Well Julio has been putting in a lot of long hours recently on the vB forum hacks (quick reply, system details in profile etc) and has also been working on a site redesign. The start of the change over to the new design began today (I noticed when I clicked on a link to a techspot image file that was not found and was taken to the frontpage). I like the new features such as "News" links from the forum displaying in a little list on the front page and the bar along the top with links to the different sections of the site. The only thing I don't like is this "Gone to the dark side". I always like the fresh bright colour scheme of Techspot. A lot of other sites like ExtremeTech (www.extremetech.com) and HardOCP (www.Hardocp.com) for example have a dark grey scheme and I have always preferred TechSpot.

Now apart from the choice of colour I like the change, change is good as someone once said, but in the poll ("TechSpot new design") there was no choice of "I don't like the colour scheme" so I unfortunately had to vote "Don't like it at all" even though this isn't completely true. What do all all you think of the new design?

The old one was better. This one is more difficult to read - blue links on grey background.

Disappointingly, I think I liked the older one better. This could because change is difficult to accept sometimes, but I too, liked the brighter colors and extras that the old one had.

The new one seems a bit more minimalistic.. But still looks pretty sharp. I hated to do it, but I picked "Don't like it all" because there was not an option to say something like, "Not bad" or "Decent".

The menus look good and I like the curved images that make the tables look nice and rounded with borders. I will miss the "windows interface look" that these have replaced though.

Even so, the site still looks good. As Techspot continues to get older, more designs will crop up no doubt.. Even bigger and better than the last.

It looks like there might be a problem with your CSS, or whatever it is that appears to be stretching out your menu2-back image to make that gradient fill appear. Also, the CSS for the text might wrong as well. I might suggest using a good old fashion font/size tag until you get the details ironed out.

The new design on Internet Explorer 6.0 and Netscape 6.0...

http://web.qx.net/rburgess/Storage/techspot.jpg



The new design on Mozilla 1.2a (courtesy of Mic)

http://web.qx.net/rburgess/Storage/mozillats.jpg

And here's how it shows up in NetPositive:

http://eo.yifan.net/users/j/melkor/netpositivets.jpg

Opera 6.05 isn't too bad but the bottom of the page under the the side columns shows the same background navy blue as in the In The News column in Mict's Netpositive screenshot rather than the grey colour that is shows in IE 6. Also a white bar down the side of the "In The News" column...

The links on the left side now have a white background last time I checked, so it looks good to me.

The 1% contrast colors appear on IE 6 if Tools...Internet Options...Colors...Use Windows Colors is checked in IE 6 on Win2K. (Refer to the picture entitled "The new design on Mozilla 1.2a (courtesy of Mic)" for a reference.) It seems to me that this was the default on my system: Dark Grey text with Black Background. I don't remember changing it.
I think the new look is great now that I've unchecked that option. I voted "Don't Like it At All" based on the original colors.

Just have to register my vote for bringing back the light side colours...
IMO Techspot shouldn't be a dark place to visit, and thus shouldn't use dark colours...

I use internet explorer 6 as my browser, so everything is good for me. I am new to the site so i never have seen the old layout. But i give credit to whoever designed the site. I like it. Also, everyone was saying how it is to dark, I plan on creating a pc site with a friend of mine, what color combination do you people suggest. Thanks for any suggestions :grinthumb

-Matt

Techspot ever since I've been here has been with a light color scheme, unlike [H]ard and a few others I've passed by, I don't think this color change is that drastic. Now if we had gone to a real dark color and taken away the light blues and white I might complain, but I don't see this as that huge of a change, and I like it better.