[Demonhood]

This challenge is a tad different (and likely longer lasting).
If you don't like some of the icons/graphics that UBB uses, make some new ones. Here are some of the things that can be replaced (i'm sure there are more, so feel free to add any):

stars (varying color/type for different member status)
light bulbs
yellow/white paper icons
locked icon
all those icons that are to the right of your name
smilies
reply
new topic

Sound like fun?
Please try to keep the icons the same size as the originals (or at least within a couple pixels). This is especially important for things like the smilies.

{edit}
here, this should help:

{/edit}

[ 06-05-2001: Message edited by: Demonhood ]

[cteselle]

Here is a little smiley that I made a long time ago...

[Phoenix1701]

Actually, the icons to the right of our names aren't yet all updated... in fact, the only one that's been changed so far is the Private Message icon, but gorgonzola tells me the rest will be following shortly. When they're done, they should look like this:



If you think they still need to be replaced, go right ahead, but at least now they'll all have the same look and feel.

[ 06-06-2001: Message edited by: Phoenix1701 ]

[Phoenix1701]

Hmm... if those [Post New Topic] and [Post Reply] buttons are actually gifs, we might want to change the color of the extra whitespace above and below them to something not being used in the rest of the image (like magenta), and then make that transparent... that will take care of the backgrounds not matching up without changing the positioning of the graphics.

[Edit] I also just noticed something else when reloading the forum page... the icons for info, email, IM, edit, and reply don't seem to have width and height attributes in the HTML! That might explain part of why the pages take so long to load...

[ 06-06-2001: Message edited by: Phoenix1701 ]

[andi*pandi]

I vote for my smilie. (Although, I can just see the code options now... :flirt

[gorgonzola]

Phoenix, I've applied the rest of yours, thanks -- they look nice.

And Infopop has programmed this thing so badly ... *sigh* ... I'll have to ask parallax to add the height/width attributes to the thing for the BBcons ... durn them Infopop people!

Well, these look nice for now. If any of you can top it, I don't mind switching the icons again...

cheers
-gzl.

[Demonhood]

a little experiment:

original

slightly edited

i just changed the pencil around so the lead end was on the paper. and i edited the paper a teensy bit too.

hmm, looking at it side by side (as i should have done on a white plain), i'm not so sure the edit made it any better (as it is good to begin with). oh well, like i said, just a little experiment.

[ 06-06-2001: Message edited by: Demonhood ]

[l'ignorante]

I'm sorry to say, I can't agree with the icon-change. To be honest, they're quite hopeless. It takes time to figure out what they mean, which is a bad thing for an icon.
There was nothing wrong with 'e-mail user', ' quote& reply' and 'edit post' icons. No offence Phoenix, but now they're messed up.
I agree that the Profile-info and PM-user needed a serious redesign, but they just went from bad to worse.
Please! It must be obvious to everybody that the old 'e-mail user' is a clear and nice icon, and now it turned into a dirty-yellowish tiny square with some random lines and a vague tiny shaded (why!!!?? at this size get into all this shading) green arrow. I don't even want to get started on the freaky pencil in the new 'edit-post' icon.
Honestly, leave it as it was, maybe work a little on the profile- and PM icon. Important is to keep it in style.
Yes, I could do it, but it would take it so serious that it'd cost me too much time (many hours), which I don't have available.

[ 06-06-2001: Message edited by: l'ignorante ]

[Demonhood]

looks like you got your wish l'ignorante. although i always thought that once you knew what they were (which a TITLE tag would help), you'd always remember.

now we can get back to the icons...

think i'll go after the stars next (now that they're back).

[gorgonzola]

I think the picture w/ text versions are better, I agree.

So what do you think now? Still no good?

I know the spacing is all messed up, we'll have to do something about that ... they could be a lot closer together.

[fobside]

Originally posted by gorgonzola:
<STRONG>I think the picture w/ text versions are better, I agree.

So what do you think now? Still no good?

I know the spacing is all messed up, we'll have to do something about that ... they could be a lot closer together.</STRONG>

i say just leave it as it is...the spacings not so bad where people are going to have to scroll right to get to the "reply with quote" button. good job guys.

[reader50]

I'll try my hand at the icons.

The private message icons look like the old Fire icons. Mine may be better, opinions welcome.

Just the graphic


... or with a text helper.


I also fixed the Post / Reply buttons, really just cropped them and fixed the file type. If you look at the current icons below, you will see why they needed cropping. White above/below shows on any non-white background.


Phoenix1701 sets a high standard, he fixed some of my earlier icons.

