I find that non-bold links can be a bit hard too see under certain lighting conditions. A bit more contrast against the background would help.
Light-blue text on white is basically impossible to read. Can we please have black or *very* dark text please?
Yes, contrast was sub-optimal. Fixed.
Add a subtle background image in the header, following the main portal's header -- or something else to distinguish the header from the rest;
I'd need to see what can be done, it's a good idea to make the header "less important".
Narrow down the forum body;
Well, the width is unchanged and the content is definitely narrower than the old theme, but I can reduce it. What's your screen width?
The riskiest: in the forum index, add more contrast to the between td cells (#FAFAFA) and the background (#FFFFFF). You could try #F7F7F7 which is the same of "this" post.
That's the hard one, those tables are very tricky.
Oh, I just though the forum discovered my age and defaulted to the new handicapped large print. Seriously, the whole think is way too expanded right now, it feels more like a childrens book and reminds me to official UK letters "This content is also available in large print.)
Texts were increased from 12,5 px to 15 px, that's 9,4 pt to 11,2 pt. I also slightly increased the distance between lines. And I can't see what's the problem on making it easier to read, I even reduced the size of some useless texts.
The front page has some work to be done but the way those tables are made makes it hard to work with.
Apart from that (which can be probably size down somewhere), the look is certainly more modern. Since MS dictacte, what modern is, well I think is follows these lines.
There's no Microsoft here unless you brought it with you.
This design has been available for many years, Apple has influenced it more than Microsoft as they were the first to implement it on their systems, and they also did not create it. Microsoft, having most of the desktop market, obviously made it mainstream and also improved it on many key points and influenced Google. And the whole idea can be traced back to the 40's with what we call minimalism, though we can extend it to its influences on Japanese Zen philosophy, especially wabi-sabi that are ancient.
The key point of what is considered the "modern" design is accessibility. Less images, especially for decorations, less resources, less bandwidth, faster loading. Consistent font size, maximum of three main font sizes, what is important is normal, useless small, and titles are big. Text with book-like spacing, no need to cram the bible in 100px height, make lines more separate and you can read big texts without getting lost in the lines. Separate what is important to read with what is useless, in case of a forum it's our messages that are important, so no need to cram this text next to useless texts like the profile stuff or post buttons.
But why not take a look on how the
MSN homepage from 2004 – when SMF was first release – is just like how the current SMF default theme (our old). But maybe I should have waited 10 years, then Microsoft will have a "new modern" and "their" old will be ok?
