Bring Back the Blue Border!

[Texaggie79]

It appears that some blind FReepers have talked John into making the border a white background. This has caused several things. First, there is no division and the whole page is cluttered. Second, it looks very amateurish, while the blue border added a VERY professional look.

Don't worry, I'm not threatening to leave over it, like some whiners, but I just want to make a thread to see how other FReepers feel about the Blue border. I want to know who the blind FReepers are that think it actually looks better and would risk newcomers thinking that this is some rank amature site that has just started.

[Texaggie79]

The design peeked when there was a blue border, and a small divider line to the left of the breaking news column.

[blackbart1]

It has a clean look to me the way it is. It is separated by the Bold Blue head lines. Stop whinning. heh heh

[UB355]

banish the Blue border forever

[Texaggie79]

This site now looks like an amature hack job without color difference.

[Texaggie79]

clean? You really like your navigation panel to have no difference from your center panel? You are what us designers call a abnormality.

[Texaggie79]

I would say to the designer that they should go with what they originally intended with the design. If they start making aesthetic changes based on complaints they will have a website designed by committee.

A-freekin-men

[tpaine]

The current way the site looks now, if I was coming here for the first time, would be a major turn off. It is one big jumbled mess. You must have color division. It looks absolutely amateurish.

-- Do you ever cease your self touting faultfinding ? -- Get a grip on your ego.

[browardchad]

I have a DSL connection, and a reasonably fast processor, but with the blue border, there was an annoying hesitation in loading threads last night. For some reason, taking out the blue background has helped. I don't really care what FR looks like, but if the choice is between speed and aesthetics, I choose speed -- too many things happening in the world, too fast, I guess.

[Texaggie79]

I'm not self touting, I'm stating simple proven fact.

[dvwjr]

..."and a small divider line to the left of the breaking news column."

The limited blue boarder is fine, seperates the navigational controls, but the dynamically generated left margin line was responsible for about 50% of the scrolling speed slowdown. The flag graphic was responsible for about 25% of the scrolling slowdown, and the right gutter dynamically generated margin line was responsible for about 15% of the scrolling slowdown. So the blue-grey color seperator is AOK, but nothing else...

[Sabertooth]

A-freekin-men

So now you want the flag border back?

[who knows what evil?]

Blue border bump. I agree, as a veteran web designer, it does help to separate the navigation. Personally, I would never advise the grey on white nav area as it stands, but in my biz, the customer is always right. It's kind of shocking to find so many complainers on a conservative forum though.

I have to agree. I am content with the way things are right now, but I did like that blue border. I just took a tour of a dozen of so websites I visit on a regular basis, and ALL of them had colored borders or sidebars. The actual text of the page I was reading was on a white background (and that should be the case), but links and other options appeared on sidebars/borders with colored backgrounds. Jim and John are going to KILL us, but adding a colored border/sidebars would be a nice option to have. (However, I would leave the CURRENT font/size/style ALONE...just want the option of that COLORED border...please?)

PLEASE NOTE: I have NO INTENTION of withdrawing funding for Free Republic or 'running off' if I don't get my way...this is just a polite request. Have a nice day.

[beerhead]

I like the white border.

[Texaggie79]

It wasn't because of the blue border. That has absolutely no more bandwidth than the white. Your browser just reads a simple color code. The slowness was because of the work on and traffic. The color had nothing to do with it.

[muleboy]

I like the blue border. I spend hours on FR. The blue border cuts down on the light and saves my eyes.

[Texaggie79]

I always like the flag border. But if it really was causeing scroll problems, that is a legitimate reason to remove. But he shouldn't have taken style suggestions. He killed the professional look of this site by removing a time proven colored border. Do you ever go to other sites? This is a norm. People are used to division, just read the replies in this thread. You come here now and get bombarded with a big cluttered mess.

[Texaggie79]

The only problem with the beta is that is dosn't have the search above thread lists.

If John can put that up there, then perhaps all of us normal web users can just stay on the beta where we have division.

[tpaine]

I'm not self touting, I'm stating simple proven fact.

Ya, sure. -- Last year you were a foremost expert on, what was it, real estate?

Now you're a website designing whiz? -- Yep.

[DoughtyOne]

Since this thread seems to be productive rather than a whiner's paradise (anotherwords different than yesterday's lame expamples of pap), I'll express my opinion that the blue/gray field was a vast improvement over the washed out all white format. It helped to define the areas better.

[Texaggie79]

I'm not a WIZ, I just know the facts. I took classes on it. My whole point was that even a small designer like me knows these facts.

I never said I was a real estate EXPERT either, I said I know a lot about it because I work in real estate appraisal. We have a national website........... Hence, I work in both.