Is it possible for the site to have a new look?

There's a planned change of design in place. : )

A recent survey showed overwhelming support for the current colour scheme, so we'll most likely stick with it. But suggestions are welcome, if you could be a bit more specific.

 

I like the current design as it is clear, simple and professional-looking. The easiest way to give it a new look might just be to expand the customised user profile settings to cover the whole site, but as i'm definitely not a programmer I don't know how it would work to have people viewing the same site with different skins simultaneously. The advantage of this would be that people could choose to keep the current design or not, but the disadvantage might be that it would be tricky to keep the customiseable profile settings visible to all users but the main site settings different for everyone. I don't know.

 

When we originally set up Empty Closets we deliberately stayed with something close to the generic vBulletin style so that if someone is visiting it on a school or library computer where others might see, it doesn't stand out. It could be any of thousands of forums that use the same software and style. You can even select a style without the logo and header so it looks even more anonymous.

Clear, simple and professional as fiddledeedee said is also good for not frightening off new members. It may not be visually stunning but it also not visually offensive. People may feel neutral about it but it's unlikely that anyone will hate it. Rather like new homes often being decorated in "safe" colours like white, cream and beige.

It is true that this vBulletin style is beginning to feel a bit dated. Once the techies here upgrade to the latest vBulletin the default style of that will look more modern while still achieving what I said above.

Having said all that though, I don't know what the plans for the upgrade are. This is just my opinion based on what happened when I was more involved with the creation and running of the site.

 

Well I would suggest maybe a different Banner on the top.
Another site that I am on uses vBulletin and did a banner competition. You could possibly do that but have guidelines. Certain length and width and a color scheme of sorts. I mean I love the layout but the banner could have something done with it in my opinion

 

Excellent!

That's a good idea.

 

I don't know if this site would have the same guidelines for length and width
but what the other site did for length and width was

If I showed the rest I'd be posting the site but the banner of course should feature the sites name... that's all I'm saying

 

I quite like the look of Empty Closets, but I wouldn't mind a slight change to the design. On the whole though, it's one of the better looking forums I've used, vBulletin or otherwise.

 

Sounds good Chip. I know from the work I did on the version we have now that it is quite a big job getting all the security stuff and other tweaks we have (such as the anonymous section) working correctly, so it's not just a case of installing vBulletin and running an upgrade script. There is some custom code that I wrote to make some of it work.

The front end I did in a completely different CMS system (Website Baker) themed to look the same and that should actually be simplified as the new vBulletin has more content management options.

Everything in the Members tab I wrote myself from scratch so I guess that's a rewrite. The chatroom is a separate package which has always been a bit flaky and integration a bit messy.

So whoever is doing this update has quite a lot of work to do to get it all working smoothly and seamlessly, and has my admiration for taking it on. It'll certainly be good when it's done.

 

I saw something about an upgrade when I first joined, but then I kind of forgot about it. Now I'm panicking some because I'm worried I might have problems using this site on my phone after the upgrade. :icon_sad: Maybe the mobile version of the forum would work though? I tried to sign up last year I think, and didn't seem to be able to. I was very happy when I tried again and was able to this time. I hope everything keeps working well like it is now.

 

I really like the current look. It's clean and simple. And as Paul said, it does not stick out. I don't mind browsing this forum with people around because unless they are close enough to read the text, they can't really tell anything. I am out to my family and stuff though but I like people not wanting to be nosey lol.