Reducing the number of site skins

[Naruhina_94]

Actually I would like if we keep only the skins that fit good the lore of DC (Dino Cave, old Default Skin). If we want a dark skin we could do another one with dragons and such. If we want a green one why not inspiring it to the beautiful Neglected ? We don't play Portal nor celebrate S.Patrick's day on DC, so I really don't get why we have skins with these themes. Ok to keep up to 4 different skins with different colors, including the current default one, but I would like to see them more related to the game.

[Fuzzbucket]

Actually I would like if we keep only the skins that fit good the lore of DC (Dino Cave, old Default Skin). If we want a dark skin we could do another one with dragons and such. If we want a green one why not inspiring it to the beautiful Neglected ? We don't play Portal nor celebrate S.Patrick's day on DC, so I really don't get why we have skins with these themes. Ok to keep up to 4 different skins with different colors, including the current default one, but I would like to see them more related to the game.

The St Patrick's Day one is the CLEANEST and most usable; if not that as it stands, please one just like it. I hadn't realised how much slicker it is even than the old default, till I had to switch to it.

 

ETA for those who want only skins "related to the game" - why not just use one of those for YOUR scroll. Many of us don't mind what skin, as long as it looks pleasant and works.

Edited March 15, 2015 by fuzzbucket

[caffkitty]

The option to use the old default skin would be very much appreciated.

 

The new design, whilst the background art is gorgeous, is likely to trigger migraines for me thanks to the movement and the uneven spaces of dark/light contrast. I've switched to one of the other skins for now, but none of them offer the plain and minimally visually-complex design of the old original, and without such a design as an option I will unfortunately be unable to spend much time on the site without having bad headaches.

[whitebaron]

i used the old Default Skin, and am now forced to either adblock the whole new page, or Switch to something ugly - so, all for "bring old Default back as Option"

[Slaskia]

I was an old Default user and while I liked the new one for the new features the lag and font ultimately made me change over to a different skin. So count me in as someone that wants to have access to the old version. (1960s and Pattys one were just too bright for me...so currently using Portal).

[olympe]

Strangely enough, the 1.5 - 2 second lag I experienced with the new default isn't there any more. (No, I didn't experience it around the full hour...)

 

I had switched to 1960, but that skin is even worse. Whenever I had a list of dragons loaded (for breeding, or just looking at them), scrolling up or down was rather laggy and often resulted in me clicking the wrong dragon because, all of a sudden, the page would move.

[Sundew]

Strangely enough, the 1.5 - 2 second lag I experienced with the new default isn't there any more. (No, I didn't experience it around the full hour...)

 

I had switched to 1960, but that skin is even worse. Whenever I had a list of dragons loaded (for breeding, or just looking at them), scrolling up or down was rather laggy and often resulted in me clicking the wrong dragon because, all of a sudden, the page would move.

I think the lagging is just caused by your computer saving images to the cache. The background is a big new image, but once your computer is used to loading it, it should speed up. Same with all new or new-to-you themes.

 

I used the 1960's theme and loved it, but switched to the new default because I think it's much sleeker and I love the background. I miss the white, but not enough to change back. I'm a big fan of the new theme so far.

[Fuzzbucket]

I think the lagging is just caused by your computer saving images to the cache. The background is a big new image, but once your computer is used to loading it, it should speed up. Same with all new or new-to-you themes.

 

I used the 1960's theme and loved it, but switched to the new default because I think it's much sleeker and I love the background. I miss the white, but not enough to change back. I'm a big fan of the new theme so far.

Sorry - don't buy it. In theory, if you load the page and don't hard refresh, you'e got it cached. So how come the page (including if you switch biomes etc) takes ages to load if you move to any other page with the same background - which SHOULD be cached and not need to load at all. Because it does. And as for sorting - all I can say is shriek and thank the dragon lords for St Patrick. (I think 60s would be OK, but I can't stand the look of it.)

 

The THEME is beautiful. I have it as my wallpaper now. It's the loading and the nausea-inducing movement that I don't like...

 

ETA used it for several hours, to test, before I decided to switch, by the way. Going to and fro and sorting and stuff.

Edited March 16, 2015 by fuzzbucket

[Sundew]

Sorry - don't buy it. In theory, if you load the page and don't hard refresh, you'e got it cached. So how come the page (including if you switch biomes etc) takes ages to load if you move to any other page with the same background - which SHOULD be cached and not need to load at all. Because it does. And as for sorting - all I can say is shriek and thank the dragon lords for St Patrick. (I think 60s would be OK, but I can't stand the look of it.)

