After several modifications, feature tweaks, and revisions, please feel free to beta test our revision of OSAlert.com version 4. Recently introduced to the site? Amongst many other things: Themes! Read on for a more complete changelog!
The first reaction to version 4 was overwhelming and most assuredly mixed. While many welcomed the improvements and took the time to write us about them, some were so turned off by the colors they were unable to focus on the features. Between the praise and the threats to leave laid the bulk of the feedback, and we took it very seriously. We hope that offering alternative themes will eliminate the major point of contention: the look and feel. Design and color is a very personal preference: since the site design was never meant to be final, it was tough for some to get over this point. Themes ought to calm things down a bit there. Please note that the default theme and the classic theme are now pretty close to what I expect the final verison to look like. The other themes are all still under development, and while usable, some are not complete.
The sidebar is now configurable. Once logged in, go to your preferences page and go to the “sidebar” section. You will now be able to adjust the order of the items in your sidebar, as well as select your default headlines from our choices.
As I outlined in in my personal blog, there are now several compelling reasons to subscribe to OSAlert, including one of the most popular requests we get: an ignore list. In addition, your profile links do not get a rel=”nofollow”. And of course you can default your flat mode view to “All Comments” in one page. All of this by passes the #1 reason to subscribe, which is the complete removal of ads, and of course helping to defray the costs of keeping our site running.
We’ve also done lots of UI tweaking: areas like the private messaging section has been revamped to have more consistent navigation. There is still some tweaking to do to remove some placeholder graphics, but we are getting much closer to the final product.
There are many features that many people did not notice the first time through: avatars can be turned off in your profile so that you may revert to a “lite” theme. In your “bio,” you can now use UBB bold and italics and create outgoing links.
Lastly, a word regarding advertisements: I have removed many of the ads in the comments page to preserve continuity and in other places, I’ve moved them. The advertisement placement is not final, so I’d ask you to be mindful of the fact that the ad sections are not set in stone yet.
Please take a few moments to play around with OSAlert 4. It’s certainly ready to be used as your day-to-day OSAlert. All constructive feedback is welcome.
The themes solved my primary gripe. The new functionality works as expected, and I especially like the threaded view now. Since you added the themes support, I’ve been using www4.osnews.com as my bookmark to OSAlert instead of the “old” http://www.osnews.com address.
As a subscriber, thanks!
Edited 2007-04-02 22:23 UTC
I agree with you. Themes were something that i was looking for. I have started to like the new look and feel
At the top of the page the OSAlert logo is partially covered by the advertisement banner when viewing in IE7.
just use something better … opera or firefox come to mind
Just present interesting news in a readable format and I can’t imagine wanting much more. I find that the features that even the current site has do more to get in the way than to enhance the experience.
Dump moderation completely.
And I believe that there is a special place in Hell for people who want “Ignore Lists”. If you don’t care about a topic, you can just ignore those posts. And if you do care, you need to be keeping an eye on what the trolls are up to, anyway; Do you really want to be so out of band WRT what people are saying around here?
And it’s so easy to ignore the truly useless stuff.
Just use your eye muscles to deflect your eyeballs down the page a tad. That’s the most flexible filtering system imaginable.
Private messaging sounds nice for those private conversations that people can’t have in public without Thom showing up to impose his “authority”.
Other than that, the *current* site is impressively serviceable, as long as you have AdBlock+.
That’s my honest opinion, and please take it as such.
Edited 2007-04-02 22:47
Some good points. AdBlock Plus helps even more.
Well the default theme is a lot better than it used to be. Well-delineated comments instead of everything flowing into one.
One thing I miss is the blue highlight of scores that are high, so either the user’s average score, or their comment score. It makes it easy to see which comments are modded up at a glance. Please add this to the default theme.
I did notice this as well and it was a nice feature of the old version.
I agree with the blue high scores.
However, I am a little pissed that the two best looking new themes in my mind “ColonSlashSlash” and “Orange Platinum” are for subscribers only. They definately look much simpler to the eyes than the other ones. I like the v3 look better than the “Classic” in v4 for this reason as well, the latter has too many sharp contrasting lines between boxes.
Other than that, good job! You’re getting there
OSAlert v3 is like the Windows “classic” UI: perfect. I love the site as it is right now. It simply couldn’t be better. It’s perfect (at least to the end-user).
The new site is looking too much like a generic web 2.0 community site (I hate that!). Seriously, the web is becoming too generic. It’s becoming so dull.
That said, I’ve no problem with the new site as long as you keep the current one going (maybe http://www.osnews.com/classic ?). Please
I think we need true OSAlert v3 clone for v4. Current one looks horrible, has strange spacing and wrong padding. Everything I can hope for is OSAlert V3 with V4 features.
We’re not backporting changes. They require javascript and lots of editing of the source. So your option is no upgrade at all. If that’s preferable, let me know. I’ll take v4 down.
Taking it down would be painfull for those who developed it but I think alot of readers agree with the fact that OSAlert v3 is *perfect*.
It happens sometimes…
I don’t think a week goes by that I don’t get email from someone who is tired of page loads for moderation, or upset that they can’t toggle things inline, or requesting a new feature. Believe you me, though some of you may exist, I think there are LOTS of people who think v3 is far from “perfect.” People said the exact same things about version 3 when we were using version 2. And after user feedback, we introduced threading, themes and more: http://www.osnews.com/story.php/11684/OSAlert++/page3/
People are creatures of habit and adjusting to change is hard. But don’t think that since you’re comfortable in v3 and that several people are pining for the theme means that there is a large group of people who aren’t clamoring for changes.
Edited 2007-04-03 15:39 UTC
What are the v4 features good for? I use OSAlert for more than five years and registered today to put my words to this debate. Good things should not be changed, many good technological webs ended after image remake – good authors left and the visual change was meant primarily to cover it, is’t there similar problem with OSAlert?
That said, I’ve no problem with the new site as long as you keep the current one going (maybe http://www.osnews.com/classic ?). Please
Hence the Classic theme choice, which is pretty close.
I for one like the changes, especially the theme option. The issues I had with the last test were definetly resolved. Great job.
The old site is beautiful, and normally I hate when people just change things around for no apparent reason. However, in this case, I’m psyched about how this site is looking. I love the pale green color scheme, and so far it seems less cluttered and easier to navigate.
Good job!
Yeah I agree. More work needs to go into the classic theme before I’ll be happy. The current v3 theme is beautiful. It’s actually one of the reasons I use osnews.com as the first site I check each day.
What specifically are you unhappy about in the classic theme?
For me:
1. It simply doesn’t render properly in IE 6 (Version 6.0.2800.1106). For some articles, I have to select the text of the article’s teaser text to make it visible.
2. The left nav appears to have vanished.
The layout just seems too bloated. Maybe I just don’t want to learn something new, but if you’d duplicate the v3 theme, to v4, then I’d be happy.
In the end I’ll still visit, but I wont be happy about using the new theme.
I guess they have the classic theme for all the guys like us
+1
is it just me, but i like osnews jsut how it is. simple, pulls up fast on slow internet connections. personaly frmo an end user asspect I see no real reason to cahnge it. unless its just hard to mantain in its current form on the back end…
Which is interesting since v3 is LOADED with extra HTML and v4 is streamlined.
