Prosilver Dark Edition

Messing around with it (where's my chainsaw?) - Prosilver Dark Edition

Messing around with it (where's my chainsaw?)

by Gumboots » Tue Nov 05, 2019 6:13 am

I've been having a bit of fun with this style. It's pretty smooth. I'm also liking the idea of using it as a base for a light style, just for the more rationalised CSS, but that's not happening yet.

This is still WIP, so the banner and a few other things need a bit of love. The site is running the Button Menu extension, which accounts for the top menu bar*. Personally I've never been fond of the header arrangement on Prosilver. It's too fragmented for my taste, and I think it's easier on the eye with a bit of amalgamation to clean things up.

I've also hidden the time because my box tells me what time it is anyway, so I'd rather have the cleaner look. One detail here is that the border radius on the preceding and following elements tends to make the default time and "Mark forums read" look as if they are falling of the edge of the world. IMO they sit more comfortably if inset a bit with some horizontal padding.

TBH I probably will end up doing a little bit of markup hacking here and there, just because sometimes it's easier than throwing more CSS at the problem, but so far this is all just CSS tweaks running in Stylish.

Testing_dark_3.jpg

*Yes, the amount of drop menu content is a bit over the top. I have plans for that too. ;)
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Re: Messing around with it (where's my chainsaw?)

by PlanetStyles.net » Tue Nov 05, 2019 6:24 am

Hi there,

Thanks for your kind feedback, and sharing your progress :)

Your changes look great, I'm a big fan of larger cat titles and the different header layout. Those are definitely elements I'd normally change first on any other style; on prosilver dark edition I had to reign myself in and try to respect the original prosilver as much as possible. After all, this was always supposed to be prosilver...just dark :)

Keep us posted on progress.
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Re: Messing around with it (where's my chainsaw?)

by Gumboots » Tue Nov 05, 2019 6:55 am

Yes I know what that can be like if you start getting carried away. It begins with just one little hack, and before you know it you're trying to rewrite half the GUI. Fair enough if you wanted to avoid that. Me? I have no respect. :lol:

I agree about a bit of visual hierarchy in the typography. Feels more natural IMO.

I'm thinking I'll use that extension to ditch the dreaded "Re:", then maybe switch the topics and posts columns to a position after the last post, on the basis that nobody really cares about topics and posts columns most of the time. They're mainly for filling up empty space on wide screens. I could do all the switching with CSS too (not all that difficult) but you know how that can go. Past a certain point a markup tweak starts making more sense (repeats to himself: "I am not going to rewrite half the GUI.").
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Re: Messing around with it (where's my chainsaw?)

by Gumboots » Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:45 am

Christian 2.0 wrote:Keep us posted on progress.
Ok, there is some progress. :D

I now have the CSS running live, on the actual site files rather than in Stylish, so if you're curious the forum url is: http://hawkdawg.com/forums/index.php (you'll have to select Prosilver Dark from the quick style select over at the right).

I've pulled the Buttonmenu extension's content out of its default overall_header_navbar_before.html and put it into a custom overall_header_body_before.html. This isn't coded quite the way the default menu was coded. Markup and CSS are different, and the superfluous javascript has been removed. I haven't got around to doing the responsive/hamburger thing on it yet, but that will be along soon (basic checkbox hack and pure CSS burger, set li's to block, blah blah blah).

Edit: The hamburger top menu is live now.

The empty overall_header_navbar_before.html still came in handy though, because I wanted the login form sitting just below the banner, and that file was ideal for the purpose. The form was deleted from Prosilver's index.body.html and thrown into overall_header_navbar_before.html, minus some crud I didn't think it needed. Threw some eye candy at it. Sorted.

