SummitPost.org

Coming up within the next 3 months or so is the planned release of SummitPost Version 4. I plan on making another thread sometime down the road regarding other changes. So with that in mind, the idea of profile themes is on the consideration list. If implemented, it would allow the user to select the theme (template styling) of their profile. The profile is the most personal part of the site hence what I believe has the right to have it's own unique look and feel. Profile themes would not effect the rest of the site.

Right now there are three themes. Simple, Semi Styled, and Dark.

Plain is pretty much the same as it currently is as seen here:



Semi Styled has some Styling additions to it to make it not too styled but has some elements that make the content pop out better:



And finally the dark theme:



In the screen shot above, the dark theme has a blue color (gradient) on hover which makes it easier readable and it looks nice. Another advantage to the dark theme is that it strives for style and simplicity. Notice how the links don't feel overwhelming? (or at least feels like less clutter than the original) But again, I understand people's desire for simple styling which is why I believe people should have the freedom to choose.

So in this thread feel free to voice your opinion regarding this. We want to hear what other think of this, whether it be suggestions, likes, dislikes, ect.

I like the look of the semi styled theme. The dark theme is cool, but as a visually impaired person find it more difficult to read than black text on a white background.

I like the idea a lot...I would like to see this implemented.

Thanks for the feedback ExcitableBoy. After thinking about your post I thought of another idea in addition to this one. What if the user could select what theme to view when looking at any profile? Then the case you mentioned wouldn't be a problem. On the profile (when editing) it could have two drop down menu's side by side. One for your profile to display (basically setting it's default). Then the second to show what style to show no matter what (basically over writing what the user has selected). This would allow a lot of flexibility for both the viewer and profile owners.

Here's a screen shot of what it could look like and it's placement:

I am computer challenged so my retarded question of the day is which one will load faster?

The plain one of course. But the time loading difference is so small that the smilies on this thread take longer to load than the most beefed up styling of mine.

No matter what happens, the template is planned to be recoded (simplified) which means that the most styled up profile theme would take less code than the current one! In other words, don't let 0.00001 seconds of loading time being the deciding factor.

From the examples, I like the second one best, and if these end up being the options, I'll try it out.

However, to be honest, I'm not sure if it is time well spent, developoing this. My guess is that only a fraction of the members will be interested enough to try out various themes to see which one they like best. However, if you don't mind expending the effort anyway, go right ahead.

I think it's a great idea. I've seen many modern sites make this sort of option available to users. Even Gmail has themes available now. While I agree with rgg that this is not the most pressing issue at hand, it's still a positive change which should be implemented.

The theme's are already made lads. That's how I was able to make the screen shots. Of course template changes come first (the ones Matt mentioned), especially considering that it will simply the theme coding. I started this thread to hear what the public had to say about this. As discussed with Matt, I believe font icons may be our best bet. A little more research into them on my part will be needed before the final decision is made.

This is something I started up using my free time, Matt's energies are currently spent elsewhere. This idea shouldn't negatively effect the big list of changes that need to take place.

rgg wrote:From the examples, I like the second one best, and if these end up being the options, I'll try it out.

However, to be honest, I'm not sure if it is time well spent, developoing this. My guess is that only a fraction of the members will be interested enough to try out various themes to see which one they like best. However, if you don't mind expending the effort anyway, go right ahead.

I agree with all points here. #2 seems best. I find #3 really difficult to read (and am not visually impaired).

rgg is probably right that very few people actually will care about something like this, though. My guess is that most members just want a site where the search tools work well, pages load quickly, and information is presented in a user-friendly layout.

A change I really would like to see on profile pages would be listing objects in alphabetical order rather than by creation date. This would make it much easier and thus more appealing to make periodic updates to pages, especially for people that have a lot of pages.

Personally I think it's about time we have a section on the profile for preferences. So for page list display on the profile it should also be up to the users. With trip reports it's easy that it's the first post at the top. However with mountain pages it's a different story. So to prevent us from going too off topic I started a thread dedicated to SummitPost Version 4 as seen here: post937526.html#p937526

Climber logs should not be sorted alphabetically. When people look at climber logs they want to see the most recent one first.

I agree with Josh, but a suggestion if its not too difficult is to add a sort feature above the logs, the following would be great: As a default by date (current method) + sort alphabetically and by range. I am sure many peakbaggers who have climbed in many different ranges would like to sort their climbs by range for review purposes from time to time.

Montana Matt wrote:

Bob Sihler wrote:A change I really would like to see on profile pages would be listing objects in alphabetical order rather than by creation date.

OK, just made this change. Let me know what you think. Also, should the climber's logs be sorted alphabetically too?

I love it; many thanks!

Climber's logs-- do we mean on the profile page? If so, I'd say yes. I don't think I have ever visited a profile page for the purpose of reading climbing logs because it is too difficult to look through for a particular peak. Sometimes I review my own logs, which would make alphabetizing helpful. And if I wanted to, say, see Bob Burd's entry for a certain Sierra Peak, alphabetizing the logs would be tremendously helpful since he has climbed just about everything in California.

I meant on the page for climber logs. In other words, it's fine the way it is with climber logs on the page.