Likely any “slowdown” people experience is related to the browser needing to do more work, not the actual size of the page being transmitted.
I don’t know how to describe it (as per usual…), but on slower machines I utilize from time to time, sometimes loading slick/css heavy/etc sites seems to “pause”, while the page is being rendered out. Plain HTML sites – even with lots of “cruft” – (in other words, pages that sparingly use CSS/javascript/etc) tend to load faster.
That said, I actually (after the theme changes) am starting to appreciate v4 over v3. I don’t have to gouge my eyes out, and the new functionality is nice.
Also, I don’t browse on a slow machine, so page rendering speed isn’t an issue – and I know the ease of maintaining the page/bandwidth/etc benefits of the new design have got to be respectable.
Agreed, i Very much prefer the old site, the new one just sucks imho, too hard to read, everything is to the left … what exactly is wrong with the current design, well sorry theme, i userstand the tech implications of the change .. Also bloody adverts, fair enough if your putting them top/bottom/left/right but in a thread reply then thats just bollox, orig site does not do this as i have seen ……
Didn’t login properly for me, loged me in but didnt refresh itself to the actual page, had to click Home, apart from that, nice job
I’m not against v4, but since you’re offering themes for the new version, is it possible to keep the v3 exactly as it is right now instead or together with the “new” classic?
Also this would be excellent to illustrate the choice for new optional themes, which I think it is great for everybody.
Please, pretty please, it’s so cool!
I also want to add that the new themes are not so nice because they tend to get close to web 2.0 websites and we already have plenty of those. The v3 layout works very well because it makes OSAlert distinctive in a way that it resembles old OSs – certainly cool for some OS enthusiasts – like said in the previous comments.
And the logo, I’m not sure if it is the best replacement, I think the actual one is nice and already with established recognition. The new is a relative departure from the actual’s language so I suggest that if you feel you need a cleaner logo, maybe only eliminating the O and S shading and filling with a solid color could do the trick.
Edited 2007-04-03 00:01
I also want to add that the new themes are not so nice because they tend to get close to web 2.0 websites and we already have plenty of those. The v3 layout works very well because it makes OSAlert distinctive in a way that it resembles old OSs – certainly cool for some OS enthusiasts – like said in the previous comments.
Bingo!
I think most of us appreciate the features, coding efforts and thought behind v4, but also love the v3 theme with the thin “sunken” lines and subtle greyish shades. It makes OSAlert special compared to most other sites. Heck, I could even use it as a desktop theme
The new classic theme has too “fat” lines everywhere that distracts from the contents of the text fields.
YOU NEED TO PADD THE NEWS BLOCKS OUT.
Seriously, the news listings just look like a glump of text with an icon on it, which makes my eyes bleed.
http://www4.osnews.com/
Put some basic padding-bottom, or line-height css attributes to space the ‘Title’ from the ‘written by’ from the ‘content’ and then some more padding around the icon ffs.
If you want an example of how to make news listing entries look a bit better, look @ http://digg.com/
Much betters would be to wipe all the css out making the web readable and usable even on systems that the site is about… I find it absurd: making simple good thing about, in many cases old and in many ways limited, all oses usable only on small part. Somebody has fallen onto head from a strawberry
The new version is nice. But I have to make my browser too wide to get the sidebar on the side. I’d appreciate the text just getting that much narrower if possible!
Just cause I have a wide screen monitor doesn’t mean I want my browser to use it up!
I agree. I don’t want my browser using my entire screen. It’s very annoying having to resize my browser just to visit OS News.
If I change the text size in IE6, the text in the menus doesn’t adjust accordingly.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And it definitely ain’t broke. Just as long as I can put on a v3 skin, I’ll be good to go
I like the default (current) theme the best.
I don’t mind change, when it’s for the better. A proverbial new coat of paint every now and then is nice. But I honestly don’t think the new design is better. I think it’s a step backwards.
The main thing I don’t like about it (personally), is how every other story appears to be sitting on the background. With the existing theme, every story appears in a block. It’s a lot more clear the way it is now.
Also, the new version is way too cluttered with ads. There are google ads in between some articles! Too pushy.
I realize that ads keep costs down, but wow does this new version go overboard!!! Ads between comments?!!
Also, the new logo is an abomination. The “O” looks like an eyeball, and the outline around the logo is simply unnecessary and adds complexity. See where that outline gets pinched between the letters? UGLY. Add to it a very unattractive color scheme that doesn’t do anything for the rest of the site. Maybe you guys could hold a logo contest, cuz this is craptastic.
I’ve been a constant reader for years, but this has got to be the worst facelift I’ve seen.
I wouldn’t go quite so far as you have, but I agree about the logo. The current logo has an… elegant simplicity to it that the new one lacks.
The actual theme is the best!!!
I miss the clean layout of OSAlert v3. There are no boxes or borders. There are no clearly delineated areas. It is like you are reading news written in the air.
Agree
A few more things. I appreciate the hard work, but I think it’s time to really step back and look at your work critically. Is it actually accomplishing anything better than the old version? Are things different just for the sake of being different?
I think the thing that really throws off this new layout is the disgusting use of spacing (or lack thereof). The story titles really crowd the bylines and the summaries. This is where the old layout excelled: everything is compartmentalized, making it easier to read. This one is just chaotic and not reader-friendly. Very erratic flow.
I’m looking at this on Firefox, and it just looks sloppy (looking at the classic theme). The left bar doesn’t quite line up with the top links bar, the margin between the two is the same width as the links bar, etc. Were these intentional? It looks like the margins and layouts of all of the themes were done haphazardly.
I totally agree running FireFox FC6 the display looks terrible.
but you should add a little whitespace in between articles; the main column feels a bit cramped.
The logo could use a little work. Otherwise, I switched the theme to “classic” and all seems as good as before look and feel wise. The new features are definitely an evolution keeping them inline with some of their competitors. Just my two cents.
Good job, keep up the good work!
I am especially fond of the current system, and I dislike changes in interface. It is similar to when you get a good thing going, and then they want to change it on you. I almost feel like what an older person might say about changing something they have always been used to.
This is similar. V4 is definitely ‘disruptive’, and in its current state i definitely do not like the looks of it – it just *feels* wrong.
The most functional and attractive themes (non-fixed-width) seem to be the ones that require subscription…
So that’s your game.
Agreed.
If this trend continues I’ll go elsewhere. The main reason I’ve always liked OSAlert was because it was always the cleanest and most readable news site out there–these changes seem to require we all pay for the privilege of being able to read without eyestrain.
I’ve left other communities for money grabs like this, so it wouldn’t be the first time, but I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that…
–bornagainpenguin
There’s a big problem with the layout that I can see: There’s no link to ‘OS Resources!’
Personally, as a student studying operating system design and would-be hobbyist (and hopefully professional) OS designer, I use that page two or three times per week.
I really hope that that page is retained…
Edited 2007-04-03 03:38
The link to the OS resources can be found in the Contact page. It is like that right now too for the subscriber’s version. Besides, that Resources page has not been updated in years.
