Hate it. Green on silver! Ghastly. It’s harder to read and less clear than what we had before. The width of the forum area doesn’t resize with my window which it did before. The fonts are too small and they are serif fonts which are harder to read on-screen. Although the profile options list other looks changing them appears to have no effect. I liked what I had before and I had specifically chosen the look to suit my sensibilities. It appears that the choice of forum appearance has been taken away from us. A retrograde step in my opinion.
I agree. The fonts are too small for me, too. Can you guys provide some options for another skin?
How many DT fans does it take to change a lightbulb?
Six.
One to change the lightbulb.
Five to sit around, saying how great the old lightbulb was.
The new look is OK by me. Serif type is, in fact, far easier to read than sans-serif, and that’s why it’s used in books, magazines, papers, and many web sites.
Besides, the content of what we are saying here is far more important than the looks.
Onward.
One more suggestion: if the fonts look too small, click on the “Increase font size” button in your browser.
No, it doesn’t, because it has to fit the new look of our Web site. Corporate design. I carefully chose this template because it scales very nicely even in 600px width.
Oh, you can increase them in your browser (View > Make Text Bigger).
The style sheet should show in in Lucida Grande. If this is not available, then in Arial, Helvetica and, finally, in sans-serif. Could you send me a screen shot from your system to eboehnisch@devon-technologies.com?
Yes, I have deactivated this option because we want a consistent graphical experience for all our users. Now, all users can participate in enhancements to the forum.
BTW: There’s also a new option: “New Posts Since Last Visit” that only few other forum templates offer. Very convenient! In general, we can now add new features much easier than before.
Best,
Eric.
I dislike the brushed metal look but the colors I do like.
My only “wish” would be that text wrapped to the page width but many boards exhibit the same behavior.
As always, best of luck to the folks at Devon!
There are some issues when someone posts a code fragment with very long lines. I will see that I find a solution, but it seems that this is something hidden somewhere in the depths of phpBB.
Best,
Eric.
Ha! I like your style, Will. And I agree. New look, old look. It’s still the same forum. It’ll just take some getting used to. Though I’m sorry if it doesn’t render well on some user set ups. That’s a pain. But we’ll all adjust I’m sure.
Alexandria
I appreciate that feature; thanks!
Resubmitting an old suggestion:
Please uniquely rename the subforums. It’s hard or impossible to differentiate between the “DEVONthink & DEVONnote” and DEVONagent" subforums with identical names. For example, under the Forum column of a “New Posts Since Last Visit” search. Or in browser tab/window titles.
I’m not pleased with this new look where “content subwindows” (for both the forum and main site) are uncomfortably squished in the center of browser windows, with over-dominant, space-eating borders. Two “subwindows” could practically fit side-by-side in a single browser window, sized as I prefer it in Safari. This new “skinny” look with wider browser windows on widescreen displays are mismatched.
As we all know, some combinations of text/background colors are harder to read, especially with display brightness turned down (e.g. to extend laptop runtime while on battery). At least I haven’t noticed any icky grey-on-grey here, like MacUpdate recently started using. I’ll take green-on-silver over that. 
Overall the new look is fine, aside from the window-fit annoyance that demands so much more vertical scrolling than need be necessary when browsing forum topics.
Were it me, I would bring the green text colour down just a bit, but it’s certainly more whimsical and fun-loving than the typical phpBB forum. Overall, it’s refreshing.
Isn’t design by committee wonderful?
Hi,
I do not like design that thinks it knows better which window size I need. Now I have to scroll up and down for only a few messages although half of my screen is free and the font is less than half of the size I used in the old forum.
I do not like the small serif font, and I do not care if anybody states that it is easier to read. There was no need to adjust the size (and to scroll even more) in the old forum and I do not see why I have to do these additional steps now.
I would like to return to the old forum which trusted me that I know myself what is good for me.
I do not care for corporate identity, this is my computer, my desk, please do not intrude.
I am not looking forward to coming back to the forum although I will miss the discussions. Will check for COD.
Best,
Maria
Firstly, any modern browser has a preferences setting for personal stylesheets. You can change the fonts and colours there if you want.
Secondly, you can’t please everyone: e.g. I hate the grey, but I like the serif font, and the width fits nicely when reading in Vienna.
But overall, I have a vague feeling we’ll find that the colour of the page does not affect the quality of the content. 
As someone wise once said, Onward!
That is why it makes no sense to impose corporate identity on users.
