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  Clan Themes has a new design

Posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2008 @ 00:46 by floppy
Wow, Clan Themes has changed so much since I first came on board in December of 2006.  We have experienced an overwhelming community growth in  the past year and half.  We are not displeased with this, but it has brought among a few changes in our design schema.   We have dramatically changed the design by switching from a tables based template to almost pure CSS.  Agreed, it is much different and will take some getting used to for all us.  There have been some rather serious changes that you should be aware of...

Web Links Is Gone
This was practically a useless system for us.  We decided we would rather have these in the Useful Links section of the forums.

Clan Database has been removed temporarily
What a flawed system, it recieved more spam than your e-mail junk folder.  On average, we had 45-150 addition request per week.  We also noticed the life expectacy of most clans is around 3 months.  So it had tons of broken or dead links.  We have decided to implicate a professional directory script that  will make managing this so much easier and totally ace out that damn spam.  We plan to charge a small fee for your clan to be listed and that also will help with spam.  In my opinion if your not willing to spend a little money to be listed here, your clan probably is not worth it anyway.  Harsh, but true.  The only downfall is most will have to resubmit and that I hate, but it is a necessary move for us.  Administrators would rather spend our time trying to support our products than fighting the spam monster.

Control Panel Redesign and Optimization
Along with switching to a CSS style template, we also redesigned the control panel or front page.  The old control panel had an insane amount of database queries and it was seriously overloading us.  Remember, less is more.  I really like the new design and it gave me a chance to seriously take a look at some of my own messy coding.  I started from scratch and was able to reduce the query amount by 74%.  So I am very pleased with that.

Final Thoughts
We are still considering moving to a purely dedicated server and still require quite a few more template changes to fit our user's needs.  Mainly our focus at the moment is "Less is More".  We would rather decrease the per page loading time than have you wait for pesky image to beautify your experience.  We still offer the same excellent support that we always have with a more diligent look towards the future of CT.

We are trying to do what is best for the community and I think we have made some excellent progress.  I assure you, there are many more changes to come.

Floppy,
Clan Themes

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The comments below belong to their respectful owners, Clan Themes can not be held responsible for any of the below comments. You also read the below comments at your own choice.

floppy

floppy writes 
Testing Comments and Rate.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 @ 20:38

floppy

floppy writes 
Ped, I activated the site. For Users, Ped still has some work to do in the forums, but I am too impatient to wait on him lmao. I am very interested to find out about your browsing experience and delayed load times. If you have problems, please include that in your comments. I feel it in my gut that we are due up for pure dedicated. Hey!!

Thursday, June 26, 2008 @ 01:19

Untergang

Untergang writes 
Looking great, although I think the tables & blocks are a little too dark.
I aggree on the links, they are only being visited when the are on the frontpage,
I don't think there are many who take a look at them.

The control panel will take me a while to get used to,
As far as I've seen till now, that's the thing that has changed the most.
It looks great, but a lot different from the previous one.
So like I've said it will take me a while to get used too :D

Great Job Ped & Floppy :)

Thursday, June 26, 2008 @ 04:22

floppy

floppy writes 
I agree bro, it is so different that it took me time to enjoy it. It is just so different, but however so much better. It is just going to take some testing to make sure it works for us. I have to go ahead and thank Ped for correcting my my bad theme design and really working the color flow, you honestly should have seen it before. I suck at professional shema.

Truly a coder. Hey!!

Thursday, June 26, 2008 @ 04:27

Guardian

Guardian writes 
Very brave decision to make but the right one I'm sure :)
Personally as my eyes are old lol I do lose focus a bit when there is a lot of white text on the pure black background like on the front page but I don't see that being a problem for the majority of your visitors.
The site definitely loads much, much faster for me now than it did before so I commend you all on your commitment to providing a great experience for your users and more importantly making those hard decision I know have to be made between what is visually appealing and what is practical in terms of the resources needed, load times etc.

As you probably noticed, I have switched to a pure CSS driven menu on my own site and the overhead saving is really noticable (which compensates for the other daft stuff I have lol ).

Well done guys!!

Friday, June 27, 2008 @ 13:44

floppy

floppy writes 
That is what I call a comment. I love your opinions and yeah it is sorta strange for me too. It has started to grow on me and I take your thoughts at great weight. I will try a few more color schema's esp for text see what we can do. I really got to do some optimizing with my code as that last CP was junk. I am embarrassed to say how many db que's it was per page load. Very noobtastic of me. Also, less images has really cut down on bandwidth consumption. CT was avg'ing 120'ish gb's a month and mostly from theme images. So less is more.