I wish they would have an option for the original I cannot stand the new one….
More Ads. Ignore list limited to members only. Lame.
There are no more ads, it’s about the same amount.
Ok, at the very least the new layout draws my eyes to them more.
Good for your advertisers, less good for me. Perhaps my eyes just need to adjust.
The avatar feature is fun.
Edited 2007-04-03 04:35
Bookmarked links are broken.
Example. Here is a permalinked url for a comment on the old site:
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=17609&comment_id=226808
So it should work the same on the new site:
http://www4.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=17609&comment_id=22680…
Whoops.
*All* links will be properly redirected for v4.
Since the current version requires a pretty wide window to show the text and sidebar next to each other why don’t you guys widen the comment entry box? It’s a small thing, but I think 5-10 more columns would make a nice difference in the feel of comment editing.
I am all for osnews improving there site visually however this v4 design looks like a programmer pulled out there photoshop paint brushes and hacked up a terrible interface.
– The osnews logo is a complete joke.
– The use of gradients is an unthought of contribution.
– More negative space is needed between the articles to separate them for easier/quicker reading.
I strongly advise you to send the design to /dev/null and hire a real designer to do the job, perhaps you can get some inspiration about whats good from a site like this; http://cssmania.com
On the matter of the improved functionality I have no gripes there.
I also regularly read the articles from my mobile phone (640×480 res), I notice that the new interface is not available on that yet, I surely hope that doesn’t get stuffed up!
I like the old logo better. Other than that, the new site looks good.
Oops, saw the message on the home page.
Edited 2007-04-03 05:13 UTC
plus set the font text size to about 10 pt … FTW!!
Seriously, the ‘blocked’ style makes things more clearer, and closer in terms to functionality with the V3 look.
What is the reason you have decided to drop the “average post score” that is shown behind the users username in the classic osnews? It’s a good way to filter out the trolls.
Because its a worthless number. The date someone signed up is better, I think, since it actually indicates something – like how long they’ve been contributing. The average score is 5 if you have one post of 5, which doesn’t mean you’re a better commenter than someone whose average score is actually 2.5, which is really high for someone who comments regularly.
The more someone posts the more likely they are to even out their score back to 1, which is misleading, because a troll with a few high comments might appear to be a really good commenter.
There’s a few ways to handle this, the easiest being simply not displaying a score for a new member (less than 50 posts or something like this.) Display score for people over the threshold. Scores are very useful, now I’m clicking on user names to get info on users.
Another option would be displaying “score/postcount”. This starts to get cluttered, however.
Third option, create an algorithm to balance score against post count.
Or, if you are dead set on not displaying score, still keep it internally, and users who break the 2.00 barrier and have more than X number of posts (100 or whatever you want) have their names change blue to signify they are (generally) “good” posters by popular opinion.
Now, imagine if all the people who can’t read would stop modding people down because they disagree with their opinions, we’d be all set! :p You should add an IQ check to the new v4.
Let me think on this. Maybe we can cook something efficient up that will satisfy.
Sounds good! If you get stuck/need some ideas, I’m always happy to help.
On a side note, log out of your account, then click “reply” to this comment. It’ll bring you to a login screen. Even if you type in the correct info, it once again brings you to a different login screen. Then, when you type in the correct info, it doesn’t redirect you back to the “reply” page like it (logically) should.
Please make the default theme look the same as the current site. The padding is wrong, the borders are wrong, (+) / (-) button placement is wrong, highly modded comments are not blue or bold, and I could go on.
Also – the biggest annoyance that it’s not theme related is that when I post a comment I’m taken to a new page. What’s up with that?
Otherwise, great work on the new features.
Much more visually cacophonic and difficult to navigate than the “old” version. Less is more, guys, remember that.
What’s next? Picture sigs so people can have gigantic, ugly and dumb pictures about nonsense no one cares about taking up all the post space?
Edited 2007-04-03 06:34
Did you even read the article? You can turn avatars OFF.
Let me chime in too – almost nothing has changed and it’s really better to send the current design to /dev/null. Using OSAlert green for the sake of being green? It just doesn’t work. What’s with the spacing? It feels like I’m opening a tiny webpage in a browser maximized to a 1920×1440 resolution. It’s not clean, not concise, and the color shade gamut is very wide despite the site being almost monochromatic – what’s with all these 10934 shades of gray with light-blue stars piled on top? Hurts my eyes.
And once again there’s that stranded ‘Older posts’ weirdness at the very bottom.
Seriously guys, hire a *good* designer if you intend to have subscription I’d expect to have a good-looking site, and let programmers do their programming job.
What?
FTW. Seriously, that’s all I really miss in the current version.
Edited 2007-04-03 07:14
yuk, yuk, yuck… *throws up* yuk….
Now, is anybody else experiencing rendering problems with FF2 on OS X? The top banner is clipping the logo on the top left corner.
yuk, yuk, yuck… *throws up* yuk….
The new design/structure is really, really, bad. I would be interested to know if this is change for change’s sake. Did people complain about the current site?
I say, GPL the site, and we’ll get a group of people to fork() it alla XMMS and a multitude of other projects out there.
Why? What? How? It’s easy to say :this sucks” but can you also, like, explain why?
And then what? You’d have to write your own content, and trust me, I don’t think you’ll find and awful lot of people willing to spend several hours a day day in day out working on something without getting paid.
Hi Thom,
I do apologize for the tounge-and-cheek. Honestly, I love the work you do with this site. Check your logs and you’ll see that I am on here at least a dozen times a day.
The editing team does a fantastic job with reviews and continuously fresh news, all packaged in an excellent layout/design/structure.
I just don’t think the new site does all of this work/history justice. I may have been a shock-jock above, but believe me, I appreciate the community you have built up here.
Unless the user gets a cut of the google adsense revenue you’re generating by placing ads between comments, then I think they should go.
The new design is beyond awful. Did OSAlert hire a porn site developer to create the new site?
OHHH!!! Holy crap! I bet this is a late April Fools joke! NOW I get it. Hahahaha… good one guys. You had me scared there for a minute.
I’m going in to cap mode right now, but else I think people will simply not hear what I’m saying:
THE LOGO IS PLACEHOLDER MATERIAL. THIS HAS ONLY BEEN SAID ABOUT 985634563495634670966 TIMES, SO YOU CAN BE EXCUSED FOR NOT KNOWING ABOUT IT.
There.
I am surprised to here this because it makes things worse than they current are.
If you think that it is acceptable to take the symbol of the osnews brand and substitute it with an image that looks like shit, you are in fact saying that your brand is nothing more than shit also. Now I am sure thats not the case but if your running a popular and credible site like osnews, you have to act in a business manner because your actions will be criticize heavily when mistakes are made.
It is within your best interests to consult someone who is knowledgeable about design and marketing because clearly you have not done this due to the type of mistakes your making here.
The logo is a placeholder! It is not definitive! It’s just put there to fill the void! What is so hard to understand about that!
Perhaps it would be better to substitute the current logo as a placeholder for the time being, to make everyone happy?
