Adding a new "simple" site skin

[Petra1999]

I'd love to have a new site skin for dragon cave (besides the Portal 2, St. Patrick's Day, etc. skins that already exist), which is just simple black on white (or other colours that aren't too in-the-face), without backround etc. I can imagine that I'm not the only one who uses Dragon Cave while in school or at work, and I think everyone who does that would appreciate the option to make it look less like what it is. And I don't want to say that I don't like the default or the other skins (I love them, actually) but I think such a simple/blank site skin would be easy to implement, wouldn't it?

I'd also suggest, if this is actually done, to also add one simple one with reversed colors, for better and less eye-straining viewing at night. Not really necessary.

Edit: Bunch of ideas from commenters

• Create a new simple theme (maybe with the colors from the mobile site)
• Replace another theme (like St. Patrick's) with a simple theme
• Add the old default theme as a choice

 

 

Edited September 7, 2017 by Petra1999

[StormWizard212]

As someone who does exactly what you mentioned (using DC at work) I could definitely get behind a more incognito skin that's a bit more subtle. I can't say I've ever thought about it specifically before, but if it were an option I'd probably use it. 

 

Are you thinking something maybe a bit more like the mobile site, but available on desktop?

[Sundew]

I am a little skeptical of how useful an incognito skin would be for work while you have colorful pictures of dragons on the screen, but I don't have any actual reason to be against this. I don't think having a night mode for the simple skin would be necessary, though, since we already have a few dark skins and it seems best to limit the number of themes. There are some browser extensions that can invert text/background colors for that purpose. 

[Fuzzbucket]

I have to use St Pat's as I cannot cope wit the default. I would love a plain one. St Pat's is OK - but the shamrock always feels a bit silly.

[Predat0rs]

Even on my blazing fast Gaming PC I hate the default's loading time, the graphics themselves, everything! (IMHO) Dragon Cave is a simple game, which I love for its simplicity, and it should LOOK simple, and not so... busy. I loathe the fancy graphics, honestly. I switch between St. Patty's and 1960s, but I would LOVE a plain vanilla skin. Colored like parchment paper like the default, but just... plain! I don't want it for subtlety, however, but I would want it because it would be faster, it would be plain and not so image-heavy, it would be simple like the game it is showing, and among other reasons.

 

Overall: I think we should get a few new skins in general.

[Zeditha]

While I doubt I'd use it myself (I love the default theme and the loading times aren't a problem for me) I definitely support a simpler skin. The scroll's colour with black text would be one option, although a light blue could work too.

The dragons' sprites aren't always on the screen, especially when cave-hunting.

 

If adding new skins is going to be too much of a problem, perhaps replacing one or two of the least-used skins (e.g. st. patrick's) with this simple one would work? Especially if the colours aren't too bright (no white background, please!) then most of what users are using other skins for might be available in the simple skin.

[thomasgold19]

The blackout skin sounds similar to what you are looking for.  Unfortunately it was retired due to a lack of use so it is no longer accessible to anyone who was not using it at the time and it no longer receives updates.

[KrazyKarp]

I'd like to see a couple more skins, whether it be the simplistic one suggested in this thread and/or different ones. I use the default, but none of the current ones appeal to me too much.

[Fuzzbucket]

1 hour ago, Metal-n-Monster said:

Even on my blazing fast Gaming PC I hate the default's loading time, the graphics themselves, everything! (IMHO) Dragon Cave is a simple game, which I love for its simplicity, and it should LOOK simple, and not so... busy. I loathe the fancy graphics, honestly. I switch between St. Patty's and 1960s, but I would LOVE a plain vanilla skin. Colored like parchment paper like the default, but just... plain! I don't want it for subtlety, however, but I would want it because it would be faster, it would be plain and not so image-heavy, it would be simple like the game it is showing, and among other reasons.

 

Overall: I think we should get a few new skins in general.

 

TJ has said that it's a lot of work maintaining a lot of skins... but I do think a vanilla one is kind of needed. (I'd like one for the forum too - I use the simplest one going but since the upgrade it's just a horrible place to be.)

 

@ Zeditha - St Pat's is the ONLY simple one we have just now - PLEASE don't take it away until such time as there is a GENUINELY vanilla alternative.

Edited August 30, 2017 by fuzzbucket

[HeatherMarie]

I use the default skin and always have, but not because I like it. I just... Like the others less. I really, really hated the change when those fancy biome backgrounds were added, I still much prefer the simple way the default used to be. I would *love* a very simple, plain colored skin... I don't really care what colors as long as it's easy on the eyes.

[Zeditha]

I would never suggest taking away st. pats until a similarly simple option is added, I was just suggesting that, since I think TJ has said it's hard to upkeep lots of skins, maybe retiring one or two after introducing a new one could help, and that if simplicity is really needed, st.pat's would probably see a lot less use and therefore be a candidate for retirement.

 

As for colours - I think the mobile site has a blue kind of theme, although I mostly play on pc due to my phone being... uncooperative. So a blue theme could work, in keeping with that, or the scroll colours could be used instead. If we really want a theme that's buisinessy, the blue would work better, perhaps a darker blue?

I could try making a mockup, but I warn, my image editing skills are not the best.

[Fuzzbucket]

The old default skin was fine... Just saying.

