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[Knezzen]

Of course!

[Jubadub]

I've switched to the old layout for the moment. If the owner decides to switch to new design permanently, I will probably read less and write less.

If the original layout becomes unavailable, I would be among the first to complain, you can be sure of that.

I'm 100% confident @Knez won't ever do that, though!

[Mat]

As always I am missing a graphics/layout/DTP section, which is in my opinion also still a huge use case for Mac OS 9. Be it at the website itselve or the forum.

didn´t we once had one and nobody used it? can´t remember.

If so, my memories are completely erased.
But what I do remember is that in the early days there was a fight with our special friend. He banned any DTP content and erased postings. His aim was to go on with a DAW-only forum. So I gave up for some years.

i would welcome one, as i am a PS user myself.

OK, that plus Knez' posting above motivated me. I wrote some first text, it will appeare soon at the main page. Would be glad if we could have a subforum as well and move all the graphics-oriented postings there.

but honestly i think that user group will not grow over 3-5 people.

Let's see. I have a feeling it might be the opposite. It always depends on how you are presenting yourselve and how welcome people feel with their knowledge and interrests.

knez just cleaned out some of the forums because we thought there re too many categories... if you make one for design and print you can also make one for games and one for realbasic and then one day we have 100 forums, if you know what i mean.

I know what you mean. But you know as well I am not aksing for one typesetting, one pixelgraphics, one vectorgraphics, one imposition, one PS/PDF, one architecture/BIM, one modelling, and one fonts subforum. ;)
I am simply suggesting a single graphics/layout/DTP subforum where all the great knowledge (just think about our wonderful monitor calibration threads) can go to.

[chrisNova777]

lots of whitespace, the fonts are extremely small which might be a problem for some "senior citizens" with eyesight problems but other than that..  it's great to see changes in forum organization. keep moving forward! and keep "thinking different"

[Knezzen]

Thanks for your input and encouraging words, Chris. It means a lot!

[IIO]

I wrote some first text, it will appeare soon at the main page.

one extra beer for you for the first article! i will also contribute to the "articles" but atm i dont have any more time for that.

Let's see. I have a feeling it might be the opposite.

maybe i took your "DTP" too literally.

i am an amateur, but from what i know the compatibility situation between all these indesign and illustrator versions between 9, X and win is a terrible minefield.
so the only professional (professional as in "industry") applications always were quark 4, acrobat, and of course latex/textures. quark 4.11 still has a small relevance as file format, the others are completely outdated and incompatible to the modern world.

the creative side of visual things is not, of course.

[DieHard]

OK, so I was doing the "old guy" rock and roll thing over the holiday weekend.  One reason it was hard to keep the site fresh was the time constraints I had in 2024 by deciding to do live music again.  The first 8 years of the site were rough, with very little sleep time between a 50+ hour a week day job, spending time with the family, and the cover band on the weekends while trying to admin the site.  So in 2019, I decided to dump the music for a while and address all things that I could not attend to by spreading myself too thin.  Mission accomplished, life got back in balance

Then 2024 hit, and after Covid, moving my business, and the kids becoming adults, it was time to go back to my personal drug.... music.  I finally took Knez up on his long-time offer, to take the helm.

This particular weekend was rare for me not to use my phone or computer to say hello and check into the site. I logged in here, like every Monday, at 8:30am and got transported into a different reality; but after about 10 minutes of culture shock, I can say that the new site/theme looks so modern and amazing !  This is way beyond anything I expected or even imagined.

We really should all pay homage, as I am personally grateful, to Knez and others that got us this cool Modern/Retro look up and running.  Knez has obviously put a lot of energy, thought, and time into breathing new life into the site,  And although "change" is very difficult for the human condition, it must be embraced and acknowledged.  Change will ensure survival, it always has.... so thank you Knez !

[V.Yakob]

but after about 10 minutes of culture shock, I can say that the new site/theme looks so modern and amazing !

I updated the forum page in the evening, and almost went white. It's terrible, I shouted.
I'm always annoyed when browsers show a white "page" when the site loads slowly. There is so little content and so much white on this 27" monitor.
I wrote about it in iMessage to another forum member... and we grumbled like two old men, although I be much younger. 

As a result, I am one of those 8 forum participants who switched to the old topic, where white is much less and my eyes don't strain.


We need a dark theme! 

