Instead of waiting, I decided to help myself and do something about the glaring white background.
Here’s how:
There is a browser extension named ‘Stylish’. It is available for Chrome and Firefox AFAIK.
It can apply custom CSS to any website. It can either download prefabricated CSS from userstyles.org or you can write your own.
HowTo for Chrome:
install the Stylish extension for Chrome (available in the Chrome app store )
you get a new icon, click on it, a little menu opens
in the menu click on ‘forum’ (indicated red in screenshot)
click Save, done
the forum should then look like this:
for the Firefox extension it is almost the same
Disclaimer:
I suck at this. Really, I know I do.
The css instructions in the box above should get you started. They cover only the biggest elements. There are a lot of headings and text boxes and links and stuff left untouched.
But I am lazy and it already helps me, even in this rudimentary state.
Feel free to improve and extend.
If you come up with a color schema that is nice and complete, you can submit it to userstyles.org for instant use with the Stylish browser extension.
edit: thank you to @vastinator for figuring out the different styling of unread threads! edit 2: included background color fix for the ‘edit my thumbnail’ page edit 3: given up on the opacity for read threads since this messed with the moderation flyout menu edit 4: changed avatars from circular to square edit 5: slightly darkened text color in topic list edit 6: borrowed MovieFan’s ‘online’ indicator edit 7: slightly darkened the actual message text edit 8: update of plex style - avatars back to square edit 9: update of plex style edit10 once more update due to changed plex style - restore ‘Online’ indicator
When I suggested using a browser extension or customizing settings to make the new forums more usable or at least more aesthetically pleasing I was told that the solution offered was unacceptable because the new forums should adapt themselves to the user. I read that as: “Make the forums the way they were or go away” or “I don’t want to do any work to get the interface I want. Someone else should do the work for me”
So I quit trying to help those that would not help themselves.
This is better than what I was suggesting and so I expect that people may blast it as well. People would rather cry about perceived problems than take steps to eliminate them.
I am going to give it a try. I use FireFox and I may report back if I have problems.
EDIT: That was quick and easy. Combining the script gived with FireFox’s built in magnification (I am using either 133% or 150%. I’m not sure which I like best.) and the aesthetics are quite nice.
Lets get some user scripts going to rearrange/hide some page elements too. Let’s bury this crappy UI and get something easier on the eyes. I’m working on a color theme that more closely matches the old Plex forums. After that I’m going to start hacking the UI itself.
You will now get a new window come up with an empty “Name” field and below that 5 lines of code.
Enter a name for the skin
Copy and paste OttoKerner’s code to line 4 of the existing code
The wayback machine for the most part contains excellent copies of the old forum. I’ll be referencing that as I go. My current theme (I’m at work and hacking at this when nobody is looking) is this.
@vanstinator said:
The wayback machine for the most part contains excellent copies of the old forum. I’ll be referencing that as I go. My current theme (I’m at work and hacking at this when nobody is looking) is this.
I’ll be filling this out quite a bit more and I’ll see what I can do about DOM manipulation too.
If this takes off and we get some good styles we should ping elan about getting a sub-forum for forum skins.
What is the “wayback machine” ?
I do like your skin with the darker background and how similar it looks to the old forums.
I think those white bars don’t look right though and I’m sure in the old forums the posts used to be a lot wider everything seems to narrow now. like so much of the page is wasted. (see pic below)
Don’t know if there’s anything you can do about that ?
I’m still working on it. I’ve got some free time tonight and tomorrow morning so I’ll be fleshing this out a lot more. As for actual widths and placement of things, that’s step 2.
There are still fonts I need to recolor and font sizes I’d like to tweak. I’ll then go through and update overall colors again and make sure nothing is jarring or hard on the eyes.
The wayback machine is an internet archive, Plex forums can be found here
