Say hello to our fresh new look

Kaiwan_NI · 2023-02-14T12:39:29+00:00

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It's time. The homepage of Native Instruments online community is getting a makeover. ✨

We've rolled out a new, crisp, clean and sharper look to the platform's homepage, all thanks to your feedback. Our new look captures the essence of everything we believe make NI community special, while making the entire experience a lot more simple.

Here's a quick overview of some of the things we've updated in the new look.

Crisper banner and font

We switched our visual and font to align with recent changes on our main website.

Clearer NI news view

Featured news are now placed at the top, separated from discussions. It's now easier to keep up with the latest topics from the NI team.

Cleaner discussions view

Excerpts and user avatars for discussions were removed. Some of you brought to our attention that they were distracting, and we heard you.

We've also removed the section for trending discussions.

More visibility to your threads

A collection of threads created by community members that we like are now highlighted at the bottom of the homepage, because great content deserves more visibility. 💛

Hope you like this update as much as we do. More changes are coming for categories and discussion pages. Let us know if you have any feedback or ideas in the comment section!

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Comments

Percivale

Nice work! Hello!

Monochrome

I like it! Great work 🙂

Matt_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/53148#Comment_53148

Glad you like the layout!

You probably know already but working on the layout of our community or making sure folks have a structured space to exchange doesn't have any impact on the things you mention here. I know it's frustrating when things aren't working but a community manager cannot work on the development of Kontakt or reinstate a communication channel for another department.

Elton Memishaj

Liking this new design a lot !!

Great work NI! :)

Paule

Oh yes. Nearly one year ago the the forum open their gates.

Now there is a better readable background — thanks community admins and programmers.

JesterMgee

Still that eye wrenching white background I see tho...

Matt_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/53230#Comment_53230

We didn't wanna pull the plug on a dark theme yet because we had conflicting feedback on that and there is no UI for a toggle on the user's side. It's easier to get an extension to put your page in dark mode than the other way around BUT we will build a dark theme and ask everyone here what they would prefer having.

JesterMgee

Yeah, used css plugins but they make certain things look jank so I end up switching them off. Can’t believe users would not want a dark screen, having a page that is 99% white on a large monitor may as well be trying to read a newspaper with the sun as a backdrop.

Gee_Flat

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/53239#Comment_53239

Once again we clash hahaha

I hate dark backgrounds and I wouldn't even stay on this site if it was. Total eye stress for me. Espsecially white font on black.

JesterMgee

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/53252#Comment_53252

Well, opposite for me and also for many who find a very large fully white screen a headache, hence why so many devices now incorporate dark modes, An option to choose would be welcome, something that was asked by many when this new forum was introduced 2 years ago and was touted as "on the list of features NI wish to implement) but alas, seems the tables are being turned, all I need to say on the matter.

Gee_Flat

So is this new look a work in progress? It seems like you left some essential things out, like the amount of replies and the short blurb under each topic title. Also a topic 'view count' would be good.

I was just getting use to the old, new forum. Tell you in a year what I think of this one.

My favourite feature on this forum is this:

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-7/

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keys/noire/

Gee_Flat

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/53253#Comment_53253

I get it and a choice of themes makes sense. But other than forums, I find white is pretty much the standard around the world, and for a reason it remains that way.

JesterMgee

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/53255#Comment_53255

It's not a "standard" around the world at all, it was a simple convenience and the fact for centuries humans had dark text on white/beige paper and in the infancy of computing, it was easiest to make/render basic white with black text because, printers...

It is also NOT a standard that NI carry though ANY of their product range. Even the move from Native Access 2 to 3 saw the whole GUI change from white to black. Maschine, Komplete Kontrol and Traktor all have dark themes as does Konrakt, Reaktor and Battery. All their hardware is black.... Almost every DAW also has now chosen to use darker theme elements (Ableton, FLS, Pro Tools, Cubase, Nuendo, Logic..... because (as you would know from your decades of background in the area) most mixing environments and performance arenas (clubs, pubs etc) are dark places and so your eyes are easily affected by very bright light off the screen.

Not that this has anything to do with the forum, only that white GUI with black text is far from a standard in this industry nowdays and even most social media platforms offer a "dark mode" switch for people that prefer (or need to because of sensitivity) darker backgrounds.

The major issue is on a large screen you have 30% as the actual forum and sooooooooooooo much white:

I use a plugin on Chrome called "Dark Reader" to make up for the shortfalls off companies unable/willing to offer darker themes but some elements which I CBF to tweak never display quite right but alas, it's what has to be done.

I just like to remind the mods about this feature whenever I can, like we like to remind the devs about the ability to resize the KK window since it takes a decade for some of these things to be taken seriously.

Matt_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/53253#Comment_53253

This community was introduced a year ago and we always said there was a dependency with our provider here. A user toggle isn't something we can implement on our own since the theming of the community is handled by a proprietary editor. Again, since we don't want to wait forever, we'll do a dark version and ask the community what they would prefer.

And @Gee_Flat isn't the only one, we got tons of feedback saying NOT to consider a dark theme (probably just as many as the ones requesting a change).

Again I prefer a Dark theme myself but if we pushed one live then we'll get just others asking for the opposite.

JesterMgee

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/53263#Comment_53263

Understood, that's why a request for an Option is on the wishlist. Of course there are some that like burning their retinas, have bad eyesight or just don't gel with dark colours.... but funny how that can be of such a debate over a web page but no one seems to be vocal over the dark theme of a DAW like Maschine for instance, at least not enough for there to be an option for a light coloured theme.

But anyway, I will just continue to use the chrome/firefox dark theme plugin since I doubt it will ever be a feature.

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