[Greystash]

I've been using the new theme for a while and I'm a fan. It is very white but so are the majority of websites out there. It's great we have the ability to change themes, I didn't know this was possible until the mention of the new theme in a previous post. Perhaps the theme changing option could be made more obvious somewhere on the site for users who prefer darker themes?

Thanks for your work Knez and Bolkonskij!

@DieHard have you got any videos or recordings of your performances? Fallout Live sounds fantastic!

[Greystash]

Also, has the Forum link changed position in the navigation? I feel like it should be given a little more priority than at the end of the nav?

[Bolkonskij]

First off, thanks everybody for the feedback!

Yes, it's an old-style website / forum theme according to old-style standards. Modern browsers can access it too, but it's not made for them. Ideally, when on a modern machine, you'd fire up QEMU or whatever and open the page with Classilla from your emulated OS9.

And yes, as noted ... it's not optimized for big resolutions. If there's enough interest, I could whip up a higher res version but then the requirement was really to code up a page that is both fast & compatible on OS9 machines of the day. There's plenty of places to go with a M2 Mac and talk about OS 9, but little to do it from the very OS 9.

As I understood knezzen, this will be the place you can *always* come to with your iMac G3. In a way, while it's back-end is modern, the front-end will intentionally be low-end and accessible. Maybe he wants to add something more about his philosophy on this.

@ssp3 - Wrote down the things that you mentioned and will look into it. Like I said before, this design is essentially an Apple design, so not much creativity on my part. When I was implementing it, I was wondering if the relatively small font (remember, old-style website!) combined with the light-black/grey was readable enough. Apple usually worked with big font sizes and few text, which might made the problem less apparent.

I decided to go with it for now, but it can always be made darker or fully black. Same goes for the default font size. But a modern brower usually offers you ways to get around this anyway (setting the zoom up to 133% has been mentioned, for instance). I don't promise anything, but I'll definitely look into this and talk to Knezzen about it.

@Mat - I'd be very interested in that DTP section as well! While you can find some info in old magazines of the day, it's getting hard to find stuff on the net. Maybe we can also get our creativity flowing again, like in the 90s? Remember the days we'd sit down and pixel something just for the fun of it? Very much looking forward to your contribution!

[ssp3]

By the way, if you click on the "Theme by TheForumGuys" link at the bottom of the page in the old layout, that link leads to online casino site!

Att. MODS. I see that the href is gone now. Feel free to delete my message to clean up the thread.

[Protools5LEGuy]

By the way, if you click on the "Theme by TheForumGuys" link at the bottom of the page in the old layout, that link leads to online casino site!

TheForumGuys suffer gambling addiction apparently

[bfcastello]

The site is fine. loads faster. Looks great. And fits in a way so old screen resolution macs can see it properly, I guess.

One point I agree though - this looks a lot like an OS X themed site rather than OS 9 platinum site. Still, its looking great and its a refresh.

I'd give a 8/10

[ssp3]

Just FYI - this is the gamut of new style layout sans logo. 

[Mat]

this is the gamut of new style layout sans logo. 

As I worked at the playout center of  a TV station once, I hear you! But you have to explain what this means to all others. I suspect not more than a handful of people here has the knowledge to be able to understand what this gamut shows us!

[Rosetta]

Last weekend I attended Vintage Computer Festival Southwest here in Dallas -- old-school Mac heaven, totally surrounded by my fellow cultists and their beloved beige (and clear plastic) machines in person -- and I realized I hadn't checked the old forum in a while. What a surprise! The new site looks fantastic. Knez, DieHard, everyone else keeping this place (and the classic Mac scene in general) rockin': you guys are gods ! Can't wait to see how she rolls on Netscape on my G4

[Knezzen]

So we took your concerns regarding the "whiteness" of the new site seriously and Bolkonskij have been working on a new site design to meet the concerns. The design is not done, but have been launched as a "work in progress".

Please do come with input. As always, we can't meet everyones requirements and taste, but we want Mac OS 9 Lives to truly LIVE again. Help in the form of writing is very, very welcome. Everything from news posts on the main page to guides and articles on anything Mac OS 9 related is more than welcome

[thecookfamily]

What others were complaining about the whiteness fail to understand is that design loads extremely fast and is easy to navigate. Don't complicate things. The new home page is just not user friendly. This is coming from 35 years working with GUI interfaces.

[Knezzen]

What others were complaining about the whiteness fail to understand is that design loads extremely fast and is easy to navigate. Don't complicate things. The new home page is just not user friendly. This is coming from 35 years working with GUI interfaces.

The current white one or the one we're currently working on? Or both?