Personally I like the way it looks now… especially because everything is boxed out and clearly deliniated. In the new site, the lack of deliniation between news stories makes it harder to read, IMHO.
I definitely agree that the current logo is better than the new one. The current one has geek chic to it… the new one is just a bit too “hotrod” for a significant site like this.
As I already commented on beta1: There is a problem with firefox/epiphany when you use an inverted gtk theme. The background uses the color of the theme and is therefore unreadable. I testet this with firefox and a fresh profile.
http://img292.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshotij8.png
As far as I’m concerned, that’s not an OSAlert bug. I cannot reproduce it on any other browser – including FF on Linux. The page has a background of #fff – I don’t know what to tell you. Complain to the GTK people I guess for overriding our style.
After playing with OS News v4 a little this morning, I have mixed opinions.
There’s tons of new stuff hanging around the new site, however, the current theme, although good looking (this is subjective), is -imo- harder to read and follow.
When you read the comments, you have to read “more” and the screen looks “overloaded”.
Perhaps if we had a “trial” (7 days?) of the subscriptions to see how will it look (perhaps without the ads it looks better). I read mostly through RSS and only read the topics I am interested, but when I do, I have found v4 to be “harder” to read.
Maybe it’s just me being more tired and getting sick
Anyways, the site is great. Nice tag tho: “NOT JUST Operating System news”
From the article by Adam Scheinberg:
“””
All constructive feedback is welcome.
“””
From Thom Holwerda:
“””
THE LOGO IS PLACEHOLDER MATERIAL. THIS HAS ONLY BEEN SAID ABOUT 985634563495634670966 TIMES, SO YOU CAN BE EXCUSED FOR NOT KNOWING ABOUT IT.
“””
“””
Did you even read the article? You can turn avatars OFF.
“””
“””
Why? What? How? It’s easy to say :this sucks” but can you also, like, explain why?
“””
“””
And then what? You’d have to write your own content, and trust me, I don’t think you’ll find and awful lot of people willing to spend several hours a day day in day out working on something without getting paid.
“””
“””
What?”””
“””
“””
The logo is a placeholder! It is not definitive! It’s just put there to fill the void! What is so hard to understand about that!
“””
Hmmm. There seems to be a bit of a gulf between Adam’s open and collaborative attitude, and Thom’s confrontational and defensive one.
If people feel that the new site really sucks compared to the current one, and say so, that is constructive criticism and should be treated as such.
Sometimes a boring, but serviceable, sow’s ear is preferable to a fancy-dancy silk purse.
Please take that as a compliment on the current site rather than a rag on the new one.
With ad filtering (I really can’t leave that out) the current site has a simplicity and elegance that cannot be denied.
Let’s focus on content and readability, and not “Themes” and easy, automated, ways to ignore other people’s comments.
No, Thom’s comments are spot on. Most of the negative posts are filled with nothing but rambling, bitching, and threats to leave without ANY real gripes we can fix. No “I like the old site” is NOT constructive.
Furthermore, if I say “ad placement is not final and logos are placeholders,” why must we deal with 10 posts about logos and ads??
Thom’s frustration is with the fact that we wrote about this stuff and some people just ignored it, but it certainly didn’t stop them from commenting.
If 90 out of 120 housewives say it’s ugly, then it’s ugly and back to the drawing board you should go. There were plenty of reasons outlined already.
Screw that.
If you can’t tell me what you don’t like, I’m not going back to do a redesign just to hear more of the same vague crap. Outline what you want to see or use one of the themes that exist. Those are the options.
“If you can’t tell me what you don’t like..”
Are you ******* kidding me? Can you read???
——
“The new site is looking too much like a generic web 2.0 community site”
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=17609&comment_id=226727
“YOU NEED TO PADD THE NEWS BLOCKS OUT.
Seriously, the news listings just look like a glump of text with an icon on it, which makes my eyes bleed.”
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=17609&comment_id=226744
“I agree. I don’t want my browser using my entire screen. It’s very annoying having to resize my browser just to visit OS News.”
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=17609&comment_id=226873
“I realize that ads keep costs down, but wow does this new version go overboard!!! Ads between comments?!!”
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=17609&comment_id=226758
“I miss the clean layout of OSAlert v3. There are no boxes or borders. There are no clearly delineated areas. It is like you are reading news written in the air.”
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=17609&comment_id=226765
“…you should add a little whitespace in between articles; the main column feels a bit cramped.”
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=17609&comment_id=226772
How many more do you need?
A lot. This isn’t a democracy. I don’t just blindly carry out every reader’s wish just because they demanded it.
That’s real useful. Let me just make it less web 2.0 community-ish by… uh… removing the gradient? Wait no… taking out the Ajax? Or maybe by reducing javascript? Does this comment make any f’ing sense? What the hell does it even mean?
Fine. I hear you, despite your annyiong and obnoxious caps.
This is why we get pissed off. Nice quip. I can’t wait to go write code to please you.
Tough. It’s 2007 and the default theme requires 1024 pixels.
If anyone can’t read, it’s the people who commented on ad placements despite my warning that ad placement was not final and was being tested so there were more ads than would be in the final version.
But there are. It’s not my fault you’re ignoring them.
Finally, a well written comment, and I said above, we’ll look into that.
I’m referring to the comments that say things like “it’s fugly.” As far as I’m concerned, anyone who vocalizes their feelings like that isn’t likely to be pleased by ANY change at all.
We’re not updating v3. You would be hard pressed to find a site with our traffic where editors will play this much of a role or better yet, allow the community to play this much of a role. Legitimate thoughts are *always* entertained here. Sarcastic and obnoxious nonsense is ignored.
“I agree. I don’t want my browser using my entire screen. It’s very annoying having to resize my browser just to visit OS News.”
Tough shit. It’s 2007 and the default theme requires 1024 pixels.
——————————————————
I respectfully disagree with this comment. HTML was initially designed to be flowing and not statically laid out; this allows different agents to display the page correctly regardless of their resolution.
You should also consider people who do not (or can not) use 1024×768 resolution. People with poor eyesight often have to use a lower resolution in order to read their screen. Accessibility should always be a consideration during web-design. You could keep the menu a fixed width (floated right or left, depending on the theme) and let the stories fill in the rest of the page (using padding to keep the story from overwriting the menu).
I do like the new design (except for the layout issue), but I’d like to make two requests. Could you please keep the “box layout” from the old design? What I mean is that I really like how easy it is to read the story links when they are separated in their own box like in the old design. I realize that you are using the box method in the new design, at least by background color. What I’m asking is to keep the old-style box design (bordered and separated) as this is easier to read. Or alternatively, drop the different background colors and separate the stories using a padded line. The new design needs something to break the stories up and make them stand out from each other.
Also, would you please consider keeping the existing old version color schemes available to non-subscribers in the new design? I really like the Orange Platinum style in the old layout and I’d like to be able to continue to use it in the new design. I understand if you are removing these for financial reasons (to get more subscribers), but I really dislike “upgrades” that takes away functionality or options that we’ve already had.
Thank you for your time and effort!
Edited 2007-04-03 13:53
I am disappointed that the people who run this site feel it necessary to use language like this when replying to someone’s heartfelt concerns. “I am sorry, but…” would be much more professional and infinitely more gracious.
Actually, it is: many of your user will vote with your feet if you don’t listen to them.
People make negative comments about the new theme because they *care*, not because they disrespect the hard work you guys put into the site. Other people do not always express themselves well, nor are they always helpful, but *please*, accept criticism in the spirit in which it is intended.
We are guests on your site, you are guests on our screens. Perhaps we can treat each other with respect?
“Actually, it is: many of your user will vote with your feet if you don’t listen to them.”
No, Adam is right. It’s not a democracy. He can do whatever the hell he want with the design and he has no obligation to even ask anyone for permission (other than the owners). Sure, that’s rude, not very smart and would probably alienate most readers but that’s his right.
“””
many of your user will vote with your feet if you don’t listen to them.
“””
As far as I can see, the main thing keeping readers at OSAlert is the fact that it has no real competition. The staff can be rude to their readers and treat them badly because the readers have no place else to go.
Or is there another site similar to OSAlert of which I am unaware?
There are plenty of Linux oriented news sites out there. But I migrated to OSAlert because I enjoy the diversity of viewpoints among the readership. On a Linux oriented site, you can get away with saying all sorts of crap and everyone just nods and agrees.
But here, if I say “Linux is the best OS that the world has ever seen!” I can count upon getting some very honest feedback from people who might… err… disagree strongly with that statement.
Mainstream sites tend to be quite Windows-centric, and I don’t care for being in that position: A minority member. I get enough of that in “real life”.
At OSAlert, I feel that we, the readership, do a pretty good job of treating each other as equals… even though we may disagree on particulars.
I would love to find another site that had all that, but where the proprietors weren’t so arrogant, and didn’t act like they were so burned out with running it.
And that is really what I am hearing in their virtual voices these days.
That’s my though, give me another site with similar content in plain HTMl and I’ll be happy to use it.
The “better” the place looks the worse is it’s content, that general truth all around the internet with really special exceptions, that are just justification of that truth itself. And because I have never seen a good tech site, that didn’t turned it’s quality heavily down after similar design remake, I’m now really afraid about OSAlert.
Tech sites shouldn’t look like the highest stupid point of design capabilities, it should be primarily simple and in the special case of sites used to write even about systems fot 8bit computers, it should be able to show itself on them.
Yes, owners/creators have full rights to this site, they can even turn it down in this very moment. Well maybe they should do so…
I hope, that all my affraids are wrong, that new OSAlert will be somehow as simple to use and (a bit more importantly) to display (memory a CPU requirements of design) on every platform. I hope, but I affraid.
Hey defj,
I like your viewpoint. I should be able to read stories as scrolling text on my wristwatch should I desire, or on a braille screen, or as synthesized voice while driving in the car.
Display independence was what HTML and the Web was all about before web designers tried to turn it into a desktop publishing medium. Just give me the text!
Just as some well meaning feedback, I think that the word you are looking for is “fears” rather than “afraids”.
English has so many holes to fall into that it’s not even funny! I’m glad it’s my first language and I didn’t have to learn it as a second!
-Steve
Edited 2007-04-04 07:53
Hey,
I’m glad I’m not alone here
English is not my first language, my first language is much less easy Czech. Differences between fears and affraids are a bit misterious to me, I’ll look it up in Websters unabridged. But the pro of sites like this is, that most people is able and willing to understand even not correct englisch. Try that with french in france
“””
most people is able and willing to understand even not correct englisch
“””
Offtopic warning!!! Alert! Alert!
“Correct English” is a funny thing. A wilderness of corrupted words and spellings absorbed from other languages, decorated with “coined” words, all glued together by convention and the ubiquitous presence of “language nazis”.
As a native English speaker, I have found the spread of English as a common language to be interesting.
A pet peeve that I used to have was people using the word “loose” when the “correct” term was “lose”, or “loosing” rather than “losing”. I wrote a polite note to the editor of an India based magazine a few years ago explaining that the use of the word “loosing” in his magazine was incorrect.
He wrote back, politely explaining that he found my viewpoint interesting, because in that part of the world, “loosing”, in that context, was considered to be quite correct English.
That took me aback. But after considering the matter, I decided that, phonetically speaking, “loose” and “loosing” actually make a lot more sense than the “correct” terms.
It was then that I realized that the globalization of English cuts two ways. We native English speakers don’t have to learn other people’s languages. *But* (and this is the important bit) English does not belong just to us anymore. It belongs to everyone who speaks it. And if “lose” and “losing” don’t make sense to non-native speakers, they have a vote just like everyone else, simply by *using* the term that makes more sense to them.
I suspect that within 10 years time the dictionaries will have to adjust to “lose” and “loosing” and that people who “correct” the new usage will have to be reminded that language is an ever-changing thing.
Long live the Internet!
Edited 2007-04-04 09:46
You are right, of course. OS News is unparalleled in its coverage of general OS topics.
Adam said:
“””A lot. This isn’t a democracy. I don’t just blindly carry out every reader’s wish just because they demanded it.”””
“””That’s real useful. Let me just make it less web 2.0 community-ish by… uh… removing the gradient? Wait no… taking out the Ajax? Or maybe by reducing javascript? Does this comment make any f’ing sense? What the hell does it even mean?”””
“””Fine. I hear you, despite your annyiong and obnoxious caps.”””
“””This is why we get pissed off. Nice quip. I can’t wait to go write code to please you.”””
“””Tough. It’s 2007 and the default theme requires 1024 pixels.”””
“””If anyone can’t read, it’s the people who commented on ad placements despite my warning that ad placement was not final and was being tested so there were more ads than would be in the final version.”””
“””But there are. It’s not my fault you’re ignoring them.”””
“””Finally, a well written comment, and I said above, we’ll look into that.”””
“””We’re not updating v3. You would be hard pressed to find a site with our traffic where editors will play this much of a role or better yet, allow the community to play this much of a role.”””
—
OK. I take back what I said in my original post about Adam’s “open and collaborative” style.
It seems that most of the OSAlert staff has a nasty attitude problem regarding their readers.
I find myself becoming more concerned about that than I am with colors and page layout.
Edited 2007-04-03 15:48
Okay, say you had to write a big paper for university. You spent a lot of time researching, writing, and editing. You show the first draft to your teacher, and all he says is “it’s crap”, and points you to the door.
Would you not be pissed off?
Look, long ago we decided to be very open about changes to OSAlert, so that everyone can have their say. No other websites similar to OSN has ever been this open about a complete redesign.
You somehow seem to think that we are here to serve you, that you are one of our customers, and can place demands as if a customer. But you’re not. We are a volunteer effort, we do this whole website in our spare time. We are open about our policies, we have very loose editorial moderation, we allow for a lot of ‘off-topic-ness’, we allow readers to vent their thoughts about a redesign, and so on, but yet you STILL accuse us of being closed and unwilling to collaborate?
I’m sorry, but much more open and collaborative we cannot be.
You’re right. I have lost my cool here and I’m wrong, no doubt about it. It’s just so damned frustrating that people continue to bring up the issues I actually addressed right in this very article.
The double standard is that readers have posted nasty and rude comments, and the staff – who work for free to bring readers to site – are consistently reprimanded for not caving to every demand. It’s frustrating and clearly unwinnable. There is simply no way to make everyone happy.
This is my last comment on this thread. I’ve got the useful feedback I needed. I think this thread is now dead.
Sorry, the redesign looks like OSAlert is changing to 100% commercial site, if thatś not true, than the change is worse, than it looks like now.
“””
Tough. It’s 2007 and the default theme requires 1024 pixels.
“””
Here is some feedback that I hope you will find constructive. You only mention a horizontal resolution, so I’m not sure exactly how this applies to the current situation.
But I just happened to be reading lwn.net and came across this post:
http://lwn.net/Articles/228934/
which indicates that the most common browser window size that the author found in his testing was “1000 pixels wide by about 550 pixels high”.
Edit: Also note the first response to the post. We’re none of us getting any younger!
Edited 2007-04-03 16:49
I agree to those points
“Most of the negative posts are filled with nothing but rambling, bitching”
OK – fair enough.
But if you throw out the 4 or 5 positive posts that are filled with nothing more than rambling, blind praise (verses the 100+ posts of “rambling, bitching”) … then what are you left with?
That’s “I don’t know art – but I know what I don’t like” criticism. The vast majority of the critical comments I’ve seen here are quite vague (not to mention rather rude/ignorant) – and of the few that do include specifics, even fewer include any constructive suggestions.
Perhaps there are exceptions that prove the rule, but I’ve never encountered a constructive criticism that included the word “sucks.” The responses of Thom’s that you quoted are pretty mild, IMHO – and certainly less childishly-insulting than most of the posts he’s replying to.
No, that’s the I know what I like criticism. Many people here simply like the current setup and they’re saying so.
Uh, there’s a difference?
But the vast majority don’t include any useful specifics of what they feel to be the disparity between the V3 and V4 designs.
Hell, I have my own criticisms of the V4 design. But I’m not going to whine about it unless I have a an actual specific suggestion for making improvements (and, ideally – a link to a mockup of what I think would be an improvement). And I’m certainly not going to phrase my criticisms as immaturely as most of the ones posted in this thread.
Most of the criticism of the redesign I”ve read is along the lines of “Well, I known next to nothing about web design – but I read a lot of websites, so I must be qualified to comment. And hey, egalitarianism tells me that my opinion is as good as that of anyone else – so you better listen to me!”
The thing that many people apparently *never* learn is that their opinions are worth less-than-nothing if they can’t provide proper support for them.
As a long time READER of the news in this site (that pretty much ignores comments), I don’t like the new look.
Too much colors, too much clutter, too much things that distract me from the thing that brings me here: the news.
For now, I’ll remain with the old look.
it’s fugly…
I love the layout of version 3 of the site and I hope that you keep the layout of v4 as close to the layout of v3 as possible.
I also like the blue comments of the old v3.
I know the logo you are using is a placeholder I just want to say that the current v3 logo is awesome and I don’t think you need a new one.
I would like a little more space on the right side of the screen by the articles and the comments, personally. I like having more empty space than is currently given on the right side of the screen.
The default theme needs some kind of boxes around them to give each news article more separation from each other, like v3 does:)
It’s your site and you can do with it as you like but I do truly love the layout of v3 and I just can’t imagine it getting much better than that although I look forward to being proved wrong. Good luck with new site layout.
Well, the thing that still make the display a bit messy for me is that the space reserved for the adds in between story seems to be fixed height and therefore depending on font, they are cut. And when cut in middle of a line, it makes it look unprofessional.
As it depends on add text, it does not happen all the time.
I come to check the news on this site at least a few times a day. I love the current format of the site. I strongly dislike the new version 4. Ok I hate it. I’m no artist, but I know what I like when I see it. If you want specifics, I do know for sure that I hate the new logo. I hate that so much of the top of the page is taken up with it.
Thom says –
THE LOGO IS PLACEHOLDER MATERIAL.
but I don’t know how I could know that if I hadn’t read that comment. Hopefully that means they are going to dump that big waste of space at the top of the page.
The box on the left on the classic view is WAY too wide/huge. Luckily if you shrink your browser window, it throws it under all the stories. I would prefer for that box to be on the right side under classic view.
I have always had a lot of respect for the people who have created this great site. I now have a little less respect for Adam and Thom because of the comments I have seen them post under this thread. I don’t know what their responsibilities are in relation to this website, but you shouldn’t be airing your dirty laundry (frustrations) in public. You’re obviously frustrated that we aren’t taking well to the new design. I’m sorry. Maybe you should step back and take a break. Give yourself some time to relax and re-evaluate the situation. It might help.
You’re right, we are frustrated. but it’s not because “people aren’t taking well to the new design.” We’re frustrated because we’re repeating the same things over and over and over. The images are placeholders. The ad placement is not final. The themes have been tweaked over and over based on feedback. That’s eating up the entire thread here. Rehashing the same things.
Maybe good, smart people we value lose some respect for us when we participate, but that’s the price we pay for being transparent. Virtually no other website like this in this category invites people to play such a role in the design and testing of the site. Let me tell you how much is SUCKS when you build a new website, invite everyone to test the new features, and 25 people leave comments like “I hate it, the new site looks like a baby threw up on the screen. I’m going to leave your site if you keep this theme.” Do you know how much restraint it takes not to say “HEY F*** YOU!” Are people not capable of tact anymore? Can they not express themselves without being complete assholes? Are we incapable of a real conversation? The attitude that some people sport makes me sick and makes me question why we donate time to this site at all.
So, yeah, you’re seeing our frustrations, sure … we’re only human. But you – the user – get to shape the site and have your feedback heard, and I think that ought to count for something.
I don’t see why not. We’re not a company, we’re some people running a website that is worthwhile because of our users. I don’t see why having a real, honest discussion is a bad thing, even if we get worked up. We certainly wouldn’t be the first ones to get emotional in the forums.
Edited 2007-04-03 14:39 UTC
Adam says:
but that’s the price we pay for being transparent.
Maybe that’s not always a good thing. You’re actually willing to go to war with the very fans of this site that actually care so deeply about what you are doing as to get involved? The very people who would probably be most likely to buy a subscription to your site?
Adam says:
Do you know how much restraint it takes not to say “HEY F*** YOU!”
For my kids I know how difficult it is to show restraint. But we’re all adults here right? Most of life is about showing restraint. You don’t just go around yelling and cussing everyone you don’t agree with do you? If so you have no right to complain about the way others are behaving. I know society has gone to the point where cursing seems common place, but to me it still seems to be the trait of childish and immature people. It’s certainly something I try to avoid especially in professional situations.
I appreciate that your only human. I appreciate whatever contributions you make, even more so if you volunteer your time to this site. If no one else has told you today – THANK YOU!
I appreciate you saying so, but the world isn’t always idealist and we’re all adult enough, I think, to realize that the online world does not function like the real world. Of course you teach your kids to show some restraint. But until the internet behaves in a civilized way, like we do in real life, I think it’s a bit naive to expect that courtesy will win over emotional tirades on a website.