Much appreciated comment :)

Friday, June 27, 2008 @ 15:18

floppy

floppy writes 
Yeah I like that. Might need to do that to the articles page too. Ped is better at color shema than me. It surely breaks it up some though.

Friday, June 27, 2008 @ 15:59

Guardian

Guardian writes 
No problem, just working my way up to VIP status lmao.
Seriously, good job!! And you know I always tell it like it is.

Friday, June 27, 2008 @ 16:28

floppy

floppy writes 
Yeah and such is appreciated, I consider you a valued opinion around here. Your contributions to the nuke community does not get enough recognition. You have been a strong force here and many other places, it is time people take notice.

Friday, June 27, 2008 @ 16:30

TB_DFW

TB_DFW writes 
I'll have to agree with the others when they say it's a bit too dark, however the layout & overall theme looks amazing.
Will definately take a bit to get used to, but a step forward is better than none.
I'm looking forward to see what gets changed / added in the future!

Awesome work guys.

Friday, June 27, 2008 @ 17:26

blyy

blyy writes 
Love it!

Friday, June 27, 2008 @ 17:34

5STAR

5STAR writes 
Well, I think there may be color scheme issue although I do like the darker color,just seams the blending of colors seam a bit unusual. Maybe its just me, not being use to it. Other than that,everything seams nicely organized.

Friday, June 27, 2008 @ 19:07

lonestar

lonestar writes 
nice work guys keep it up ;)

Friday, June 27, 2008 @ 19:50

floppy

floppy writes 
It takes some adjusting to. It is just so different from what we had last time. Trust me I am still settling in and we are still tweaking things. I am more focused on speed.

Friday, June 27, 2008 @ 20:24

Gimpy1

Gimpy1 writes 
The new design here is pretty sweet and it's the same as what I'm looking for for our gaming community site. Will this be available in the shop in the recent future? :P

Friday, June 27, 2008 @ 22:01

Meph

Meph writes 
The sites looking great guys. Just the main background to the CENTER tad bit dark maybe lighten it up a little.
I haven't spent much time on the site so haven't fully been able to look over everything been waaay to busy helping people with their little site issues haha.

Keep the work up Floppy and Ped ;)

Btw Floppy msg me on msn got a simple question for you.

Friday, June 27, 2008 @ 22:25

floppy

floppy writes 
The sites looking great guys. Just the main background to the CENTER tad bit dark maybe lighten it up a little.
I haven''''t spent much time on the site so haven''''t fully been able to look over everything been waaay to busy helping people with their little site issues haha.

Keep the work up Floppy and Ped ;)

Btw Floppy msg me on msn got a simple question for you.
Thank you for the kind words, Meph. As with any online project, it is always a work in progress.

Saturday, June 28, 2008 @ 05:11

floppy

floppy writes 
The new design here is pretty sweet and it''''s the same as what I''''m looking for for our gaming community site. Will this be available in the shop in the recent future? :P
So far this is a CT exlusive, I have considered doing a control panel module in the future, but so many rippers out their it would easily just be pirated warez. Concerning the theme, Ped might have some plans to later release some similar products.

Saturday, June 28, 2008 @ 08:11

DarkShrooms

DarkShrooms writes 
this is a definate improvement over the last look.its more cleaner as well as profeesionalism goes.well done to clan-themes.another job well done.

Saturday, June 28, 2008 @ 09:06

FaTHeR-POD-

FaTHeR-POD- writes 
Look great. Excellent job.

Saturday, June 28, 2008 @ 11:05

cupoftea

cupoftea writes 
Oh I think is fine. No, it's good really. :)

Saturday, June 28, 2008 @ 11:32

cheese

cheese writes 
Looks good, Only question is it seems to take a tad longer to load. Not bad though! GOOD WORK

Sunday, June 29, 2008 @ 08:42

Duck

Duck writes 
In Short: Too Dark Prefered Old Layout of News and Forums etc was easier to see what's new (but this may be hindered by Dark design) But good Improvement on Speed and BW

Sunday, June 29, 2008 @ 12:25

spec4

spec4 writes 
I like the site my self. it a little harder to fine some things now but in time that will change. I do think its a little dark and the only problem ive so far is on the forums with the little post review that shows the other posts. black background and black text.

Sunday, June 29, 2008 @ 14:35

MrCannonFodder

MrCannonFodder writes 
nice new site guys

Sunday, June 29, 2008 @ 15:09

mattmilla1

mattmilla1 writes 
I like it but it is to dark and hurts my eyes.....

Monday, June 30, 2008 @ 09:26

-999-

-999- writes 
Load times are quick. I personally like darker sites, big screen+bright site=headaches for me, so I like it. Only thing is the text itself inside of threads (and these messages) is too dark imo, needs to be closer to the "Quote This" shade, otherwise it blends in with the background.

