Metatags and Redesign

As y'all have noticed, the site has gotten a lot prettier in the last few days. Aside from the obvious new color scheme, I've redesigned the discussions, tag pages, and profile editing. The previous, very pastel and clunk interface was something I cobbled together quickly. I mentioned in previous discussions that I hired a graphic designer to redo the site, but he flaked out and I'm redoing the site myself. I wanted to mention there are still more redesign changes to come:

• Add 'login/join' tab to open a login form with js
• Hire designer to custom map markers
• Use marker as favicon
• Create site logo from gamer marker
• Increase pagewide width to a max-width of 60em
• Make footer stick to bottom of window
• Style form elements
• When logged in, replace l/j tab with personalized content
• Move search box off map into space where l/j was in header
• Make search box slide open search tips
• Feature recent discussions on front page
• Feature site news on the front page
• Sweep to check vertical rhythm via lined background-image

If you have questions about the upcoming changes or think something sounds like a really bad idea, please post below or forever hold your peace.

Also, you can now tag tags. I know this is a little weird -- but it lets us categorize things. For example, Dungeons and Dragons is tagged RPGs and fantasy. These tags classify the game and will make it possible to browse from one tag to another. I'm running through the most popular hundred or so tag pages to tag genres and publishers where I know them, and I'd really appreciate it if you could check the tags on your profile and make sure they have a basic description and appropriate tags.

Okay, I've tagged all my tags, the GURPS worldbook tags, and the SF games listed on the SF RPGs tag page. This is a huge improvement on putting hand-crafted HTML text anchors on the tag pages. Thanks.

-Brett

No, thank you -- especially because I noticed you already wrote a bunch of the best tag pages.

I've tagged most of the D&D Campaign Settings and MMORPG's i've spotted. Have you decided on text size yet? All these great changes, but its still blinding to read with the default settings.

max-width of a serif font should be 51em max-width of a sans-serif font, 42em

You may add 5em if the spacing is 1.5 lines, 10em if you double space.

Sans-serif fonts are easier to read on monitors but serif fonts are better able to hold your eye during flyback (that's when you reach the end of a line and your eyes fly back to the beginning). All those extras curls and points on the serif font form little dots during flyback making it easier to hold the line.

Hey Harkins, just wanted to let you know that if you want a hand with the redesign, or help doing the markup then I am more than willing to lend a hand. Drop me a line if you think I could be of some use to you.

And, shawnhcorey cheers for the typography tips!

I agree that the text size is on the small side. It's partially a function of monitor size and resolution, I realize, but in my case the text is tiny. It's about the size of the "THIS UNIT NOT LABELED FOR INDIVIDUAL SALE" text on my salt shaker.

For reference, I'm on a 24" monitor with a resolution of 1920x1200. On a 19" 1280x1024 (my other monitor), it's a little bigger, but still on the small side.

The text size on Wikipedia is a nice size (hint hint). On the flip-side, if you enlarge the text, you can also make the main 'column' of the site wider to compensate. I dunno what the size restrictions are there -- does anyone actually use 800x600 anymore?