I've done up a demo of a revised version of the comic viewer. You can take a look at it here:

http://www.stripcreator.com/view2.php?author=evil_d

Replace 'evil_d' in the URL with your username to see what your comics look like.

The changes are:

- rounded corners on the text balloons
- single pixel borders on text balloons and narration
- smaller font in balloons and narration
- the fonts no longer default to bold

I've flipped through a whole bunch of comics, and I personally think they all look sharper and nicer and slightly more wicked. The smaller font allows you to fit a lot more text within a frame and the lack of bolding will mean I can allow users to use bolding in their text.

I will probably have to mess with the font a little bit. Right now it obeys your browser's font size setting, which I don't really care for.

Let me know what you think.

No.

NO!

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes.

YES!

YESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not so sure about the smaller text, but then it's probably just my browser, and the fact that I'm using a Mac, so I guess it's all for the greater good if it works for everyone else.

With one exception, I think the changes are pretty good. That exception: The smaller, unbold text in the dialogue boxes is out of place with the vivid artwork, and makes the comics look amateurish (even more so than they actually are :-) ). In the narration boxes, that font is not a detriment.

On the whole, I like this new design. But I'm also not too sure about the small font, not so much for my own sake as for the sake of theoretical readers with poor eyesight.

This comic would seem to suggest that the width of the characters is the same as before. At least on the computer I'm looking at now. It would be nice if the font could be at a fixed size, whatever that size is, for the benefit of those of us who try to pull tricks like that.

Bold looks more professional, I think.

Just make an option to let us choose between the two.

If I change it, I'd rather not clutter things up by offering two views. New users won't know what the hell the point of offering auto-bolded text is.

I think I'm going to try a double pixel version and see if people like that more.

Yeah. I like the idea, but not so much single pixel. Maybe you could do double pixel for the text bubbles too.

I really like the square boxes.

It was great until I typed Spankling over evil_d in the url.

The new cartoony-looking text balloons are a definite improvement. I'd agree with some of the above posters, however, who said that the small, un-bold font looks too sober and a little out of place beside the garish graphics.

People always complain when you change something they're used to. Although I have to say I might have a slight preference to the new view2.php comics, I don't see that they're a humongous improvement over the old view.php style.

I give half a vote in support of the new look.

... and maybe this is a step towards letting us use bold, font size, and other UBB codes in the comic texts? Yum.

quote:

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... and maybe this is a step towards letting us use bold, font size, and other UBB codes in the comic texts? Yum.

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Hate the unbolded text, not really bothered about the rounded corners. Sorted.

I like the new style.
One request: Comic style font. EVERYONE has it.

Also, I too am not wholly for the unbolded text, but if it means we have OPTIONS, then I'm for it!

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One request: Comic style font. EVERYONE has it.

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To the bathroom.

I meant almost all computers have it, so displaying it wouldn't be a problem.