[Predat0rs]

50 minutes ago, fuzzbucket said:

The old default skin was fine... Just saying.

Exactly. Sorry, I don't need fancy smanshy graphics and images.........My dinosaur laptop would thank a vanilla skin, anyways.

[Petra1999]

On 31.8.2017 at 6:54 AM, Zeditha said:

As for colours - I think the mobile site has a blue kind of theme, although I mostly play on pc due to my phone being... uncooperative. So a blue theme could work, in keeping with that, or the scroll colours could be used instead. If we really want a theme that's buisinessy, the blue would work better, perhaps a darker blue?

I could try making a mockup, but I warn, my image editing skills are not the best.

 

I agree with the blue colors. They seem very "default" without being too boring with black and white. And I would love to see a mockup!

[Predat0rs]

Blue is okay, but I personally just want scroll colors in basic form.

Edited September 4, 2017 by Metal-n-Monster

[Petra1999]

9 hours ago, Metal-n-Monster said:

Blue is okay, but I personally just want scroll colors in basic form.

I personally think that that is still too much, it's a color that is rarely find on other websites.

I also realised that I would love the navigation of the now-default theme, because I like it way better than these huge script buttons.

[StormWizard212]

I don't mind that it's not a colour often found on other websites. I like the simplicity of the mockup. I do agree though that a simplified version would be better off with simple navigation buttons, rather than the old scripty ones. 

[Predat0rs]

9 hours ago, Petra1999 said:

I personally think that that is still too much, it's a color that is rarely find on other websites.

I also realised that I would love the navigation of the now-default theme, because I like it way better than these huge script buttons.

...We own scrolls, so scroll-colors make way more sense to me than blue does. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Plus, why would we want to look like other websites?

[Jazeki]

Please don't take away St. Pat's. I use it because the colors on the other skins hurt my eyes.  I'd like a simple scroll skin that is close to the original one we had.

[Predat0rs]

Okay, how about something like...
Scroll Colors: Dark Version

Scoll Colors: Light Version

 

For fun:

Dark Blue/Gray Colors

[Petra1999]

1 hour ago, Metal-n-Monster said:

...We own scrolls, so scroll-colors make way more sense to me than blue does. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Plus, why would we want to look like other websites?

 

I just think that, if the background is white, the main color blue (for links / accent) would be nice. Also, St. Pat's and Portal themes make even less sense, don't they?

 

53 minutes ago, Metal-n-Monster said:

Okay, how about something like...
Scroll Colors: Dark Version

Scoll Colors: Light Version

 

For fun:

Dark Blue/Gray Colors

 

I love the light version, but I personally would prefer the header new-default style (logo/"Dragon cave" on the left, navigation on the right, both in one line)

[TJ09]

On 8/30/2017 at 2:42 AM, Petra1999 said:

I can imagine that I'm not the only one who uses Dragon Cave while in school or at work, and I think everyone who does that would appreciate the option to make it look less like what it is.

When I was in school, I used Portal 2 Light a lot (even before it was released to everyone else...) and found it to serve this purpose quite well.

 

On 8/30/2017 at 10:14 AM, Metal-n-Monster said:

Even on my blazing fast Gaming PC I hate the default's loading time, the graphics themselves, everything! (IMHO) Dragon Cave is a simple game, which I love for its simplicity, and it should LOOK simple, and not so... busy. I loathe the fancy graphics, honestly. I switch between St. Patty's and 1960s, but I would LOVE a plain vanilla skin. Colored like parchment paper like the default, but just... plain! I don't want it for subtlety, however, but I would want it because it would be faster, it would be plain and not so image-heavy, it would be simple like the game it is showing, and among other reasons.

 

Overall: I think we should get a few new skins in general.

I debunked claims about differences in loading time earlier this year:

The rest is subjective/based on opinion, but also not quite in line with the intention behind this thread (which is less "add a less-resource-heavy skin" and more "add a more discrete skin")

 

Overall, though, the usual applies: Adding and maintaining a new skin is a fair amount of work, and takes away from other things. I've kept it manageable by limiting the number of actively-maintained skins, but given that the vast majority of active people (not including people who aren't logged in) use the default (and a growing portion use mobile), adding a new skin would definitely require deprecating an older skin, which is pretty awful given that retired skins just get the styling from the default skin.

[Geoff]

I think this is a good idea, tho if it's too much work then not worth it. If majority people use the default, then you can always just use an extension on your browser to turn off the Background image.

 

Then you can customize your experience. 

Edit: This is what I've done with the portal lite skin, I think it's really nice I use Stylebot, if anyone wants to have the style sheet I use you can message me! It's honestly quite simple to use!

 

Edited September 13, 2017 by Geoff

[Fuzzbucket]

Leaving aside the very lovely but shifting background leading to nausea (which yes, I can disable) someone here - was it cyradis4 ? - tested hunting speed and found using St Pat's worked very much better.

 

 

Edited September 13, 2017 by fuzzbucket

[Drachenlied]

I would also like to have a simpler site skin. The original hurts my eyes, and the Retro skins doesn't display the cave time or time of day. While I can just go to the help section to get that info... It's not very helpful while hunting, and is on every other skin except that one. I miss the old site skin before the biomes had their own backgrounds.