Incidentally, the eye candy is currently sitting in buttonmenu.css, because that loads after everything else anyway so it's a good one for custom tweaks. So the old Buttonmenu extension is now menu + custom login + sundry other tricks. :lol:

CSS looks like this at the moment:

Code: Select all

body {
	padding: 0 0 12px;
}
#buttonmenu {
	position: relative;
	z-index: 9;
	padding: 4px 0 2px;
	background: #242a36;
	box-shadow: 0 3px 4px #0009;
}
#buttonmenu .inner {
	max-width: 1152px;
	margin: 0 auto;
	padding: 0 20px;
}
#buttonmenu #search {
	margin: 2px 6px;
    background-color: #fff4;
	border-radius: 4px;
}
#buttonmenu .menu_search {
	width: 140px;
	padding: 3px 6px;
    background-color: #0000;
	border: 0;
}
#buttonmenu #search a {
	padding: 3px 4px 2px;
	border-left: 1px solid #242a36;
}
#buttonmenu ul {
	list-style: none;
	margin: 2px 0;
	padding: 0;
}
#buttonmenu>.inner>ul>li {
	display: inline-block;
	position: relative;
}
#buttonmenu a {
	display: block;
	padding: 6px 12px;
    color: #9d9d9d;
	font-size: 11px;
	font-weight: 700;
	white-space: nowrap;
	text-decoration: none;
}
#buttonmenu>.inner>ul>li>a {
	border-radius: 4px;
}
#buttonmenu a:hover, #buttonmenu a:focus, #buttonmenu ul>li:hover>a {
    background-color: rgba(0,0,0,.3);
	color: #ddd;
	text-decoration: none;
}
#buttonmenu ul ul {
	position: absolute;
	z-index: 9;
	left: -120vw;
	max-height: 0;
	overflow: hidden;
	padding: 6px 0 8px;
	background: #242a36;
	border: 1px solid;
	border-color: #444 #3b3b3b #333;
	border-radius: 0 7px;
	box-shadow: 2px 3px 4px #0009;
	transition: left .3s step-end, max-height .3s step-end;
}
#buttonmenu li:hover ul {
	left: 0;
	max-height: 66em;
	transition: left .05s step-end, max-height .2s linear .05s;
}
#menu ul ul li {}
#menu ul ul li a {}
/* Hide default search input.*/
#search-box {
	display: none;
}
/* Add temporary code for quick style select. */
#quick_style {
	padding: 0 6px;
	border-radius: 4px;
	-moz-appearance: none;
	-webkit-appearance: none;
	appearance: none;
}
/* For IE and Edge */ 
#quick_style::-ms-expand { 
	display: none; 
}
#quick_style option {
	padding: 3px 1em 3px 0;
}
/* Add temporary beastiness for general Prosilver Dark tweaks. */
.headerbar {
	margin-bottom: 0;
	padding: 4px 4px 0;
	border-width: 1px 1px 0 !important;
	border-radius: 7px 7px 0 0;
}
.headerbar>.inner {
	background-image: url(Banner_36.jpg) !important;
	background-size: cover !important;
	background-repeat: no-repeat !important;
	background-position: center center;
	background-position: center 65%;
	border: solid #222;
	border-width: 1px 1px 0;
	border-radius: 4px 4px 0 0;
}
.site-description {
	float: left;
	width: 100%;
}
h1 {
	margin-top: 1.7em;
	margin-left: .4em;
	color: #ccc !important;
	font-size: 2.6em;
	text-shadow: 0 -1px 0 #000, 0 1px 1px #000;
	opacity: .9;
}
#site-description p {
	margin-left: .8em;
	color: #ccc !important;
	font-size: 1.1em;
	font-weight: 700;
	text-shadow: 0 -1px 0 #000, 0 1px 1px #000;
	opacity: .9;
}
#logo {
	padding: 3em .6em 6em 1em;
	opacity: .9;
}
#logo .site_logo {
	width: 72px !important;
	height: 72px !important;
	background-size: contain;
}
#page-header .headerspace {
	margin: 0;
	padding: 6px 12px 0;
	background: #242a36;
	border: solid rgba(255,255,255,0.04);
	border-width: 0 1px;
}
fieldset.quick-login {
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0 0 6px;
	border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(255,255,255,0.04);
}
.quick-login .inputbox {
	padding: 3px;
	background: rgba(255,255,255,0.4) !important;
	color: #000 !important;
	border-radius: 4px;
}
#autologin {
	opacity: .8;
}
.quick-login .button2 {
	padding: 2px 6px;
	border-radius: 4px;
}
.navbar {
	border-width: 0 1px 1px !important;
	border-radius: 0 0 7px 7px;
}
#nav-main {
	padding: 3px 0 5px;
}
.section-index .page-body>p {
  display: none;
}
.section-index .page-body>.action-bar.compact {
	margin: 8px;
}
.forabg .header a {
	padding: 0 10px;
	color: #9d9d9d !important;
	font-size: 1.5em;
	font-weight: 400;
	text-transform: none;
}
.forabg .list-inner>strong {
	display: block;
	height: 0;
	margin: 4px 0 0;
	overflow: hidden;
/*	border-top: 1px solid rgba(255,255,255,.04);*/
}
.forabg .list-inner>.subforum {
	display: inline-block;
	width: 30%;
	padding: 4px 0 0;
}
.forabg dd.posts, .forabg dd.topics {
	width: 75px;
}
.forabg dd.lastpost {
	width: 290px;
}
li.header dd {
	margin: 0;
	padding: 6px 0 0;
	color: #838b98 !important;
}
.lastpost .username-coloured::after {
	color: #838b98 !important;
	content: ",";
}
.lastpost .username-coloured + a,
.lastpost .username-coloured + a + br {
	display: none;
}
.postbody .content {
	color: #aaa !important;
	font-size: 1.4em;
}
dl.thumbnail img {
	border-color: #666666;
	background-color: #fff4;
}
/* Media queries. */
@media screen and (max-width: 1220px) {
	#buttonmenu .inner {
		margin: 0 12px;
	}
}
Last edited by Gumboots on Fri Nov 08, 2019 5:19 am
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Re: Messing around with it (where's my chainsaw?)

