Aaronprojects

SolarSoft v4

From 2004 to 2010, I owned and developed the Dutch RPG Maker community SolarSoft. Over the years, I developed a custom CMS for it, which integrated nicely with the SMF forum that formed the heart of the community.

Version 4.0 of the lay-out launched in 2005, before the 'web 2.0' hype peaked. As a result, its layout is somewhere between the classic web and a modern, clean design. With version 4.2 we subtly moved towards a cleaner lay-out by switching fonts, however.

Below are some screenshots of the initial version of the lay-out (using the Garamond font) as well as the second iteration (using Helvetica or Arial). The forum lay-out was roughly the same in both versions, and is shown on the right.

See also SolarSoft v5 and SolarSoft v6

Earlier instalments of the lay-out that heavily influenced what ended up becoming version 4 can be seen in the screenshots below. Note the second lay-out (version 3.5) used collapsible menus to hide menu items not deemed relevant to the current page.