New Look Coming Soon to Uncommon Descent

_{Jack Cole

August 13, 2011

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Tomorrow (Sunday), I will be implementing a new look to the Uncommon Descent website. This will not be an instantaneous process, so there may be a period of time when the site appearance is incomplete. We appreciate your patience in this process.

In addition to the new look, there will also be some new features that we hope you will like. Comments will be threaded, so you will no longer need to refer to comment numbers when posting replies. Your comments and feedback on the changes will be welcome.

On another note, Uncommon Descent has had 5 successive record months in terms of traffic. We appreciate all the hard work of the authors who have been producing excellent content, and most of all, the 100’s of thousands of readers who visit every month.

Comments

I agree with Ilion about the direct replies. If new comments are scattered all over the place within a thread I know I will miss many of them. Under the old scheme it was easy enough to read say 50 comments deep, be away all day and come back and pick up right where you left off. In my opinion a "quote" button is a better way to reply to a post.udat_{August 14, 2011
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J You aren't a nobody to me! The issue you raise is indeed a serious one as threads could break up into clusters of sub-conversations that would be in the end hard to follow. Especially for long threads. So, maybe we need to weigh in on this question. Somewhere there will need to be a balance struck -- maybe, there is a possibility of choosing the display format for comments, chronological or threaded? [I think I have seen that somewhere, sometime.] We do need to work together as a community to get the balance right. Which is why this thread is there -- BTW JC, is this your first UD post? GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 14, 2011
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lost, methinks.kairosfocus_{August 14, 2011
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Jack: I see you are hard at work! Tough job. Gkairosfocus_{August 14, 2011
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I'm a nobody around here, so my opinion probably doesn't matter, but I much preferred the old look. It was far more slick and organized, with a better color scheme, in my opinion. Also, I agree with llion regarding the new comment layout. Making new comments much harder to locate is more of a negative than threaded discussions is a positive.Jammer_{August 14, 2011
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Can you point out the page? Let's hope that losing your comment was just a temporary server glitch. If it happens again, let me know.Jack Cole_{August 14, 2011
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H'mm does the sub-subbing of replies stop after about 3 levels?kairosfocus_{August 14, 2011
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Jack, I don't know offhand, sorry. [Right now my most frequent use of that is as the background colour in my The Word freebie Bible Study software, which looks very good with the Grey-silver with light red-brown stripes Leopard livery and the sort of ice-greeny-blue a couple of shades off white. And I used a colour picker to get it by hand, then saved as a configuration.] This degree of v light greyness is okayish, a tad of blue-green on it would pick it up. I have been to http://html-color-codes.info/ Look at colours: #E0F8EC or #E0F8F1 there or my pick- by- eye colour, converted into hexadeximal codes for use in a bgcolor = "value" statement: #EDFDEA I don't know if that would help? Another possibility is to do a background image with a texture and tile it. But that can be messy if it's not done right. [My favourite was a modified scanned image of cowhide, used to create a sense of a subtle coarse paper texture.] But that can be a bandwidth hog for a high traffic site. The bgcolor statement is a few hex characters. Does this help? GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 14, 2011
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I think we will rely a lot more on the "recent posts" section at the bottom of the page. But as you can see by my reply, it appears directly below your post. Subsequent replies will appear directly below my reply and so forth. Replies will be aligned in a stepwise fashion from the left edge of the post, such that you can tell what is a direct reply to your post, and what is a direct reply to a reply to your post. Make sense?CannuckianYankee_{August 14, 2011
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I like the look and colour scheme of the site compared to the old one. One question, can someone clarify what happens if I use the reply button on a post in the middle of a thread? Will my reply be inserted at that point in the thread rather than at the end? If that is the case I think there will be a lot of overlooked posts. How often do people scroll back all the way through long threads, instead of just going straight to the end to see if there are any new posts? Maybe I am misunderstanding the feature? fGfaded_Glory_{August 14, 2011
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Jack, I did notice an anomaly. Some posts have no reply button at the bottom. Also, I just finished writing a rather long post that didn't actually get posted, and I'm not in moderation as far as I know. I will have to practice copying my posts before submitting so they're not entirely lost.CannuckianYankee_{August 14, 2011
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Is there an example site that has the color you have in mind?Jack Cole_{August 14, 2011
