Dear Tempers,

The GBAtemp Team is happy to present the Fifth version of GBAtemp (this isn't even its final form!). TJ and I have been working on it for months and it's finally ready for you to use. There are tons of changes so I will only highlight the biggest ones, and you'll discover the rest by yourself over time.

A new homepage
We have created a brand new customizable and modern homepage. Its layout can be adjusted to fit your personal preference - move your mouse over the "Home" menu item and click "Customize your portal" to make your changes.

New site skin
We have updated the site and forum skin to look more modern with new colors and fonts. Both skins have been updated (light & dark). We are still working out the kinks, we are aware of a few minor issues, not everything's perfect yet but in time we'll get there!

Mobile friendly browsing
Finally you can browse GBAtemp on your mobile devices... without Tapatalk! Our new skin is fully responsive, just try it, it looks fantastic! All site features are supported, including the dark theme.

Ask GBAtemp!
If you have been around long enough you already know what this is. But for the others: Ask GBAtemp is a place where you can ask simple questions and get direct answers, in a similar manner to Yahoo Answers. There are already thousands of questions back from a few years ago, and it's now time to get back at it! Go ahead and ask your questions if you've got any.

Board upgrade
We have updated our forum software to the latest version, and this brings a lot of improvements on all fronts. The biggest and most noticeable improvements are:
- a new message editor supporting image paste and drag & drop
- watching a forum to get notifications when new posts are made
- multi-quote and selective quoting
- thread-wide bans... whoops, this is going to come in handy for the mod team
- online status indicator on avatars

We hope you will enjoy browsing the new and improved GBAtemp. Feel free to reply to this thread to give us feedback. Many thanks to tj_cool for doing most of the work!

A discussion forum has been created to centralize discussions revolving around GBAtemp v5. Click here to access it! We have already created several thread about known issues.

Costello & the GBAtemp Team

 

[Armadillo]

No Start menu != Flat design, as you can see in Win10 the start menu uses a awesome flat design.

Win 10 also lets you remove the live tiles and have a normal looking menu. It still has the flat design, but lack of shading etc alone is not the issue, it's that it always comes along with massive tiles , that might look good on a tablet/phone, but just look awful on a desktop, where you have the precision of the mouse pointer and don't need a massive clickable area, suitable for prodding with a finger.

And HP pushing 7 hard over 8? and bringing it back by popular demand. Popular demand by a minority I assume according to you.

 

[Fishaman P]

I personally saw only a single issue with the old forum design, and that was the disappearance of multi-quoting.
The new notification bar, while I like its persistence, is just... ugly. A white rectangle tacked into the upper right corner doesn't feel very sleek or modern.
And the new homepage compresses information far too densely, I can't find a specific section by looking at a certain part of the screen anymore.

 

[filfat]

Win 10 also lets you remove the live tiles and have a normal looking menu. It still has the flat design, but lack of shading etc alone is not the issue, it's that it always comes along with massive tiles might look good on a tablet/phone, but just look awful on a desktop, where you have the precision of the mouse pointer and don't need a massive clickable area.

And HP pushing 7 hard over 8? and bringing it back by popular demand. Popular demand by a minority I assume according to you.

HP isn't pushing 7, they allow you to chose it by default the PC's come with Windows 8.1. Also, live tiles aren't mainly there to be shortcuts, they are there to show information that matters to you at a glance so you don't have to open the app/website. Anyhow Win8 I just a minority of the falt UI paradise, just look at iOS and Android who's users love the new design

Flat isn't going away, hate to break it to you. Unlike the old fuglyui flat UI doesn't look dated

 

[HBK]

How do you get the old theme back? This looks amateurish and presents way too much info on screen even after customization.

 

[GhostLatte]

I wonder what will happen if someone likes and dislikes the same thing.

Probably the same thing if you divide by zero.

 

[Armadillo]

HP isn't pushing 7, they allow you to chose it by default the PC's come with Windows 8.1. Also, live tiles aren't mainly there to be shortcuts, they are there to show information that matters to you at a glance so you don't have to open the app/website. Anyhow Win8 I just a minority of the falt UI paradise, just look at iOS and Android who's users love the new design

Flat isn't going away, hate to break it to you. Unlike the old fuglyui flat UI doesn't look dated

It wasn't just an option sitting around. The had banners all over specifically advertising the fact and claiming back by popular demand. That's pushing it. It not just an option they allowed for those stubborn users.

I have a nexus 7, the design is fine. I have no issues with it there, big tiles and so on are great on smaller touch screen devices. They are ugly on a desktop and sites designed around them look awful.

How do you get the old theme back? This looks amateurish and presents way too much info on screen even after customization.

You don't .

