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Warrior Gryphon
site owner
Original Poster
#1 Old 28th Aug 2013 at 5:01 PM Last edited by Delphy : 28th Aug 2013 at 5:23 PM.
Default Welcome to the new look Mod The Sims!
TL;DR: If you want to switch back to the old theme, change your bookmark to https://www.modthesims.info/

So, things around here look a little different today, don't they? The reason is due to switching to a new default theme, which uses Twitter Bootstrap as it's base, but with a lot of customisations.

Some of you might remember that back in May we had a bootstrap theme but that was quickly rolled back for some more work. Since then, we've had almost 3 and a half months of feedback from many different members on the new Bootstrap theme (you can view the forum here: http://www.modthesims.info/fd.php?f=671 ), and with a lot of tweaks, changes, and useful feedback, we've slowly gotten to something that is liked by a vast majority of people. We even ran a poll and questionnaire to see if people liked the theme, and almost 90% of people did.


What's different?

  • Almost every page uses the new theme, which is more responsive for larger and smaller browser sizes - even down to viewing the site on your phone or tablet.

  • Download Browser: Now uses much larger thumbnails. This is in response to the average browser size increasing from 1024 back in 2004 when this site was created to 1366+ nowadays. You can always change back to smaller thumbnails if you prefer, though. Just [http://www.modthesims.info/profile....ditoptions]edit your options[/url] and under the second dropdown, choose "Small Thumbs" where it currently says "Large Thumbs (Default)".

  • Download View: Redundant things (like multiple Thanks buttons) have been moved "above the fold" and are now accessible when first viewing the page. The Thanks Comments have been changed to now auto-expand when you click Thanks. Important stats like the Thanks, Downloads, Favourites, etc, have now been moved to the top and are more visible - but not *too* in the way. The screenshots are now in a form where they are visible immediately and some of the tabs have been simplified (like the Files tab). Additionally, the Comments tab now hides much of the Download information since if you are reading comments you usually already have seen the screenshots. For creators, important buttons like Edit are right up the top where you need them. There's also a new image viewer which supports keyboard shortcuts, for easy navigation.

  • Forum View: A bit more streamlined, depending on which one you are viewing.

  • Member and Creator Profiles: Some tabs consolidated (like Articles and Creativity), some added (More...) and some things moved around. For people looking for a Creator's downloads, not much has changed, except it uses the same download layout as the Download browser, making it more homogenous.

  • Front Page: Much more of a "blog" type layout, but also has added stats about the site, as well as the traditional slide for trending, featured, etc.

  • Finds and Donate: Re-worked too.

  • Thread View: Threads themselves now have a new look, which again are responsive and switch from a more horizontal layout on smaller screens to the familiar "sidebar" view on larger screens. Some information has been moved to a + button next to peoples names - stuff thats sort of useful, but isn't necessary to display all the time.

  • Navbar: The navigation bar looks sort of the same - but with some additions. You now see a seperate "Search" dropdown, making it easier to search the site, and also a "Wiki" dropdown, which contains our most commonly read FAQs. They are also much easier to read, especially on higher resolution screens. We've also spilt off the "My Links" to it's own menu, and revamped User Tools somewhat.

  • Theme Generator: Customising the site to look exactly how you want is possible using the new "Theme Generator". This is basically a tool that lets you change MTS to exactly how you want - colours, fonts, borders, everything. This also lets you customise your profile pages much more than before.


This new theme - and the changes - are much more modern and streamlined, and make it much easier to come up with new designs and change features. It also makes it much easier to use multiple devices to browse the site. So, have a go - I know that it's a lot to get used too, but pretty much most things are where they used to be, it's just formatted a bit differently.


Don't like something about the new theme?

If there are particular elements that you think need changing, it's customizable! You can generate your own theme and you can even share your theme with others... If you create a really nice theme, we might even make it an official one! Try the Theme Generator, and let us know if you create a really nice looking theme you'd like us to consider for an official one. We'd love to see what you come up with!


I found a bug!

That's to be expected with any big change! Please let us know what OS, browser, and browser version you were on, and any specifics you can. Screenshots are very helpful! You can create a new thread in the Bootstrap Theme Forum where it's much easier to keep track of specific bugs or issues than on one big thread.


But I haaaate it! It suuuucks!

There's a couple of alternative themes available right now - one is the standard "Native" bootstrap 2, but with a light blue touch. The other is the same as this theme, but with the nice Open Sans font that looks a lot like the Windows 8 one. Looks quite nice, I think. Once we've ironed out all the bugs (I'm sure there are some) and generally given people time to get used to the new look, we'll be adding more themes akin to the old "Calm Storm" or "Moddeth" themes. It should be much easier to do these from now on - and like I said, you can always add your own themes if you like.

If you really do still hate it, you can still use the old themes - they've moved to https://www.modthesims.info/- just be aware that those old themes wont be updated or supported any more (including adding new game EPs or games).


What's to come?

More changes, tweaks, and improvements - more official themes in a variety of looks to suit a wider variety of tastes. Bugfixes, streamlining, and general tweaking - if you have useful feedback, please do let us know! You can post up a new thread in the Bootstrap Theme Forum with suggested changes!

Because it is much easier to track bug reports, suggested changes, "look at my theme I made" type etc., in individual threads than on one big busy thread, please post in the Bootstrap Theme Forum instead of on this Site News thread.

Story books are full of fairy tales, of Kings and Queens, and the bluest skies.
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