regular threads in the indices. A horizontal bar will suffice.
 

12Goblins

Lil’ Gobbie
Honestly it's running very smoothly and looks quite sharp.. Maybe make it so don't have to scroll down on front page to access all forums? (mobile)

Edit also it would be nice to be able to see notifications on mobile

Great work
 
Last edited:

onQ123

Member
At 1st I was a little worried that I wouldn't get used to this new look but then I closed the sidebar & changed the theme to the dark theme & now I love the new look.
 

Palliasso

Requiescat In Pace
Staff Member
Yes, we are definitely listening to your feedback and will be tweaking the new design as needed over the next couple of days / weeks.
 
I have one recommendation. In the thread indices, how about you alternate between different shades for every other thread? What I'm trying to say is that, for instance, you follow a "gray, dark gray, gray, dark gray" pattern in the index. It makes things easier and more pleasing on the eyes, imo.

Edit: I found a good example of what I'm trying to say here.
 
Last edited:

bitbydeath

Member
I've gone Dark Theme, is it possible to make the icons white instead of grey?
Bold, Italics, Images... etc all of those?

EDIT: For some reason Undo and Redo are white while everything else is grey.
 
Last edited:
I like it. Any chance we can get thread creation date back? That was a nice feature.

edit: It would appear that thread creation date info is shown, but not when I'm in a smallish window. Weird.
 
Last edited:

Iaterain

Member
I like it a lot. Everything looks, feels and responds well. The interface is more intuitive than before.
The only thing I dislike is the round shape of avatars. I think the square shape was much better,
 
Yeah. I really hate it too. this is the same thing as the chrome update and the youtube update and the reddit update. which I all install plugins for to revert them

this just hurts my eyes. am not using this website anymore sorry
 
Last edited:

haxan7

Volunteered as Tribute
Looks good.

My first kneejerk reaction is that the navbar on the left takes up too much screen real estate (I'm viewing on a laptop). I might feel differently after getting used to the new design but that's my first and strongest impression.

Overall looks really good though.

EDIT: I just figured out how to close it. THERE WE GO. Looks way better.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom