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The project logs is one of the greatest additions, what ever you wind up going with, I would love to see that wind up in there .

Switch theme seems to really only be changing the colouring, I had it on the lighter background, and at the very least, changing it to the darker background made things seem less crowded (as far as colour trickery can go, which is minimal).

Interestingly enough, the spacing actually works a lot better when I don't have the browser maximised, although it bunches things up more, the effect of the left and right panes being reduced in width has a hugely pleasing effect visually. At 1680x1050 though, those side panes just become so wide that theyre unsightly. Maybe something as simple as locking those side panes to a maximum width could really go a long way?

Taking that into consideration, I think the large amount of text centered at the bottom works well, and I think it's fine to load all the text for search engine stuff down at the bottom as you like, as long as you have to scroll to see it. I think it's primarily the bit that the user will see when they first open the page (the stuff at the top) that ought to have a sort of focal point, and be a little more aesthetically interesting than three equal sized columns of text and pictures. There ought to be some sort of "hook," that draws the eye and gets new users interested immediately. If there's too much text and images to sort through, all clustered together, it can be a bit overwhelming.

Spent some time looking it over and here's my two cents:

1) Center Column - The "Latest from Dakka" section needs to be the site intro. This space should answer the question "What is Dakka Dakka? New people will likely focus her first, tell them what the site is about. The latest site news/contests etc can start below that intro text.

2) Left Column - The log in/Register box needs to be on top, people need to be able to easily see where to go to get more Dakka
- The rest of the subjects here seem fine

3) Right Column - Poll is ok as is the featured image.
- Image comments and Top users need to go. Maybe change the image comments to something promoting the Dakka Gallery feature instead. Top users, I mean who really cares? Certainly not the person just coming in for the first time.
- News feed is good, I dont like the formatting of the friends of Dakka section(the centered text makes is confusing), but a links section is a fine idea.

4) Top and Bottom - Reformat the page header, make a larger page wide logo or at least center it, I've always hated how the logo is stuck off in the one corner.
- All the text at the bottom is fine, just dont depend on the fact that people are going to read it. Thats why you need to have the "What is Dakka?" section dead center on the top, people dont want to scroll all the way down and deal with the boring wall of text.

Hope that makes sense

SFG

My name is on that page! HURRRAAAAY!!!!!

here's my idea for how the homepage should be

take a look at myspace's homepage.. before you log in, under the stupid ad that slows down everyone's browser... there's a big login box on the right. On the left, there's tabs. Welcome, Features, Music, etc. Why not do something similar?

The first thing you see is the news tab, other tabs for updates for articles, army profiles, galleries, etc. Divide the page in 2 columns 75% for the news area and tab stuff, 25% for user info/login.

If you're logged in, the right column would have your basic links like to jump to your gallery page, list some recent posts, most active users, etc. If you aren't logged in, you will see a login box here just like myspace does, and instead of a news tab being first on the left a "welcome" tab will be there instead, and the welcome info will be a brief description of what Dakka is and invite people to sign up and be nerdy with us.

Anyway, something like that. So you can cram all that info into the page if you want, but use tabs instead of having it all visible and cluttered looking.

Page 1 should be like PP's Page 5:

"This is not your Grandma's web forum..."

I'm kidding. Only a little.

Okay, maybe a lot.