For my 2 cents, nobody here has “gone to war.” These are the politics of an online community. This is the way online forums work: everything is hyper-exaggerated because there is no context and no tone.
Maybe we ought not involve the community: maybe it would be better to say “here’s v4, use it or leave.” Personally, I think a little bickering in the meanwhile is a fair trade off.
I guess what remains to be seen is whether people actually leave the site when the changes are rolled out, or whether they adapt to change. I guess we’ll see soon.
Adam: You drop an incomplete design on us and post a front page story asking people to test it. What the hell did you expect?
This is a free, public site. Of course people are going to be critical. It’s the internet, they can be as jackassish as they want. Don’t expect users to read warnings about unfinished logos and caching issues and such. They won’t.
So swallow you’re pride, and try to listen to your user base. If you’ve had enough comments then *take this incomplete & flawed beta (alpha?) site down* until you have something better.
Here’s another bug I found in the new OS News layout.
When attemting to change my account picture, my first upload failed. The error message (oh, I should have taken a screenshot) stated something along the lines of “Illegal file type: JPEGs.” That was immediately after being told that the picture had to be one of GIF, JPEG, or PNG.
Although I managed to get around it by saving my avatar as a PNG, being told JPGs are not suitable after being explicitly told that JPGs are one of the three types permissable is confusing. Hopefully, it was a one-time bug.
(Shouldn’t account pictures be a subscriber-only feature, anyways? I mean, it increases the bandwidth of the page and uses up space on your server, and multiply 512k avatars by the 10,000-odd members here…)
Firefox, classic theme: the comment boxes are wider than the article itself. It looks stupid; the article is (usually) more interesting than the comments. Sorry everyone
Also, my screen is 1024×768, and the right edge of the comment boxes touch the scrollbar. Not nice.
I miss the colors of v3: everything is black. I think it makes sense to use different colors for the title of the comment, the name of the user who wrote it, the score he gave, etc. All in all, the v3 LaF is way better than classic right now; I think it should be followed more closely.
Edited 2007-04-03 14:55
…
I’m a big fan of osnews, not at least because it fast and lightwight. I somehow like the new desgin, but it’s slow, buggy and the comment system sucks
Don’t use the whole screen, centering the news and comments makes it easier to surf
Anyway: Nice work, great site!
1. Centering the content works better for me as well.
2. Navigational bar in classic mode is ugly. (Sorry I don’t know how else to say it. I don’t like the plain black?)
3. Box on the left in classic too wide.
4. Would prefer and option to put the box on the right side for classic.
Edited 2007-04-03 16:10
All of the time. And it looks like all those people read OSAlert.
I’ve yet to not get used to a site after they do a redesign. After the initial shock and awe wears off, it becomes a normal part of my surfing routine.
It’s ridiculous that the editors of this site give us more ways to chime in and help than almost any other site in its category, yet the vocal minority want to abuse the hell out of it. That’s a surefire way to get us left out in the cold next time they want to do some changes.
FWIW, whenever I choose to redesign my own site, I don’t give a flying flip what my readers want to see. Glaring bugs/artifacts? Sure I’ll fix those. They want different colors/layouts? They can build their own stylesheets and apply them when they visit.
I like the new design, especially how news item are seperated by alternating gray and white. Threaded view rocks too and so does the preview.
What I don’t like is ads between comments/news items. It’s way too intrusive for my taste.
All in all I’d say keep up the great work, guys.
And remember, there are probably a lot of people who like the design or think it’s ok but don’t post anything. So don’t get too upset over all the “It sucks!”-posts
The recipe is clean and very well tested: just make your logo more fancy – the old one, which is known to users is simply old and the new one could attract some new people, not interested in original content, but readers aren’t here for content, they’re here for adds.
Another part is: make it as incompatible with old a least used browsers, it could filter those using specialized software, OSAlert is for masses, is’t it?
Make it fancy, but much less transparrent – users will spend much more time with your web, but maybe for last time.
Many good sites are changing to be unreadable, fancy, glithering and so on. But I thought that technological webs should be on the other side of barricade, I was terribly wrong, most technological webs are as stupid as marketing webs of big companies, visuals are on the first place.
I found no new functions, duno what should they be for, I read OSAlert for more than five years and registered today to try to stop it’s ending.
I guess I can understand why you would want to refresh the design of OS News but frankly I like the old one better. It is simpler, easier to find what you’re looking for and not overwhelming like this one. This one is just confusing to me. No clear separation between stuff… I don’t know. I actually hope the old design remains available for those of us who rather use that.
I request that polls be added to v3. Because I would really like to see the poll results for the poll question:
“Do you think that OSAlert needs a version 4 at all?”
everyday see the MS advertisement until I want to vomit.
“everyday see the MS advertisement until I want to vomit.”
Use Firefox + Adblock. Or cough up the 20 bucks for a yearly membership if you hate it that much. Adverts on sites are a way of life now…get over it.
Yes, seeing Microsoft add makes turn the addblock on…
I have enjoyed visiting OSAlert for quite a while. It has even become my first stop for tech news. As long as the content of the site doesn’t change, I can learn to use the new version of the site. I’m not going to get religious about how the site looks.
I have to say that I like a lot of the changes. I don’t necessarily like all of them, but I think the net effect is positive.
I don’t like the new logo. I don’t think the old logo was perfect, but I prefer it to the new one.
Another thing, since themes are now easier to create, it would be nice for more themes to be available to everyone (not just subscribers). Perhaps when new themes are introduced, they could be made available to everyone, and some of the most popular ones would then be tagged for subscribers only. I personally like to use a theme different from the default (even if it’s only a different color scheme) to make it easier to recognize when I am logged in.
I think the approach to adding incentives for people to subscribe is a good one (don’t make the site worse for everyone; make it better for subscribers). There didn’t seem to be many reasons for subscribing before. If subscriptions allow OSAlert to provide a better experience for everyone, I’m all for it. I might even subscribe myself.
Regarding moderation and abuse (it doesn’t seem to have changed yet, but I know it has been considered), I think the current system works better than it did in the past. I also agree with comments that have been made that OSAlert doesn’t need to recreate a mod system in use by another site (like /.). I do think that it might be beneficial for some people other than site owners (probably subscribers) to be able to mark comments as abusive/offensive or substantive. Perhaps it could be done in a way that three or more subscribers would need to mark a comment as abusive/substantive in order to have any effect on the comment. Such comments could then receive a visual cue to mark them appropriately. I know that some posts really don’t need to be read while others deserve higher than a score of +5.
The last gripe that I would mention is that the “Post Comment” link should add fields to the bottom of a page (to be able to refer to other content) instead of opening a new page.
That’s a vali gripe, and Adam said he will be ironing this one out before final.
Like all developers we have to change our site around every year or so to keep up with the times. To show off our skills, I like most of the new look though I admit I had to pick the OS3 skin because it will take some time for me to get used to the background in the new skin.
Over all it looks great, but I don’t like the new logo at all your old logo was pretty edgy IMO and the new one is flat and lacks depth. In the end its your site keep up the good work.
I think a lot of the gripes could be solved if the classic theme were cleaned up and set as default.