 

[AsPika2219]

Nice new forum design! Anyway, welcome to Back To The Future!!!
I hope this one will fixed soon!

ANIMATED AVATAR!!!

 

[VMM]

I'm also one of the people who dislike modern. And, if you were able to add the old skin as a separate option, I'd be happy not to wait.

You know what I'd like? IPB skin, that was the best look this site ever had, it was truly beautiful.
Now every interface, wether for OSes or for sites, are using this flat minimalistic design,
and wether it may be lighter, it's still fugly

 

[filfat]

You know what I'd like? IPB skin, that was the best look this site ever had, it was truly beautiful.
Now every einterface, wether for OSes or for sites, are using this flat minimalistic design,
and wether it may be lighter, it's still fugly

Flat UI is beautiful and way better than ugly 2006 aero style, when done correctly, this isn't however. feels like they decided to go with flat when they were 50% done with the theme.

 

[Margen67]

Margen67 will totally break the point of having likes and dislikes. lol

Edit: The only comments he/she can't like are his/her own ones.

That and profile status replies

 

[VMM]

Flat UI is beautiful and way better than ugly 2006 aero style, when done correctly, this isn't however. feels like they decided to go with flat when they were 50% done with the theme.

Opinions; for me aero 2006 will always beat these obnoxious flat designs.
Although I agree in part with you, the theme looks half-done, maybe with some adjustments it could become good,
but first they need to change these icons on the top right, they look like ICQ icons, something early 2000s,
and they're extremely out of place.

 

[2Hack]

I wonder if 2Slack will continue to use Tapatalk

It actually has been acting up recently, maybe to do with the changes going on. I still prefer it due to the low bandwidth, easy customization(can remove profile pics and sigs from each post easily) and notifications straight to my phone. The best part of the customization is that it wont affect the desktop site, so I can have dark mode on my phone, and default on pc, without having to swap between them. Ads are also better suited for phones in the tapatalk version, while the browser version is better suited for PC viewing.

That said, if it is still acting up, I might stop using tapatalk on my phone, and browse gbatemp mostly on my tablet/pc.

btw, I do like the new site, and appreciate it's mobile friendly nature. I really like it, but it would still be cool to go back to the old UI as a skin or theme if we wished.

Dear Tempers,

The GBAtemp Team is happy to present the Fifth version of GBAtemp (this isn't even its final form!). TJ and I have been working on it for months and it's finally ready for you to use. There are tons of changes so I will only highlight the biggest ones, and you'll discover the rest by yourself over time.

A new homepage
We have created a brand new customizable and modern homepage. Its layout can be adjusted to fit your personal preference - move your mouse over the "Home" menu item and click "Customize your portal" to make your changes.

New site skin
We have updated the site and forum skin to look more modern with new colors and fonts. Both skins have been updated (light & dark). We are still working out the kinks, we are aware of a few minor issues, not everything's perfect yet but in time we'll get there!

Mobile friendly browsing
Finally you can browse GBAtemp on your mobile devices... without Tapatalk! Our new skin is fully responsive, just try it, it looks fantastic! All site features are supported, including the dark theme.

Ask GBAtemp!
If you have been around long enough you already know what this is. But for the others: Ask GBAtemp is a place where you can ask simple questions and get direct answers, in a similar manner to Yahoo Answers. There are already thousands of questions back from a few years ago, and it's now time to get back at it! Go ahead and ask your questions if you've got any.

Board upgrade
We have updated our forum software to the latest version, and this brings a lot of improvements on all fronts. The biggest and most noticeable improvements are:
- a new message editor supporting image paste and drag & drop
- watching a forum to get notifications when new posts are made
- multi-quote and selective quoting
- thread-wide bans... whoops, this is going to come in handy for the mod team
- online status indicator on avatars

We hope you will enjoy browsing the new and improved GBAtemp. Feel free to reply to this thread to give us feedback. Many thanks to tj_cool for doing most of the work!

Costello & the GBAtemp Team

View attachment 19485

But where is Vulpes?

 

[RCJayce]

mobile sucks, fix Tapatalk.

 

[Larsenv]

Nice layout!

However, the number on the notification favicon is a little off to the left.

 

[Walker D]

My overall opinion about the changes, is good! ..Thanks for the efforts Staff It already looks good, and the fixes needed seem to be not that many really (I personally like the Multi-quote function, the green Online indication, the buttons in the New-post box, and The new Staff posts that are shown in the home screen, on the right side of the main ad banner.. ..I know that Neogaf has a special place for news from the staff too, so seeing it here too is cool).


Now, I'll be constructive, and point some small things that could be fixed. I would appreciate if any staff member working in the layout took some time to read this :3

Negatives: the main page not fitting properly,too much blank space not being used. Where I put arrows the menus should either be extended,made larger, or spaced more.