[edit - numerous format issues, typo, grammar, kitchen sink]

[ 06-06-2001: Message edited by: reader50 ]

[gorgonzola]

Updated the Post Reply / Post New Topic icons.

thanks, reader

[Xeo]

I posted this in a thread in The Lounge. People aren't liking them.

Anyway, here is my addition. If I can come up with something better, I will. I think it's time we change the stars to something better. I think these would look nice.


Admin


Mods


Addicted


Elite


Vet - Senior


Member - Junior - New

Whatcha think?

[l'ignorante]

I think it's nice Xeo, something different then the old stars. Worth a go!

Demonhood, you're right when you say, once you know them it's easy to figure them out. But just for a test, put the old e-mail icon and the new one side by side and ask people (not NN-familiar) which one is the redesign. I bet most will tel you the old one is.
I don't want to get all worked up about it, it's just icons. If I find the time I can come up with some suggestions.

[reader50]

Close Topic - appears at the bottom of open threads.


Open Topic - appears at the bottom of locked threads.


Lock Icon - appears beside locked threads.


The icons were modeled on a real lock:


[edit - fixed darkish lock picture]

[ 06-07-2001: Message edited by: reader50 ]

[Phoenix1701]

Hmm... nice suggestions, but I think a few people are missing the point of the icons I made...

This is a Macintosh BB. Thus, it seemed to me that it would make sense to have Macintosh icons. I find it somewhere between amusing and disturbing that the icon l'Ignorante seems to despise the most happens to be the one that's not even mine -- it was made by IconFactory.

Anyway, now I see a replacement icon for the "lock" icons... looks pretty good, I must say, though I'd tone down the brightness a bit... only thing is, the previous small lock icon is taken directly from the Mac OS Finder. We really need to decide here: do we want to totally throw away the Mac OS theme we have going and start on something completely different? I have always liked the Mac OS platinum appearance, and since it's not Aqua Apple won't sue us for using it in parts... I think it's functional, attractive, and not garish... and it's also something familiar to all of us. It doesn't take a very long time to adapt to what we want it to do (witness my icons, which I created in about twenty minutes), and it's very integrated... it looks the same all over the site. Most of us find it very easy to figure out what the icons mean, and frankly I couldn't for the life of me figure out the previous icons we had... why was the arrow for reply (note, reply) facing to the right, which in most Western cultures is associated with forward (another valid message processing command)? If we really feel like it, we could make a strategic decision to abandon the Mac OS theme and go for something different, whether it be something that looks more Mac OS X compliant or something based on our own guidelines, whatever, but (perhaps this is the human interface designer in me talking) whatever we come up with, we need to be consistent.

*steps down off his soap box*

[reader50]

Easy, Phoenix. Being Mac-like is good generally, but I have long regarded this board as a honey trap for catching PC users. The poor masses come, they read all about what they are missing, they are impressed by my witty prose, they buy Macs.

And I have never used the Mail app in OS 9, I did not even recognize that icon as coming from the Mac. My opinion was that the previous icon was better. My PM replacement for example was just a MacNN color scheme version of the old email icon. The OS X Mail.app icon is much cooler, but would not scale well to our icon sizes.

I agree now about the Reply icon, this one makes more sense. And the bright locks, I'll darken if you like. Oddly, the real lock pic came out a bit on the dark side, the icon colors are more accurate. I'll fix the real lock pic first.

[real lock pic fixed, I can't mess with the icons until tonight]

[ 06-07-2001: Message edited by: reader50 ]

[Xeo]

Well, here is attempt number 2. I posted this in that "Hack status" thread in the lounge, but this is the design one, so I figured I'd repost it here.


Parallax


Admins


Mods


Addicted


Elite


Vet - Senior


Member - Junior - New

Comments?

[l'ignorante]

I liked the stripes better.

[ 06-07-2001: Message edited by: l'ignorante ]

[Demonhood]

i like the stripes better as well. simplicity is good.
it does look a bit military-ish, but still kind of cool.

i have an idea for the star replacement as well. it's obvious, but worth exploring. i'll post it in a couple hours eh.

[reader50]

Here are the icons, made darker and more true to the real colors.

- appears at the bottom of open threads.

- appears at the bottom of locked threads.

- appears beside locked threads in a Forum display.

[reader50]

For reference, here is the thread display legend from before:


... and here are the icons:
- Normal thread.

- Normal thread, new replies.

- Hot thread.

- Hot thread, new replies.

[Demonhood]

it appears as if the icons with arrows on them have vanished. so it's just the white one and the yellow one now.

and they don't work properly (in the UBB sense, not the graphic sense)

[ 06-08-2001: Message edited by: Demonhood ]

[Demonhood]

someone had to do it, might as well be me:


instead of the little white icon maybe?


instead of the yellow icon, or maybe even a star replacement like this:


the current stars definitely need some kind of upgrade


don't worry, these are from scratch, i didn't completely rip off the OS X toolbar. not completely anyhow.