 

The THEME is beautiful. I have it as my wallpaper now. It's the loading and the nausea-inducing movement that I don't' like...

I'm not saying I'm right, but that makes sense to me. For all large background images, it takes a while for my computer to load them, but once I start visiting the website frequently it speeds up. I guess that's not for everyone.

 

I don't have any problems with the new theme myself, but I won't lose any sleep if the scrolling is changed or whatever happens.

[TJ09]

I think the lagging is just caused by your computer saving images to the cache. The background is a big new image, but once your computer is used to loading it, it should speed up. Same with all new or new-to-you themes.

Cache should be "filled" after a single page load. Once it's downloaded once, it's cached.

 

Oh, and someone asked the most likely skins to be removed: Dino Cave has an order of magnitude fewer users than the non-default skins, which have an order of magnitude fewer people than the default, so that's looking like it's going away. Blackout is the next least-used, so that's at risk as well.

 

The way I'll probably disable them is to remove the ability to select them (without forcing people off of them), and stop making any changes to those skins; so anything new would end up looking out-of-place and potentially unstyled on those layouts.

[Cinnamin Draconna]

Can we have a very, VERY simple skin based on nothing but the background color and text color.

 

As in, name it 'Just the Basics'

Choose it from the menu

Page comes up with two fill in the blank text boxes

a. box 1 says choose your background color

b. box 2 says choose your text color

(only proper HTML color choices are allowed; #004000, #E7F7E7, etc.)

Click save and done

 

Neat, simple and not offensive to anyone who chooses to use the skin. Would be my skin of choice for sure.

[Fuzzbucket]

Cache should be "filled" after a single page load. Once it's downloaded once, it's cached.

 

Oh, and someone asked the most likely skins to be removed: Dino Cave has an order of magnitude fewer users than the non-default skins, which have an order of magnitude fewer people than the default, so that's looking like it's going away. Blackout is the next least-used, so that's at risk as well.

 

The way I'll probably disable them is to remove the ability to select them (without forcing people off of them), and stop making any changes to those skins; so anything new would end up looking out-of-place and potentially unstyled on those layouts.

PLEASE explain why sort is almost impossible - I'm not the only one to have found this. And also - can you somehow stop the seasick effect ?

 

Can you possibly put up a very vanilla skin then ? As in Paddy's with no theme kind of thing ? (ninjaed by Cinn !)

Edited March 16, 2015 by fuzzbucket

[Syphoneira]

I'm really hoping for the old default skin...

 

Apart from slow refreshes, the non-appearing eggs on the AP are often those under my cursor, lol, but the other skins seem either painfully bright or too dark and I dun like them...

 

And at the hour on the Cave Drops, after a lengthy delay, (much longer than the others which also occur far more often around the hourly,) typically only the far egg shows when the page finally changes - although PayPal and various marketing URLs frequently seem to be involved, so not sure what's due to what.

 

I really do love the art on the new skin, though.

 

It's too bad that it seems to have been a bit much for so many systems - I got mine new about a ?year and a half ago? so I would have expected it to be able to cope and hate to think what it's doing to people with the sort of genuine antiques I had until then.

[auroshen]

I've been using 1960s but I'd use the old default if it was still there-- I love the art and layout of the new one but it takes so long to load.

 

I don't ever use any of the other skins.

Edited March 17, 2015 by cheese456

[diaveborn]

the most likely skins to be removed:

Thank you

[MessengerDragon]

The way I'll probably disable them is to remove the ability to select them (without forcing people off of them), and stop making any changes to those skins; so anything new would end up looking out-of-place and potentially unstyled on those layouts.

So if someone was on a disabled skin, and changed to an enabled skin, they wouldn't be able to get the disabled skin any more?

[Fuzzbucket]

So if someone was on a disabled skin, and changed to an enabled skin, they wouldn't be able to get the disabled skin any more?

Sounds that way Which means I shall STICK with St P until I am SURE it isn't going

[whitebaron]

Can we have a very, VERY simple skin based on nothing but the background color and text color.

 

As in, name it 'Just the Basics'

Choose it from the menu

Page comes up with two fill in the blank text boxes

a. box 1 says choose your background color

b. box 2 says choose your text color

(only proper HTML color choices are allowed; #004000, #E7F7E7, etc.)

Click save and done

 

Neat, simple and not offensive to anyone who chooses to use the skin. Would be my skin of choice for sure.

actually,I'm all for a simple and basic skin, but without the customizations proposed here. To be blunt, I'd prefer to use the mobile version over any of the current skins, but I'm not going to fake user agents over that one.

