New Style for phpBB 3.3 ?

[CHItA]

I think that for 3.3/4.0 we should have fontawesome topic icons and forum icons also.

As far as I know the plan is not to use any font icons.

[Marc]

For now the goal seems to be to go for SVG icons instead. They offer a very good high res support and do not interfere with screen readers.

[CarpCharacin]

FA icons are more modern and better than SVG icons IMO. There are FA icons in 3.2. So there won't be any in 3.3/4.0?

[hanakin]

font icons are in no way more modern... SVGs are more modern as font icons have been around a lot longer. In fact not all features are even supported yet in browsers.

There are several issues with font icons

screen readers, limits on design, un-semantic, not as configurable to scratch the surface

In fact this has all been discussed before

have a look at this topic
https://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopi ... 35#p264335

and on the PR
https://github.com/phpbb/phpbb/pull/3851

In fact I even had a PR to swap font-awsome out for svgs
https://github.com/phpbb/phpbb/pull/4014

and one for the forum icons
https://github.com/phpbb/phpbb/pull/3880

but neither of them were ready prior to the feature freeze

Also you can check out the following topic currently
https://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopi ... 31&t=45539

for a list of all the previous discussions as this very long muddled and redundant topic is not very efficient. Eventually I would like to recreate and update it but it is the best source of information currently.

[Khaos-Rage]

...

Enjoying the great work your doing to update/refresh the style side of phpBB

[CarpCharacin]

I think that we should try to keep the general look of prosilver, but have it more modern if you know what I mean. A lot of modern forum styles use font icons. I think that we should use font icons instead of SVG icons. I also think that a WYSIWYG editor should be included by default in phpbb 3.3/4.0.

[Marc]

That's what we did with prosilver in phpBB 3.1 and 3.2. There is only so much you can try to improve something without actually revamping it and I do think that we have long reached the point to move on to something new.
A lot of current forum styles use font icons. This does not mean that this is going to be a viable solution the time phpBB 3.3 will be released. Saying that we should use font icons because others are using font icons would also apply the same to SVG icons and is not a proper argument. As hanakin stated, there are rather large drawbacks with font icons and SVG icons is definitely the way to go regarding size, image quality, high res support, and not having the isues that font icons have.

If you want to discuss the inclusion of a WYSIWYG editor in phpBB 3.3 then please discuss it in the appropriate topics and forums. This is not that place.

[hanakin]

case in point

here is an icon from the header navigation of gtihub

Code: Select all

  <li class="header-nav-item">
    
    <a href="/notifications" aria-label="You have unread notifications" class="header-nav-link notification-indicator tooltipped tooltipped-s js-socket-channel js-notification-indicator" data-channel="tenant:1:notification-changed:73081" data-ga-click="Header, go to notifications, icon:unread" data-hotkey="g n">
        <span class="mail-status unread"></span>
        <svg aria-hidden="true" class="octicon octicon-bell" height="16" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 14 16" width="14"><path d="M14 12v1H0v-1l.73-.58c.77-.77.81-2.55 1.19-4.42C2.69 3.23 6 2 6 2c0-.55.45-1 1-1s1 .45 1 1c0 0 3.39 1.23 4.16 5 .38 1.88.42 3.66 1.19 4.42l.66.58H14zm-7 4c1.11 0 2-.89 2-2H5c0 1.11.89 2 2 2z"></path></svg>
</a>
  </li>

I am not saying that there implementation is correct but you can see that they have switched to using svg icons over font icons due to so much push back about compatibility issues over font icons

This is actually closer to the implementation we would go with

Code: Select all

<a class="menu-item" href="#" title="Faq"">
    <svg class="icon">
        <use xlink:href="#faq"></use>
        <span class="hide-mobile">Faq</span>
    </svg>
</a>

[CarpCharacin]

I think that we should try to eliminate most, if not all graphics in 3.3/4.0. It needs to be lightweight and fast. That is why I like the fontawesome icons. Also, why were they even used in phpbb 3.2 if they aren't going to be used in 3.3/4.0? I also really like the flat look of the FA icons. Also, what will the main www.phpbb.com website look like if there is a new style? What should we call the new style? I think that it should be called something that ends in silver. Maybe we should call it modernsilver? If there is a new style, I think it should definitley be called phpbb 4.0 beause it won't resemble the existing 3.x versions at all.

[hanakin]

.com is outside the scope of discussion on here really and far from needing discussion as we do not have a theme yet... Either way that should be discussed probably on .com

yes to the statement of graphics... Probably not going to be any(svg I do not consider graphics as they are infact code...) only visuals needed would be logo and icons.... Maybe a default avatar?