{edit: stars image added}

[ 06-08-2001: Message edited by: Demonhood ]

[- - e r i k - -]

Agree with Aquaish buttons instead of documents.

Here are my smilies:

Ouch


Arrrrgh....my head just goes pop....


No time to search the world around, cause you know where I'll be found...

[l'ignorante]

Originally posted by Demonhood:
<STRONG>


... or maybe even a star replacement.
</STRONG>

Agree with that.

Here's some I ripped/edited for new/no-new post indicators






and colorised






Hmm, needs some fixing

see my next post about this:


I would be sometning like this




[ 06-08-2001: Message edited by: l'ignorante ]

[l'ignorante]

How's that on grey background...



And in stead of stars I had this idea


The smallest yellow shade is new
then Junior etc... up to Moderator in full red

Size/colour/effects can be changed at request

[ 06-08-2001: Message edited by: l'ignorante ]

[honeydew]

My first attempt at drawing icons...


Any suggestions? I'm still trying to decide what the light bulb replacements should be..

[Xeo]

Hey demonhood, I had the idea for bullet-like ones too. I took a more-like-the-stars approach, though.

Check it out.


Parallax


Admins


Mods


Addicted


Normal

I'd put them in 5's, 4's, 3's etc, cept I can only have 8 images per post. So you're just going to have to imagine.

[Phoenix1701]

Wow. Those last replacements look really, really awesome. l'Ignorante, what do you think of the idea of having the color of the bar gradually fade from yellow to green as you get closer and closer to Addict? We couldn't really do that easily with the stars, but your design makes it quite easy. Also, I'd recommend keeping the current color scheme of blue for mods and red for admins, though that might've been what you meant anyway.

As for the thread icons... hmm. I'm not really sure which ones I like better. Both of them look rather Mac OS X-ish, which I think fits very well here... the image well look is kind of neat, but the OS X gumdrop feel is practically a bellwether already... I guess we'll just have to see which one everyone prefers.

[Xeo]

I whipped up some borderless versions quickly. I wanna see how they look.


Parallax


Admins


Mods


Addicted


Normal

[edit] Personally, I like them with borders better.

[ 06-08-2001: Message edited by: Xeo ]

[l'ignorante]

Originally posted by Phoenix1701:
<STRONG>Wow. Those last replacements look really, really awesome. l'Ignorante, what do you think of the idea of having the color of the bar gradually fade from yellow to green as you get closer and closer to Addict? We couldn't really do that easily with the stars, but your design makes it quite easy. Also, I'd recommend keeping the current color scheme of blue for mods and red for admins, though that might've been what you meant anyway.

As for the thread icons... hmm. I'm not really sure which ones I like better. Both of them look rather Mac OS X-ish, which I think fits very well here... the image well look is kind of neat, but the OS X gumdrop feel is practically a bellwether already... I guess we'll just have to see which one everyone prefers. </STRONG>

Yeah, I could change that into a yellow to green gradient. Maybe the fading should be more also.( problem with GIF, it doesn't show so nicely, even with 100% diffusion dithering)

I also like the 'cute' colour drops ( the ones without the outline) by Xeo, but favor my bars .
I want to dump my 'new_post/no_new_post' icons, they look allright one size bigger, but that's too big to be used here.
Maybe Phoenix has an idea for the thread icons?

[cmcleod design]

Originally posted by honeydew:
<STRONG>My first attempt at drawing icons...


Any suggestions? I'm still trying to decide what the light bulb replacements should be..</STRONG>

i really like these.. very well done!!!!

[cmcleod design]

here's my take on l'ignorante's design.

hope u dont mind


all rankings up to blue for mod, and red for admin + black for parallax!!


and example of how it would look in practice.


[edit: added black image for parallax]

[ 06-10-2001: Message edited by: cmcleod design ]

[Demonhood]

so for star replacements we have bullets (l'ignorante and Xeo), X-bullets (me), and gradients (l'ignorante and cmcleod design).

i think any bullet needs a strong border (as the current stars have). gives it more definition.

the gradient/progress bar is a cool idea. the only thing i could see people complain about is how they could no longer say how many stars they had.

and honeydew, i really like those new thread replacements. i swear i've seen them before somewhere, but i can't put my finger on it. oh well. i'd probably vote for those over my OS X-ish buttons.

[- - e r i k - -]

Hate to break it to you guys, but as cool as the progress bar might be, it represent really bad GUI. It's a progress-bar, but a progress bar to what? You have to post X number to reach what? Nirvana? Is the "prosess" complete? To qualify for a progress bar, you really have to wait for something that can be completed.

