This is awful!

30 March 2002 | Me

[Nogbad]

No, this is awful!
I don't know where anything is anymore!
Where are the sidebars?
I used to go straight to them
to find out
what was going on.

[Artie_Kay]

Granted. There may be reasons why, but it sure would be nice to actually know that instead of just assuming it's so.

I meant no slam on the FR staff, but as with any new changes, in any business, it's always wise to anticipate issues that will come with the change and address them BEFORE the change is made.

It makes acceptance of the change easier to understand and avoids resistance.

Glad some folks like the change, but looks like most don't.

Can't help but wonder if better planning and advanced anouncement of the change would have resulted in more positive reactions.

[dvwjr]

I'd prefer no left gutter column at all. There is a reason that text presentation is always left justified with a column of whitespace or no column at all. It's the way the eye has been trained to quickly pick up the next line. Doesn't work well with the Flag graphic. This is why so many people complain about the headaches. The othe problem is that the graphic is causing a tremendous slow down in vertical scrolling speed. I've got a dual 333mHz Pentium II system under NT4 with a Matrox G450 PCI card, far from state of the art, but more than fast enough for FR. Now to get the same effective scrolling speed, I would have to upgrade my system to about a 1.2gHz system to get the same effective scrolling speed just because of the left gutter column Flag graphic.

[ezo4]

Ive been playing with beta the last few days and I would keep going back to the old way it was more efficient to use.
Thats why Im here for the speed of the post and easy navigation.

I dont like the option of having to log in to see just the headlines. (maybe i missed it but I dont think so)

Most of the time Im here to lurk and get my news of the minute.

I reiterate the I like the old way hopefully it will change back.

[ArneFufkin]

And your lack of any straightforward input is due to what?

You fondled me in 1988.

[cva66snipe]

If you go back to IE it seems to be getting a lot better. I just scrolled the forum section full text size no more waves. :>} That was a real biggie for me I oouldn't take much more of that at all. Looks like things are still being tweaked as we type.

[Lion's Cub]

I agree this is time-consuming and not worth the effort. I'm off to find the news. I'll come back sometime when I have a few days to search for things.

[nopardons]

On this thread, you mean ? I have " overcome " exactly NOTHING ! I haven't budged from this thread, since I found it. "webbies " can only have one screen . I just keep hitting the reload button.

I have two choices ... leave my web unit on forever ( not a good thing to do ! ) and NEVER get off this thread, or shut off, and try to use FR , until ( very, very, VERY soon ! ) it makes me so physically ill ( migraine, distorted vison, nausea ) , that I just pack it in and say the hell with FR. This, of course, will make some people exstatic.

[Cagey]

If this new format were only a little "busier" it would be perfect.

[wireplay]

I'm running on a 750Mhz Dell laptop with no perceived problems on the flag. I have a 21" monitor so that helps out on the eyes a bit ;-]

[pt17]

Have you done web design or development? Do you really understand how hard this stuff is, especially when it is done with a limited staff and budget? Give the guys a break.

As someone who does understand (and manage) web site and web applications development, I'd like to say it is important to remember two key things: (1) Keep it simple. (2) Please your customers, especially those who pay you.

[ArneFufkin]

Here's a bold and daring option ... how about logging off?

[ezo4]

yep this new layout is eye straining. its not very pleasent
please change it back

my eyes are hurting

[alisasny]

I am not happy with the change either and my time on FR has cut back significantly over the past few weeks since the first changes appeared and we could no longer get every article on the page. Some of us complained to the higher ups and hopefully they will fix the complaints before we move elsewhere. That would be unfortunate but it now takes too much effort to look for every article posted.

With so many complaining I am surprised this went on this far. Oh well. What do I know. Simplicity always works best.

[wireplay]

Agreed. I wouldn't have done the flag bit myself but hey, no sense to go off the deep-end over it. My point is simple: FR operates as a non-profit with very limited staff and budget. Hence, no need to go on and on about how bad the new site is. Let them know and give them a chance to correct. I just get tired of "THIS IS AWFUL!!!!!THIS SUCKS". Have decorum.

You know what? I am tired of this and I've been coding ASP.NET for awhile. Time to log off.

[Artie_Kay]

"Simplicity always works best."

You got that right!

Keeping it simple is just too simple a concept to understand, I guess.

[Tarheel]

There was nothing "broke" in the old format.

Agree! There is an old saying 'If it ain't broke don't fix it'.

The old FR was not broken.

The Tarheel

[ArneFufkin]

i> As someone who does understand (and manage) web site and web applications development, I'd like to say it is important to remember two key things: (1) Keep it simple. (2) Please your customers, especially those who pay you

Let me get this straight ... keep it simple and be customer pleasing ... whew

I just don't understand you networking artists until I see it on a greaseboard with guys shooting baskets or some other kookiness going on.

I hate to butt in on your spirtitual Master Po like zen session ... but part of keeping it "simple" is making sure ALL your customers pay. I'd work on that one first.

[metesky]

Looks like success has created a bureaucracy, you know where make work takes precedence over real work.

Wow, just like the gub'mint! It makes me feel good that John is so busy, busy, busy.

Not to mention that it took me fifteen f*%#*$# minutes just to figure out how to log in.

John, haven't you figured out yet how many of us drink at night and are hungover and bitchy in the morning?

[piasa]

Uh oh. This is sort of starting to grow on me. I have no problems with scrolling and I'm using an HP with windows.

The flag bar doesn't slow me down at all, whereas I had problems for the past few weeks with FR locking up for some reason I have yet to figure out. No other side did that, and it doesn't make sense as far as I know.

The annoying thing about this format is that the 'from' commentor is in bold while the recipient 'to' is in regular print. I tend to look for who a comment is addressed 'to' rather than who wrote it. It would be better to put 'to' in bold, or put both the to and from in bold, so you can pick up both names easily from the clutter. A larger topic font would help, not in red though. The fewer font colors the better.

Also, some heavier or darker horizontal rules between comments, or a greater space between them, would be nice- the lack of a solid divider (or the closeness of the comments) makes them all blur together as if they were all one topic. More space between might be less cluttered.

I still need a spell checker and something to keep me from getting my fingers all twisted up so that I won't keep typing "Palestininas."

[aruanan]

You know, this isn't the only thing that's bad. I was shocked, not pleasantly, when I logged on this morning and saw a browser cluttered up with lots of form and very little information. Before, when clicking on latest posts, I could immediately see the titles of at least 50 posts, and a good proportion of them were visible on the screen. Now I can see but the first two or three posts in narrow column down the center of the screen. And the thing took forever to load. Not a good thing.