The new V4 theme is pretty harsh on the eyes. The color scheme somehow feels overly “bright”… it kinda makes me want to squint. V3’s color scheme has just enough value and is soothing to look at.
Also, the sidebar is really wide now. If you look at the theme previews, you’ll see that the sidebar is fully 25% of an already wide layout. V3 is nice because you can focus on the posts. The V3 sidebar is less intrusive, and the background color is a little darker so the bold text doesn’t stand out so much (less contrast). I think the width of the V4 sidebar really competes for attention with the actual content.
If you check out the text justification, the stories are all justified, but the sidebar text has a jagged right edge. This further attracts attention in addition to the size and color of the sidebar. V3 has the sidebar text centered and compartmentalized, and that really minimizes the how much it competes for attention.
First, thanks for putting up this site. It shows what many in the tech world need to do…keep constantly changing.
I’ve noticed quite a few of the negative comments that other users (even longtime readers) have made about version 4.
I think what many people who post here sometimes forget is that OSAlert is not THEIR site. The editors control the content, and the look and feel of the site.
The main reason for my visit to OSAlert each day is for just that; the content the site places up is a good read. OSAlert links together and contributes stories that are of interest to me being in the IT industry.
And the discussions created from that content are usually good, showing many points of view. However, reading the majority of the comments from this thread would make me wonder if I was the maintainer of this site, why I would ever put it up each day.
Most of the posts were too focused on in my opinion, fluff…yes you want it to look appealing, but in the end, you’re still reading content, just like anyone else.
Is the site unreadable? No.
Oh…and onto my suggestion…
If the majority of users don’t like the way the site looks for version 4, then maybe the editors of OSAlert should take a page from SlashDot and run a contest…
Have the users come up with themes (other than the classic version 3 look) and the top 3 themes get added in as choices for readers. This way, the reader feels like they were part of the process, and it presents the editors with less work in usability.
It’s obvious that the maintainers of this page want to change the look. To the Readers: Stop arguing with them, and start helping to make the site what you want it to be.
Edited 2007-04-03 18:43
I will go you one better: to anyone who creates a complete theme for OSAlert that requires no (or minimal) changing of our HTML and is appropriate and professional enough for our site – I will entertain posting as a non-subscriber option. Let’s see if anyone puts their money where their mouth is.
Maybe we’ll have a contest at some point for a default theme, but in the meantime, if you can come up with something and want to submit it, I’ll post it. I’ll even help if you need assistance understanding the three stylesheets.
How about this –
http://dfwlinuxguy.com/osnews/
Adam says:
I will go you one better: to anyone who creates a complete theme for OSAlert that requires no (or minimal) changing of our HTML and is appropriate and professional enough for our site – I will entertain posting as a non-subscriber option. Let’s see if anyone puts their money where their mouth is.
Ok you got it. I believe I’ve created a theme that meets your criteria and more closely matches the look and feel of the current (v3) version of the site. I’ve posted it here –
http://dfwlinuxguy.com/osnews/
Adam says:
I will entertain posting (it) as a non-subscriber option.
Please do.
Hmmm. I’m going to have to go with dfwlinuxguy’s version.
Even though it’s not totally better than the one we are currently on.
I’m just the kind of person that doesn’t like change when there’s nothing wrong with what’s currently available.
layout wise i like what you’ve done, but to be honest my biggest gripe with this site is that some people vote comments down purely because they disagree with the content – despite it being on topic, polite and to the point.
maybe if there was a feature where people had to leave a comment behind to explain why they voted negative, that would lead to more fair voting and make the mods job of checking negative votes a great deal easier?
but that aside – i like this site a lot
Some comments about v4 default theme (what is by the way got much better, compared to earlier versions, presented in previous v4 thread). I think some of the following can be extended to any theme, not only to default one. Of course this is my opinion only.
What we (readers) need from site?
Content (information) of course, with opinions, discussion, little flaming and so on.
Why we then cry about site layout? Because (IMHO) new layout has become aggressive, it suppresses content too much. Maybe it would be more precise to say – it destroys content flow (in other words makes site look cluttered).
What kind of content (information) we need?
There are some streams (and/or blocks) of information, which should be readable easily, without content breakage:
1. News headers (most important information stream after entering site)
v3 allows read headers in such a manner like there are absolutely nothing more on page – bold headers just line themselves up, pictures or dark elements are placed aside.
v4 theme breaks this lineup – theme pictures are laid out between headlines, text “XX Comment(s)” are as bold and intense as headers itself.
2. News summaries (second most important information block after looking at headers)
v3 has news summary clearly separated from other information. It’s written in biggest and darkest font on lightest background, it’s surrounded with non-aggressive border, it fills its area entirely. Other (unimportant) pieces of information, like submitter, comments count etc are not visible while reading summary. So do summaries not overflow one into another – there is strong visual barrier (darker background) between these.
v4 has summary (important part at this stage) written in smaller font than unimportant information. When I’m acquiring information about news content, I don’t care about comments count or similar nonsense. Moreover, summary area includes theme picture, breaking text flow – and theme picture is not related to summary anyway, it’s just little visual hint for first stage – reading headings.
Summaries area is not properly separated from other reagions. Alternating backgrounds for news blocks create little distinction for different news, but IMHO not enough.
3. Discussion flow (information stream again)
Putting aside somewhat unintuitive link to discussion (I expected to click news heading to land into discussion – false guess, but this is same on v3), I think next:
v3 allows comments reading in single pass, like reading book. Differently from main page, comment headers are not so important here – comment content is. Headers just make something like “paragraf breaks” – minimal effort to understand that next sentence is written by another user.
v4 breaks comments flow altogether (remember, I critique v4 default theme). There are no clear left or right boundaries for text flow; comment headers and footers are overly intensive, they break text layout and so on.
—
I hope I could make my points understandable despite my poor english. I hope my comment will be read by site authors
v4 has summary (important part at this stage) written in smaller font than unimportant information.
I have to correct myself: summary font (and some other) does scale along with browser default font size, submitter and comments count font size is constant. Because I use Opera with reduced default font size (16>14), for me summary is written in smaller font; actually it is probably just font sizing problem in css.
Of sourse this doesn’t void ideas behind my previous comment (and doesn’t make summary more readable).
I like the new version. Maybe the ads in the menu could maybe be at the side of the menu, instead of IN the menu. That might be a problem though with the “Lefty” theme…
In FF 2.0.0.3 on WinXP I have a dotted border around the ad beside the logo. Dont know if it is supposed to be there, doesnt realy bother me… On the same WinXP IE7 displays the same dotted border around the logo to, and the ad covers almost half of the logo. Same with IE6… The smaler the window is, the more of the logo is covered by the ad…
I have noticed that alot of people around here likes to know where people gets their info in comments, therefore why not a button on the “post new comment page” that says “source” or something like that, and a textfield… The display would maybe be something like when you use footnotes in a wordprocessor… a tiny number in the text, and then the source at the bottom of the comment beneath a subtle line or something….
Just an idea….
I also would like to take exception to the new motto.
“OSAlert: NOT JUST Operating Systems”
Well, that focus is the reason most of us are here and not, say, at Slashdot…