Some might argue that you've reached completeness when you become "addicted", but this really don't cut it

[l'ignorante]

Originally posted by - - e r i k - -:
<STRONG>Hate to break it to you guys, but as cool as the progress bar might be, it represent really bad GUI. It's a progress-bar, but a progress bar to what? You have to post X number to reach what? Nirvana? Is the "prosess" complete? To qualify for a progress bar, you really have to wait for something that can be completed.

Some might argue that you've reached completeness when you become "addicted", but this really don't cut it </STRONG>

it's actually a gradient fill bar.....

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally posted by l'ignorante:
<STRONG>

it's actually a gradient fill bar..... </STRONG>

Oh yeah. That completly reverses the matter

[Synotic]

Well to demonhoods comment about not being able to tell people how many stars they have.. Why not just put numbers by them?



Also.. some eye candy:



Xeo: It isn't that hard to do what you wanted.. putting multiple bullets for some ratings:



I also came up with my own idea..



And lastly.. is it possible to implement this:

[l'ignorante]

Originally posted by - - e r i k - -:
<STRONG>

Oh yeah. That completly reverses the matter </STRONG>

If you mean the 'matter' you were posting about Nirvana etc. That was such a load of mind bending far fetched nonsense...
Ah well, it's just like the real world. Put two or more designers/artists in one room, and there's 'no way to delay that trouble's coming everyday' (F Zappa)

My final contribution, some flag-ups for new post ( blank for no new post)
Edited the lock.
And a bit of a comparison of stars. (the gradient fill doesn't cut it ) I like the small drops.
Added some subtle bar-pieces..
That's it, now back to work.


[ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: l'ignorante ]

[Demonhood]

settle down guys.

Synotic - nice work. i guess the numbers might help alleviate some complaints. my biggest issue with the whole gradient bar representation is when the bar is full (addicted, mod, admin). i like seeing the bar move along, so when it's full, it seems to be lacking something. it appears empty rather than full. since there is no more progress to be made, it just sits there. not sure how to remedy that.

i also like the scrollbar. altho it could be a little wider. i can just see all the users grabbing the image the first few times they see it

and while very cool, i'm afraid the vile of radioactive orange juice might scare aware the citrus haters among our members. sorry.

[ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: Demonhood ]

[Xeo]

Originally posted by Synotic:
<STRONG>Xeo: It isn't that hard to do what you wanted.. putting multiple bullets for some ratings:</STRONG>

You misunderstood. I know I could have put multiple bullets side by side to mean rating. I made the bullets so they could easily be taken and replace the stars if wanted.

Each star by yours (and everyone else's) name is only one.



Because of my 8 image limit per post, I only posted single bullets.



See what I mean? I figured you were all smart enough to picture them in groups of 5.

[Demonhood]

now that the IP logged icon is back, let's attack it:

original:

hodgepodge 1:

hodgepodge 2:

[ 06-16-2001: Message edited by: Demonhood ]

[Demonhood]

another slight edit:

hodgepodge 3:

[jeffhot]

YES, yes, yes to the aqua circles as star replacements. They are awesome. Other than that, I can only think of the obvious Mac icons. How come no one posted those yet? one, two, three iMacs, you know.

Or maybe we could reflect the product matrix. new users get an iMac, then earn a iBook, then go to a G4, then on to the tiBook. Well that idea might be kinda weak unless it had quantity too. one iMac, two iBooks, three G4s, 4 TiBooks.

Hmm, well I just wanted to contribute with noe graphics. Next time I will have something to show for my ideas.

[Arty50]

I really like the progress bars by l'ignorante. But I prefer the one's with blue instead of green. The green is just a bit too much.

[wclarkson]

Originally posted by cmcleod design:
<STRONG>here's my take on l'ignorante's design.

hope u dont mind


all rankings up to blue for mod, and red for admin + black for parallax!!


and example of how it would look in practice.


[edit: added black image for parallax]

[ 06-10-2001: Message edited by: cmcleod design ]</STRONG>

I like these the best. We should go with these.

[Synotic]

Originally posted by Demonhood:
<STRONG>someone had to do it, might as well be me:


instead of the little white icon maybe?


instead of the yellow icon, or maybe even a star replacement like this:


the current stars definitely need some kind of upgrade


don't worry, these are from scratch, i didn't completely rip off the OS X toolbar. not completely anyhow.</STRONG>

What's wrong with using the real ones? Anyways, I basically did what you did but I used the actual alphas and pictures:

[Demonhood]

i didn't use the originals for fear of the wrath of apple legal. we could then say we were only "inspired" by the originals.

that, and i wanted them smaller.