Monday, June 30, 2008 @ 11:28

DS_Wayne

DS_Wayne writes 
Cant deny it, site looks great - though im becoming more of a pessimist with PHP related items. Especially nuke 7.6 b5 and 7.6b4v2 - especially some of the themes released by clan-themes. I have way too many issues with 2 themes not taking center blocks - telling me illegal block file access, issues with the BBCode for signatures and avatars ... hopefull the CSS styles you guys work on do alot better than what I've experienced.

Monday, June 30, 2008 @ 12:40

floppy

floppy writes 
Cant deny it, site looks great - though im becoming more of a pessimist with PHP related items. Especially nuke 7.6 b5 and 7.6b4v2 - especially some of the themes released by clan-themes. I have way too many issues with 2 themes not taking center blocks - telling me illegal block file access, issues with the BBCode for signatures and avatars ... hopefull the CSS styles you guys work on do alot better than what I've experienced.
Your first problem is that platinum crap. I keep telling people and they never listen, lmao. Any problem you have with our themes can be sorted in theme support easy. Somone here knows the answer to your question. However, we don't know the answer to "ALL" the questions related to the CMS related issues (such as platinum). Those are things that the designer or support team need to work out and that is why I always suggest RavenNuke. They have the best support.

Monday, June 30, 2008 @ 21:33

crizzo

crizzo writes 
I like the dark look to the site,only thing i see is some of the letters need to be lighted, like here, i cant read who post without high lighting name. But overall love it!

Monday, June 30, 2008 @ 23:07

floppy

floppy writes 
I like the dark look to the site,only thing i see is some of the letters need to be lighted, like here, i cant read who post without high lighting name. But overall love it!
I want to thank everyone for the great comments and I think you guys are the best. As you can see I am constantly playing with the color schema to try to please everyone. I do my best, but we all know that is not possible.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008 @ 00:47

nextgen

nextgen writes 
Floopy it looks terrific already and PED does great work as we all know.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008 @ 18:12

clyde4210

clyde4210 writes 
Awesome design.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008 @ 21:37

crushedsouls

crushedsouls writes 
Fantastic theme, However its missing a couple of parts that were handy Sitepoints at the top and PM's at the top, other than that Fantastic Great Work as usual guys

Wednesday, July 02, 2008 @ 07:46

DS_Wayne

DS_Wayne writes 
Cant deny it, site looks great - though im becoming more of a pessimist with PHP related items. Especially nuke 7.6 b5 and 7.6b4v2 - especially some of the themes released by clan-themes. I have way too many issues with 2 themes not taking center blocks - telling me illegal block file access, issues with the BBCode for signatures and avatars ... hopefull the CSS styles you guys work on do alot better than what I've experienced.
Your first problem is that platinum crap. I keep telling people and they never listen, lmao. Any problem you have with our themes can be sorted in theme support easy. Somone here knows the answer to your question. However, we don't know the answer to "ALL" the questions related to the CMS related issues (such as platinum). Those are things that the designer or support team need to work out and that is why I always suggest RavenNuke. They have the best support.
Well, I actually like platinum, although there seem to be more political problems with the dev's there now a days which gets in the way of helping all the people who use nuke platinum. Though I have become quite proficient with going through all their coding. But regardless of the fact, its more of the comfortability level with all the languages.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008 @ 09:08

floppy

floppy writes 
Cant deny it, site looks great - though im becoming more of a pessimist with PHP related items. Especially nuke 7.6 b5 and 7.6b4v2 - especially some of the themes released by clan-themes. I have way too many issues with 2 themes not taking center blocks - telling me illegal block file access, issues with the BBCode for signatures and avatars ... hopefull the CSS styles you guys work on do alot better than what I''''ve experienced.


Your first problem is that platinum crap. I keep telling people and they never listen, lmao. Any problem you have with our themes can be sorted in theme support easy. Somone here knows the answer to your question. However, we don''''t know the answer to "ALL" the questions related to the CMS related issues (such as platinum). Those are things that the designer or support team need to work out and that is why I always suggest RavenNuke. They have the best support.


Well, I actually like platinum, although there seem to be more political problems with the dev''''s there now a days which gets in the way of helping all the people who use nuke platinum. Though I have become quite proficient with going through all their coding. But regardless of the fact, its more of the comfortability level with all the languages.


I guess, I have tried them all out. I can surely agree on the point that it is about what your comfortable with. Usually I would never suggest platinum OR evo for a beginner. Both of those CMS''''s come with many more customizations that forsay ravens. WIth that, comes common problems from server to server that most don''''t know how to deal with.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008 @ 09:32

Classic

Classic writes 
Nice themes.. :)

Thursday, July 03, 2008 @ 05:22

Srto_Gryffindor

Srto_Gryffindor writes 
Eu gostei bastante do novo visual, soh achu ruim que naum posso fazer downloads liberados a subscribes apenas.