Sure, you can write a good dissertation on a Windows machine. But I prefer the Mac because of strong ideas about good design. Design is good when tools are not felt as tools, this forum is designed for looks, not for use. I am always aware that I am using my computer.
This is the most important problem: fixed window width.
Please just accept that there are people who do not like the design for good reasons and who express their impression.
Best,
Maria
Well, well…whereas with the old forum I stayed with the defined look and feel, here I just turn off all style information so the forum now looks like an old text based forum to me. If this is what you intended then definitely, you have succeeded 
Btw. that new feature of “new posts since last visit” existed before. It may be more accurate now but it did exist.
So, with your philosophy of having the forum fit your corporate identity, you will have the result that less people will look at it as it was intended to be looked at as they will change font sizes (often makes for overlapping text) or turn off styles for the forum completely which displays the header somewhere up the top, the avatars somewhere to the left of a post and all text in b/w…very readable but extremely ugly and certainly not acc. to your corporate identity or a “consistent graphical experience for all our users”.
cheers
eve
I think this is really bad news. The forum does not HAVE to have anything to do with the corporate look of your web site. The forum should be designed for the ease of the users and not some abstract corporate design.
Consistent graphical EXPERIENCE?? Participate in enhancements? What if we don’t want the same graphical experience as everyone else. Why should we have to have some corporate aesthetic design (usually a contradiction in terms) imposed for a reason as meaningless as this?
There WAS a new posts since last visit option in the old design.
Sorry that this sounds like a flame, but it just seems to deny the existence of a quite large and varied user base and the fact that in a group of this size there are bound to be a lot of different wishes.
Obviously you can’t cater to all of them, but allowing the use of the skin features and allowing the page to scale certainly isn’t any kind of major corporate design threat, but it does let people view the site in a more comfortable manner if they are uncomfortable.
I hope this all gets considered by the corporate design police.
Thanks,
Martin
I have to agree with the others that the new forum look is not a positive experience for everyone. I think that Maria and Martin have pretty much said what I would say about the look. Sorry for the negative input, but the members should have the option to decide if the corporate look suites them. Related to this is the look of the Widgets for DEVONthink and DEVONagent. They too have the corporate “look and feel” and I refuse to install them because they are not aesthetically pleasing to me. That doesn’t make the look right or wrong-just not right for everyone.
I’m sorry, but this is the first stupid discussion I have encountered on this forum and I wish it would go away. Have you folks really nothing better to think and talk about than the “aesthetics” of an interface that occupies very little of your day? The substance of what we discuss here is far more important than its “look and feel.” I feel much sympathy with William Shatner’s mood the day he addressed his first convention of Trekkies. He looked out at the audience and said: “People, I have one thing to say to you. . .[long pause]. . .Get a Life!”
Much of the “I hate” mail has been rude and selfish. Especially the hysteria about “corporate mentality” overtaking our precious independence. Get real. We are connected to machines that have interfaces and use power dictated by large corporations and bureaucracies. That’s something to fear in many contexts, like environmental destruction or war for oil.
But on this forum, we are the guests of a small company that constantly listens and responds to us. We are sitting at their table, offering comments and advice, but to complain bitterly about the table cloth and the plates and silver is just boorish. Let’s knock off the trivia and get back to having a substantial conversation. People like Eric, Christian, and the others at DevonTechnologies deserve better from us.
I never cease to be fascinated by individuals who believe the only topics worthy of discussion are topics that they find interesting. Personally, if I see a discussion thread that I do not find of value to me, I no longer click on it to read the replies rather than risk offending someone stating that the discussion is “stupid” and that the participants do not have a life. While I can appreciate Star Trek as much as anyone, perhaps a more salient quote would be F. Scott Fitzgerald when he wrote “The sign of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two seemingly opposed ideas in one’s mind at the same time.”
I do agree that we are guests of this forum and we should be respectful of our hosts. We should also be respectful of the opinions of the forum members as well. After all, members come here and participate in discussions because they are customers of DEVONtechnologies products. Some of those customers are offering feedback on the DEVON experience and as long as the feedback is presented in a constructive manner, I would expect that the feedback is welcome.
I’ll weigh in and say I really don’t like the look of the forum, either – it’s a real waste of space. The forum takes up the center 1/3 of my screen… I have tons of wasted space elsewhere.
It takes me 30% longer to read, and in general the 4 or 5 times I’ve come here since the redesign, every time I think “argh.” It makes me less likely to visit as it’s less readable.
My 2 cents I guess, but I’d rather things be efficiently readable and all this extra dead space is a real waste to me. Might not keep me from coming, but I probably will come by less.