by Gumboots » Thu Nov 07, 2019 2:20 am

Here's a tweak that might interest someone. I've installed the team's Collapsible Forum Categories extension, which I rather like. They understandably haven't got around to supplying custom css for every style on the planet, including this one, so I thought it should have some.

The extension throws in a hidden anchor before each collapsed category, which can be used with an adjacent selector to do an additional bit of styling for when things are collapsed (note that this code is meant to run with the larger category headings I'm using, so may need adjusting for preference). Among other things, I've hidden the default topics/posts/last post headings when the category is collapsed.

Code: Select all

.forabg .header a.collapse-btn {
    margin: -24px -6px 0 0;
	opacity: .5;
}
.hidden-category + .forabg .header a.collapse-btn {
    margin: -16px -6px 0 0;
}
.forabg .header a.collapse-btn:hover {
	opacity: 1;
}
.hidden-category + .forabg li.header dt {
	margin-bottom: 0;
	padding: 0;
	/* Next is needed for larger category headings. */
	line-height: 1.5em;
}
.hidden-category + .forabg li.header dd {
	display: none;
}
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Re: Messing around with it (where's my chainsaw?)

by Gumboots » Fri Nov 08, 2019 12:23 am

I was watching Pirates of the Caribbean (Dead Men Tell No Tales) last night, and wanted something to do in the ad breaks, so I had a quick play with that concept of doing a light style that uses this one as a base. This is about 80 lines of CSS running as overrides in Stylish, so not viewable on the site yet. Still needs some tweaking in a few places, but overall I think it's hanging together pretty well.

Prosilver_Custom_Edition.jpg

For the colours: all I did was take the basic backgrounds from Dark, keep the Hue value the same, and adjust the S and V values to suit. Contrast is balanced for the WCAG AAA minimum in most places. I prefer to keep contrast ratios pretty constant across a page. I find it annoying if there's too much variation.

ETA: Had an idea about the multiple colour variations in this style. I've added a switcher down in the footer. It has eight little buttons corresponding to the different colour options (blue, green, grey, orange, pink, purple, red and yellow). Grey is the default, and the other stylesheets are defined as link rel="alternate stylesheet", with title attributes to match. Clicking any button sets a cookie to switch colour sheets.

This would obviously be handy for having light and dark variants too. No need for extra installations or inheritance issues. One style to rule them all and in the darkness (or lightness, as you please) bind them. :D
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Re: Messing around with it (where's my chainsaw?)

by Dazbobaby » Thu Apr 24, 2025 1:09 pm

Hey Gumboots. I like the pictures of the old style you were working, but the new one, the one that's live now... amazing. Well done.
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