[Eestlane]

I have always wanted to have/do a darker, more elegant theme for the purpose of any professional website.

I played a bit with reDesign and it's coming along quite good.

Thought about sharing it with you, so here's a screeny.

[Eestlane]

Getting there...

[unigene]

As always your themes look great.

On preview2 did you do the right part with standard DF features? In other words are the right menus freely parameterizable?

[Eestlane]

Thanks.

And, yes it is standard... somewhat.

What I did was positioning the center and bottom blocks to the right, aswell as the left blocks.

You can see it live on my site:
000.pri.ee/?prevtheme=elegant

(Ofcourse, I am using Forums block as bottom block on my site, so it doesn't suit there with this theme very well. But if correctly layouting it could have great benefits against the traditional positions.)

[layingback]

Couple of comments, if I may:

White text on black looks good, but probably not best for professional site (readability issues for some customers). So preview 1 may be better.

Suggest the red borders (on left blocks) and black borders (on right blocks) be slimmed down? Less is more... Esp. on professional site. And you no longer need a big border on right if using square (vs round) corners on inside.

Have always liked the dual right columns (left and right on right) as you showed on an unreleased early reDesign theme on your site. This version with double-width columns at top and/or bottom is even better. Definitely see uses for this on a client site: when different modules need 1 or 2 columns it seems MUCH better to have 1 or 2 which are both on right, rather than usual switching either side off - which too confusing esp. if user has small screen and is using horizontal scrolling. And double-width columns is nice solution to column width issues.

I have never been convinced of value of individual block hiding feature (by clicking on header), I often disable it. But it looks as if you are making it act like a link button to open the block - if so this is excellent.

Had you thought of using the drop-shadow (like under the header) under the right blocks as well - those with curved down corners on right - e.g. "Coppermine Stats", for even more continuity/consistency?

As always brilliant work. And all in a day?!

Final thought relating more to community techie site use - like this one: Multiple themes seems like a fairly useless feature in general, just colour change in most cases - which reDesign1 did better with a colour button. But if you made reDesign, reDesign2, and this (reDesignE? ) as selectable themes this would really give user value to theme selection, as it would affect how the theme displayed, not just what colours. E.g. blocks on right vs left, blocks closed initially versus open, menu above/below header. Real personal preferences.

[Eestlane]

Thanks for your thought out comments, as always!

The shadows under blocks might look good, but it might also destroy the current feeling. However, it might suit with the header more. Or maybe the header should be changed.
I'll let the theme stay the same for some period until I have more ideas, as I have run out of them now.

As you can see on my site, it probably don't suit for a multi themed site, as it has different layout.

Preview 1 was before preview 2, which means dark background and white text stays. I, for example found it really great, because I was working on the theme for more than 12 hours maybe, and though my eyes were very tired afterwards the dark background really reduced that bad effect

I personally love how the forums main page looks and other parts. But what about the white input and textareas, should they have different background? The do have a nice contrast, but maybe too much. I'm thinking of light yellow.

I didn't quite follow your individual block toggle idea. I did however, disable the feature to toggle blocksides. I think if someone really needs to use them, it means the site is built up bad.

[designSumpf]

...about blocks :
I like the idea of having the blockcontent always at the same spot, using the blockheaders as a kind of tabs, because this would allow a design with less need to scroll.
(yes, it's not so good for real dynamic blockcontent)

..and on the css-play-site I saw a page-layout with "semi-fixed" footer (i.e. stays at the bottom, except content pushes it down), like in "good old" frame-days. I like this idea, because the browsing-impression is calmer.

[Eestlane]

designSumpf wrote:

...about blocks :
I like the idea of having the blockcontent always at the same spot, using the blockheaders as a kind of tabs, because this would allow a design with less need to scroll.
(yes, it's not so good for real dynamic blockcontent)

Umm, it's not like that. On the image, blocks are just toggled off. However, it is an interesting idea if implemented right.

[Eestlane]

The theme should look somewhat acceptable now.

000.pri.ee/liivakast/p...egant.html

[Eestlane]

EDIT: The right url:
000.pri.ee/sandbox/pre...egant.html

[Eestlane]

An attachment image how it should look.

There is a little IE6 bug, which could be avoided with Dragonfly 10.