Thursday, July 03, 2008 @ 12:21

floppy

floppy writes 
Eu gostei bastante do novo visual, soh achu ruim que naum posso fazer downloads liberados a subscribes apenas.
I have feeling that is a question about downloads, but I only speak english.

Thursday, July 03, 2008 @ 12:47

concepcionero

concepcionero writes 
cool nice important new design

Friday, July 04, 2008 @ 12:12

DoC

DoC writes 
This is a excellent chnage for clan themes and has really made an outstanding impression on me! I love the layout and style! Keep up the great work guys :)

Sunday, July 06, 2008 @ 05:45

gogugmgster

gogugmgster writes 
NICE NEW SITE

Monday, July 07, 2008 @ 07:33

Ekzane

Ekzane writes 
so much better then the old one, really nice job on it.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008 @ 19:48

-doom

-doom writes 
Ye really good looks heaps better!

Wednesday, July 09, 2008 @ 03:38

DS_Wayne

DS_Wayne writes 
Cant deny it, site looks great - though im becoming more of a pessimist with PHP related items. Especially nuke 7.6 b5 and 7.6b4v2 - especially some of the themes released by clan-themes. I have way too many issues with 2 themes not taking center blocks - telling me illegal block file access, issues with the BBCode for signatures and avatars ... hopefull the CSS styles you guys work on do alot better than what I''''ve experienced.


Your first problem is that platinum crap. I keep telling people and they never listen, lmao. Any problem you have with our themes can be sorted in theme support easy. Somone here knows the answer to your question. However, we don''''t know the answer to "ALL" the questions related to the CMS related issues (such as platinum). Those are things that the designer or support team need to work out and that is why I always suggest RavenNuke. They have the best support.


Well, I actually like platinum, although there seem to be more political problems with the dev''''s there now a days which gets in the way of helping all the people who use nuke platinum. Though I have become quite proficient with going through all their coding. But regardless of the fact, its more of the comfortability level with all the languages.


I guess, I have tried them all out. I can surely agree on the point that it is about what your comfortable with. Usually I would never suggest platinum OR evo for a beginner. Both of those CMS''''s come with many more customizations that forsay ravens. WIth that, comes common problems from server to server that most don''''t know how to deal with.
Thank god neither of us are beginners. lol After all the years I have been working with nuke plat, its easier now than it was - and besides that, all the crap I've downloaded and installed on my site's is just to fun to throw away. I haven't really messed with raven so I dont know if I could have as much fun with it as I can nuke. Though, regardless, it has to be better than IPB.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008 @ 06:03

kunzicool

kunzicool writes 
great love it

Thursday, July 10, 2008 @ 16:25

nwovapor

nwovapor writes 
Looks good man :)

Sunday, July 13, 2008 @ 02:33

James2

James2 writes 
pretty good. but sometimes in home page I get confused by the very dark color.

Monday, July 14, 2008 @ 01:02

kunzibaba

kunzibaba writes 
Reaaly looking good. Nice work guys , i hope it has teh features :)

Monday, July 14, 2008 @ 09:23

Ped

Ped writes 
Wow so many interesting comments, Whilst i like the new theme and layout, I think it still needs a better define between the News and Forum posts on the home page ( i recall on the old theme we split it by having those adobe images) I think it would be easier for users to define the change. I still need to pull my finger out and go over the forums, it has some issues still Over all though great work on the home control panel Floppy, I agree there would be no need to release it just yet because of the few idiots that share scripts for free

Thursday, July 17, 2008 @ 07:30

dakota

dakota writes 
looks good floppy , Great improvement,

Thursday, July 17, 2008 @ 17:42

GlosRoyal

GlosRoyal writes 
have to say, not having been to the site for a while i was taken aback when i first saw the new design and although it looks very good i still prefer the old design but then i a stickler for disliking change lol it is tidier than the old site but a good housekeeper would have done wonders :P all in all and this is hard for me to say as a general design it gets 8/10 from me.

Monday, July 21, 2008 @ 09:16

floppy

floppy writes 
have to say, not having been to the site for a while i was taken aback when i first saw the new design and although it looks very good i still prefer the old design but then i a stickler for disliking change lol it is tidier than the old site but a good housekeeper would have done wonders :P all in all and this is hard for me to say as a general design it gets 8/10 from me.
It will slowly grow on you. It has taken me almost a month to get used to it. I tend to get tired of things faster than others as I am here everyday.

Monday, July 21, 2008 @ 17:20

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