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I stand corrected on the recent comments point- did find the recent comments section at the bottom of the page.Frost122585_{August 14, 2011
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I think this new look is TERRIBLE. UD had the best most simple and functional design of any blog I had ever seen. I loved the way it was before... I dont even see a place on the home page where the recent comments are listed... I am not trying to be mean or harsh but the new look is aweful to me. I already miss the original template. If this change was done to "attact more interest" I dont think that will work. People come to UD for the substance not the look of the site. However, the way it was before I thought was near ideal.Frost122585_{August 14, 2011
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You mean "last?" Isn't that how it's always been? Another new feature is page numbering for longer threads, so the most recent posts in a thread will be on the last page; so if you want to move quickly through a thread simply click on a page number. I can see how this might be more beneficial for those with slower browsers, but also for those who detest cursoring down a long thread.CannuckianYankee_{August 14, 2011
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The new ability to reply directly to another comment is a nice feature -- with a horrible side-effect that destroys its niceness: in a large thread, new comments will be list.Ilion_{August 14, 2011
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JC Hope you don't mind a bit more. Just suggesting . . . I think we need a tad darker background, still. Just on the wrong side of glare-y to my eyes. (And you know I have said a bit more blue in the blue-green, i.e a tad of blue gray would help. But that's me.) Also could we have a border between the main LH col and the RH one, much like ENV, maybe in the shade of the far left band? Same where the footer comes in? Some text sizing too, maybe the Home line could go down a bit, and the RH col too? Widgets at the foot as well? I would like for the header top page to link hot to home and for the headlines in a post to be hot for the post -- helps to make sure you link there. Of course just ideas, I can live with what we got. Gkairosfocus_{August 14, 2011
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Great look so far.bornagain77_{August 14, 2011
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For reference as we tweak things, here is what the original re-design looked like. http://beta.uncommondescent.com/beta/ That way we can compare/contrast.Jack Cole_{August 14, 2011
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Okay, softened a tad, helps.kairosfocus_{August 14, 2011
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A tad more blue? A neturalish, greyish blue-green teal is I think the ideal colour -- think washed out Caribbean coral sand beach surf. Hard to catch, but when you do, it just seems right.kairosfocus_{August 14, 2011
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Yeah the sub numbering works better due to the fact that you will eventually run out of letters. Numbers are....well, technically infinite.CannuckianYankee_{August 14, 2011
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Greatkairosfocus_{August 14, 2011
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Yup, change always calls for adjustments, and there will always be something lost. I am hoping we will be able to have specific references to comments. Citing date-time is not much help.kairosfocus_{August 14, 2011
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Actually I think that would work better than what I suggested.CannuckianYankee_{August 14, 2011
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CY: Main comment 7, sub comment 7.1, sub-sub comments 7.1.1 and 7.1.2 etc would be the logical way to go. Dunno if that is done out there? G --> Even if just the main comments were numbered that would help a lot.kairosfocus_{August 14, 2011
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Sorry, Jack's would be 4a, mine would be 4b, etc...CannuckianYankee_{August 14, 2011
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Helps! I'd prefer a bit more of the green in it [I love Caribbean beaches . . . ], but we can live with this. Are you able to give say a dotted numbering scheme to comments, like 7.1 then 7.1.1?kairosfocus_{August 14, 2011
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With this new reply feature, which I am now using, I don't see how the numbering would work. I can jump into any post and reply within the thread rather than simply at the bottom; so numbering will only work on posts that are not a reply to another. Unless of course you use a numbering/lettering scheme where each reply to a numbered post receives a letter instead of a number. For example, this post by KF would be numbered "4," and this reply by me would be numbered "4A." Can it work that way?CannuckianYankee_{August 14, 2011
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I second KF's suggestion for a more subtle background colour; and comment numbering. I would also just like to take this opportunity to thank all those who contribute to, and maintain this site. Intelligent Design is a relatively new field of study for myself and this site has become an invaluable source of news and infomation; with the subsequent debates in the Comments section provding for some enlightening reading. Keep up the good work.Stu7_{August 14, 2011
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