I have a lot of people telling me that my forum is too cluttered.. any advice or tips you guys may have? I've been doing small things here and there but it only has been helping so much. Any experience from other mybb users?
http://www.mahoganyfolk.com
Hi,
My personal recommendation is remove the right bar, this gives the category's more room
*never really like the right bars make everything a cluster F***).
Possibly work the login section to where the title is.
The index looks cluttered because of the mismatch on the sidebar and the forums.
- I would consolidate the threads and replies into one column and put the forum indicators back. That stops some of the textiness.
- Your collapse button is huge, it is actually the first thing that grabs my attention. I would consider taking that out, do you want users collapsing the forums?
- The login panel is just really wasting too much space, where you have Mahogany Folk Music Forums on the left, on the right side of that bar put the login links.
(I now see that is your breadcrumb - that needs a major rethink)
Whatever you decide, that current sign up login is taking WAY too much space.
- The sidebar style does not match the forum bits - it should. Look at the thead on the left (category heading) and then at the right (latest threads) - they are not the same and they should be - it makes it look unbalanced and unfinished otherwise. You need to keep styling consistent.
- Forumdisplay - the thread icon indicator things at the bottom - they are also not consistently styled. The buttons are different sizes and styles and it just looks ragged. Get a nice set of those or get rid of them.
[*} Postbits - the ads in postbit are not helping, especially as you have the sidebar in all forums (I would definitely get rid of that - if you are just calling latest threads on every page it is just a waste.)
- Footer - take the footer full width across the container it looks odd as it is.
Okay I made some changes.. does it feel less cluttered now?
It looks nicer without the sidebar. though the login/register is looking a little bland. I would bulk that up a bit, make it pop more.
Maybe - to keep that folksy look going - find a nice pattern and use it in the thead as a background? Something in paisley
hmm I don't know what I could really do to the welcome box haha.. that's tough.. I tried to fix it up before but nobody liked it.
well, you could just make it a bit snazzier by adding some css to the login or register links. Really really easy, but it will make it a bit bigger and more obvious to guests how to sign up.
thanks, i'm also looking into having a custom theme made now..