MArcomage

Since we now support skins it is possible to add more skins if needed. That means you can now design your own skin and submit it for implementation. To create a skin draft all you need to do is to fill in color/image information that is needed to create a skin (listed below).

- skin name
- color orientation (dark or light)
- preferred game background picture (either new or some from already existing ones)
- [1] text oriented parts background image/color (most things that contains just plain text like forum posts, webpage section...)
- [2] labels background image/color (parts with buttons like navigation bar in forum or webpage section)
- [3] general background image/color
- [4] menubar background image/color
- [5] horizontal line color
- [6] unvisited link color
- [7] visited link color
- [8] table row hover highlight color (row background and/or text color)
- [9] headings color
- [10] button background color
- [11] button text color
- [12] highlighted button background color (for example when you have a sidenote stored in game, the button is highlighted)
- [13] highlighted button text color

These pictures provides detailed explanation (use provided numbers to track each item):

http://helppage.3dfx.sk/fendek/skin_template1.png
http://helppage.3dfx.sk/fendek/skin_template2.png

Once you have your skin template filled in, post it here and I will do a preview of your skin. Those who are good with graphical editors can submit a skin suggestion in a picture form, but please respect the constraints of the skin template.

Ok, let's try:
Name: Aqua(light)
Background: http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/7081/framedmermaid.jpg
1: this color: http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/7855/buttonw.png
2: http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/6369/lateralz.jpg
3: http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/6730/sfondo2p.jpg
4: http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/9554/topfy.jpg
5: white
6: this color: http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/940/red1r.png
7: this color: http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/4573/red2m.png
8: this color: http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/6813/azzurro.png
9: this color: http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/280/bluj.png
10: same color of 1 (http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/7855/buttonw.png)
11: white
12. this color: http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/908/greenxf.png
13. white

I hope it's fine, but I can't tell without a preview
(P.s: Mojko, look: tabs!)

When you provide an image background, please provide it in it's smallest form. For example this picture http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/6730/sfondo2p.jpg is clearly made by repeating smaller picture multiple times. Please provide me with only those small pictures. Our display engine repeats the picture automatically.

If you can describe colors by their RGB codes, it would be much easier ;-)

In game background images should be provided in 1024x768 format.

Here is your draft:

http://delo.dcs.fmph.uniba.sk/~fendek/aqua_forum.png
http://delo.dcs.fmph.uniba.sk/~fendek/aqua_deck.png
http://delo.dcs.fmph.uniba.sk/~fendek/aqua_messages.png
http://delo.dcs.fmph.uniba.sk/~fendek/aqua_game.png
http://delo.dcs.fmph.uniba.sk/~fendek/aqua_website.png

The main color theme is quite good, but I think too many different colors are used, try to reduce their amount. Instead of different colors use variations of one color.

Background images does not come together very well, when repeated multiple times (see message and deck section).

Actually it looks better than what I expected.
Here is an alternative for 2 and 4: http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/6131/2try.png
The colors seem fine to me, anyway change whatever you want, it's ok for me.

another one:

Fire (dark)
Background: Deamon (also Phoenix Nebula)
1: black 000000
2: http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/4694/fuocobarra.jpg
3: http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/5349/sfondofinalem.jpg
4: same as 2 (http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/4694/fuocobarra.jpg)
5: red b01414
6: red ff0000
7: red b01414
8: red 743535
9: red 743535
10: black 000000
11: white ffffff
12: red ff0000
13: white ffffff

Here is the fire skin draft:

http://delo.dcs.fmph.uniba.sk/~fendek/fire_webpage.png
http://delo.dcs.fmph.uniba.sk/~fendek/fire_forum.png
http://delo.dcs.fmph.uniba.sk/~fendek/fire_messages.png
http://delo.dcs.fmph.uniba.sk/~fendek/fire_game.png
http://delo.dcs.fmph.uniba.sk/~fendek/fire_deck.png

The color combinations are too contrast I think (black and white). it would be good idea to use some less contrast combination.

Fire skin was added, but Aqua skin was rejected. Aqua skin has problems with colors, since it is not dark nor light skin, but has is a combination of both. For example the background color [1] has problem with both dark and light text colors. If it is to be implemented, adjustments must be made towards dark or light skin.

About aqua skin, try using a light blue for 1 and 10 (something like 72FFBF).

Here are current skin selection statistics: (only active and offline players are counted)

blue (dark): 41
rain (light): 1
purple (light): 1
green (dark): 4
stars (dark): 17
clouds (light): 0
old theme (dark): 114
fire (dark): 2

It seems that dark themes are much more attractive compared to light skins.

It's because of eye strain and the color of the cards themselves. Darker backgrounds and lighter words are far better in all respects I can think of, but few forum coders seem to realize this. I am mildly surprised by the number of Classic users though, I expected all the dark schemes would be equal, and that it was only I that was stubborn to change.

I would like to add that, old theme skin was set as a default for all users, so it also contains players who don't care about the layout or they don't know about skins yet.

To Mojko: your imagines are no longer visible. I wanted to post a new theme, but it's hard without the templates.

It seems the school server is down. I will move the images to some other location then.

I moved the images to a safer location (also edited first post):
http://helppage.3dfx.sk/fendek/skin_template1.png
http://helppage.3dfx.sk/fendek/skin_template2.png

Name: Halloween (dark)
Background: http://yfrog.com/2szucca2j
1: black 2B2B2B
2: http://yfrog.com/6rlatoj
3: http://yfrog.com/6tbats2j
4: same as 2 ( http://yfrog.com/6rlatoj )
5: white FFFFFF
6: orange FF6A00
7: orange D85600
8: orange FF6A00
9: orange E25109
10: black 2B2B2B
11: white FFFFFF
12: orange D85600
13: white FFFFFF

Halloween draft:
http://helppage.3dfx.sk/fendek/halloween_webpage.png
http://helppage.3dfx.sk/fendek/halloween_forum.png
http://helppage.3dfx.sk/fendek/halloween_messages.png
http://helppage.3dfx.sk/fendek/halloween_game.png
http://helppage.3dfx.sk/fendek/halloween_deck.png

My comments:
* I adjusted the black - white contrast, because it was too sharp to look at
* the color difference between visited and unvisited link is hard to see
* background image has small dimensions, it should be 1024x768 preferably
* table row highlight is maybe too bright color

I agree with the change you made.
Here is the resized background: http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/9413/zucca4.jpg
For the row highlightning this color shuld be fine: AD4800
For the visitated link color I suggest brown 913111.
I hope this skin is good.

Hey!

Can u add some settings to choose colors of backgorunds instead of just choosing somebodie's theme?
And when card text is hidden, it would be great if this text will be in title of card images.

Thx!

hey i'd like to say that using some game backgrounds with more light colours in them than dark, tends to make "new card" flags and "mode played" flags unreadable. It's not such a tragedy, however we could add to the settings an extra button that inverts the colours in the flag box (i.e. turn letters black and inlay white and vice versa) so we could read them over any background picture.
another suggestion would be to make the letters dark yellow. dark yellow colour is used in some cinemas' subtitles so that they will be readable always over any background