This seems to be common perceptions, so I wanted to throw my comments on them.

- About the the main page not fitting properly, I agree, and will talk about it when commenting another quote.
- I don't agree with the argument for the arrows. The Top menus, I like them where they are. Moving them to the left would occupy part of the GbaTemp logo space, so it would have to be moved up... creating a unnecessary increase in the vertical space used by the banner and the menus. That's bad use of the vertical space, don't do that. The way the space is being used there is fine.
- The lower arrow, I don't think that this menu needs to use all that space just for the sake of it... the different links there would be too separated from each other, and the insane big amount of blank space between them, would look worst, and break the overall home screen look.

I'd like to again ask; Is there a way to remove the stupid window on the top right?

By the looks of that User-Box, it certainly is not finished.. but I will tell what I think anyways.

- I don't think it needs to be removed at all, just fixed (but some people usually say that options never hurt? ...not so sure about that though). The way I would do it, is:

- change the icons for something more close to the Icon stile seen in the new Text box for new-posts. Like this:

- change the bg color for that box. Use light blue for the Light-theme, and dark grey for the Dark-theme. BUT, reduce the opacity more.. ...I would have something around 8% to 25% opacity.. ...but you could use the "new alert" popup window as a reference (you can see one in the image from the quote below).

- would be nice if the User-Box thingy DIDN'T followed you as you scroll down the pages. Even though it would already be much less annoying with the above fixes applied, it would be good if it didn't followed you ...at least as a option that can be selected by the user.

The theme thingy I usually use with Tempstyle Dark works with the new site layout, too!
https://userstyles.org/styles/77518/gbatemp-v4-dark

- This is how it looks with GBATemp V5:

- Please, please, pleeease make the default Dark theme more like this!

- This image is good to point some things that could be fixed. You can noticed how colors blend better.. ..there's less of a color variety from one text box to the other.. ..you can notice how the tome menu bg color and the lateral bars are better integrated. Even the User-Box thingy

- Another important thing. You can see how Tomato Hentai removed one of the columns, leaving only 3 main columns (left menu, Reviews, and Recent Content). That is very important to notice how the 4 columns seemed crowded before .....(and before someone says that users can change this, I obviously Know that... ...and that doesn't fix the necessity of having a decent Default Homescreen layout.... so, yeah, continuing)...... and it doesn't needs to be like this.. ..we should have be able to have less crowded 4 columns (similar to how this 3 columns img exemplifies), IF 16x9 screens showed not as big empty lateral bars.
The crowded 4 columns layout that I'm getting here could be more acceptable maybe if I was using a 4x3 screen... ..but only in that case.

You mean you do not have http://gbatemp.net/find-new/threads?recent=1 on your new tabs page?

- Having to access the Recent Posts like that is not enough. I think it's a too important option to NOT have a link for it in the Home screen.
I think it's so relevant, that it should be one of the first 3 options in the upper menu bar of the Homescreen really.
But to avoid breaking the bar design too much (it has a lot of options already it seems), it could certainly be in the Left Menu bar of the Homescreen... maybe under "Site & Scene News".

Just want to add that this website is NOT 1080p friendly at all...

This seems to be cause of the big empty lateral bars and the crowded 4 columns, right?

- So, as I said before, bigger screens should have smaller empty lateral bars.. ..you kinda could fix the issue by only having 3 columns by default ...but no really.. ...if someone has a big screen, It should be able to display 4 columns better.

- Ah, I also agree with some that the font is not the best... but I'm kinda ok with it really... it's definitely NOT terrible... ...if there's a point where you guys even bother about changing it though, I could recommend another.


Aaaand, that's it

With all this comments about needed fixes, It could sound like the changes are Bad ..but not really!
I see this needed fixes as not as relevant as the overall good changes.

Thanks for the effort Staff peps, and I hope you guys bother about my suggestions too

 

[HtheB]

Why not use Roboto as fonts?

 

[GhostLatte]

When I first saw the new layout, I was like:

I am used to it now though.

 

[AlanJohn]

This is the worst looking "upgrade" I've seen in all gbatemp history.
The icons on the top right look like something straight out of a 2006 stock icon pack.
The font is terrible too, especially for low DPI monitors.
And no, this is not "optimized" for mobile devices.

 

[vayanui8]

Flat UI is beautiful and way better than ugly 2006 aero style, when done correctly, this isn't however. feels like they decided to go with flat when they were 50% done with the theme.

IMO aero is far better than 8's ugly flat boxes. 8 does a decent job but as a whole its not nearly as good looking as 7

 

[Jiehfeng]

When I first saw the new layout, I was like:

I am used to it now though.

Couldn't have said it better than the fish.