[olympe]

I think the lagging is just caused by your computer saving images to the cache. The background is a big new image, but once your computer is used to loading it, it should speed up. Same with all new or new-to-you themes.

Yeah, that's why it lagged every single time I tried to scroll on a scrollable page - be it a scroll page, a breeding page, a BSA-targetig page, the custom sort pages or the account settings page. And I loaded several breeding pages, several different pages from my scroll and the account settings page multiple times. Scrolling usually happened with a delay of 1-2 seconds, which made things rather awkward.

Edited March 18, 2015 by olympe

[JavaTigress]

Can we have a very, VERY simple skin based on nothing but the background color and text color.

 

As in, name it 'Just the Basics'

Choose it from the menu

Page comes up with two fill in the blank text boxes

a. box 1 says choose your background color

b. box 2 says choose your text color

(only proper HTML color choices are allowed; #004000, #E7F7E7, etc.)

Click save and done

 

Neat, simple and not offensive to anyone who chooses to use the skin. Would be my skin of choice for sure.

I wouldn't mind this as an option either.

 

I wouldn't use it as it would be too bland and boring for my taste BUT IF others wanted it... it wouldn't hurt me a s no one would be FORCING anybody to use it that didn't like the minimalist look.

 

I am not sure how many would choose this as their skin. That'd be my ONE main concern with this; HOW many people would prefer to see the site in such a Spartan form? Would enough folks USE such a skin to make it worth while to create?

 

IS there some benefit I don't get to cutting back on the art and pretty font, or is it purely an aesthetic preference?

Well, no matter. Like I said, it wouldn't effect me.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Silverswift

[Syphoneira]

I wouldn't mind this as an option either.

 

I wouldn't use it as it would be too bland and boring for my taste BUT IF  others wanted it... it wouldn't hurt me a s no one would be FORCING anybody to use it that didn't like the minimalist look.

 

I am not sure how many would choose this as their skin. That'd be my ONE main concern with this; HOW many people would prefer to see the site in such a Spartan form? Would enough folks USE such a skin to make it worth while to create?

 

IS there some benefit I don't get to cutting back on the art and pretty font, or is it purely an aesthetic preference?

Well, no matter. Like I said, it wouldn't effect me.

 

 

 

Hi, Silverswift,

 

some people are having problems with motion sickness on the new skin due to the scrolling effect, colours on other skins that hurt their eyes or are too dark, and mostly, it seems with lagging on the new skin.

 

So as an alternative, if it's not possible to have the old skin back as an option, a plain skin has been suggested.

[Velvet_paw]

I'm a bit late to this discussion but I always use the St Patricks day skin

I's clean, easy to read and loads easily. I like the freshness it brings to the screen and the font used. I'd love to see the new clock on it of course. Other than that I'm sticking with St Patrick's Day so please keep it as an option.

[Nyastara]

I personally loved the old default site layout and would be very happy if it would become available again. I really do love Nakase's art and I use it as desktop background, but for some reason the moving scroll and moving background makes me dizzy.

 

Somewhere in the screenshot thread someone once posted a screenshot which showed a DC site skin wich no one knew.

When asked, the user replied that they were using a skin from the page "userstyles.org". (luckily I saved the url because I really liked the Splash of Orange style)

Maybe if someone has ze mad skillz to code something like this for some of the skins, users could still use them without TJ having the problem to test updates on every single site skin. But this would mean that users would have to use external scripts for DC. Plus it requires the installation of an addon: Stylish, Greasemonkey (Firefox) or Tampermonkey (Chrome) (I had to google one for chrome but it seems that Tampermonkey is Chrome's equivalent of Firefox's Greasemonkey)

Edited April 3, 2015 by Nyastara

[faikwansuen]

I've been using Blackout for the last 3 years. It's clean, simple and doesn't hurt my eyes, and also allows me to see outlines of eggs on the abandoned page so much easier, along with being able to see subtle differences in shadows and color.

[Flint]

I switched to using the Blackout theme last year after having previously used the default theme.

 

I'd say while there's nothing wrong with the default theme, I think it fits the website well and if Blackout was removed I'd switch back to the default theme without hesitation, I prefer the Blackout theme because it's simple and clean looking and it's not too dark (I think) compared to the Portal2 (dark) theme and it's also not to bright or gaudy like some of the other themes on the list.

 

In terms of minimising the list of themes, if it were up to me I'd suggest keeping the default, Portal2 (dark) and Blackout themes, as I think these three options would give a good balance of light and dark themes.