A few notes on the new look and functions

[YetMoreTech]

There are still a few problems with using the various "Mumsnet Classic" options. However, for a lot of people matters are significantly improved if they press Refresh in their browse. If you're using Firefox, try pressing Shift+Refresh. At about 4:30am this morning after many hours of work, that made the classic option work well. Only a couple of minor layout issues remained.

Text is not meant to be squished, you're not supposed to have to scroll down through acres of whitespace. We'll definitely fix these issues.

I've no idea why people are finding text too tiny; the font size hasn't changed intentionally, so if it is tiny for you it's either a need to press refresh (to reload the style sheet, in tech speak) or a problem that will be fixed.

Threads I'm On and Threads I'm Watching should behave in the way they always did - they do for me. Let us know the specifics of problems you have with them and we'll address them.

We know about the problem of seeing "hide hide hide" across the top of the page. If you go in to customise (which my huge ENGLISH dictionary lists as being able to be spelled either customise OR customize) you can turn off showing of the Hide option which is a workaround for this problem. We'll fix it properly soon.

The ads have neither changed size nor increased in number.

Remember: Press REFRESH (and try SHIFT+REFRESH) a couple of times. It might help a lot.

For those having problems we do apologise and will sort it all as soon as we can. For those that hate it, perhaps you'll get used to it after a while and we'll improve the classic options (though I am using them now and they're working fine).

Oh and for the 2 of you that said thanks for all the hard work: thanks! It has taken over a dozen people a lot of hard work. We had to release it in a hurry and it's not perfect, but we'll get there.

Sorry if this has already been covered but I'm having a problem when I go to 'threads I'm on'

It looks like I have killed all but one thread I've been on as it says that I am the latest poster. However when I go into the thread to look there have actually been posts after mine.

if the replies are >1 then there are replies after yours, and the text under the title is that of the last post.

I just can't cope.. I'm leaning right into the monitor to see the active convos list as the font is so small; the threads I've read already aren't shown as a different colour and there's a great swathe of empty space at the right hand side of the screen, so as well as leaning in, I'm tilting to the left.. and I feel sick!
Why have you done this to me please?

Why has the white margin on the left turned blue??? It's even more noticeable now! Horrendous!

So, anyone who cares to read this thread will see what we're up against here! Some people love having the contents of the page aligned to the left side of the screen and some people hate it. What to do?

Not sure I follow the comments about the BBC site. Isn't it centred?

Again, as an experiment I have put a really really pale blue "wash" over the page background, to try to cut down on the glare that some people find offensive. You must press refresh in your browser (if using IE or Safari) or Shift + Refresh (if using Firefox).

The real solution if you have acres of white space on the right side of the page is to reduce the width of your browser window.

The design is fixed with, as are most sites these days. All the research shows that fixed width pages are easier to read (think of a newspaper - you don't have text running all the way across a wide page, because it's so hard to get your eye to follow the long line right across).

The width we chose wasn't random. It's designed to allow over 99.5% of users to be able to read it without scrolling left and right. If you have to scroll, try maximizing your browser window (if you don't know how to do that, try clicking the Window menu). As has been mentioned on this thread, if we designed the site to be narrow enough for that 0.5% then we'd be disappointed the 95%+ who have screen resolutions that are twice as high. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to please everyone, even though we work hard to try!

Keep the comments coming and we'll get it as good as we can.

the white margin on the right

[dim]

Now I have a pale blue void at the right hand side?

Saggarmakersbottomknocker, I just logged in as you and can see 50 threads when I click Active. Could you try it again please?

need something on the active convo's page to show which threads are stickies

threading I'm watching - presume that is still a work in progress

I think you may need details instructions on how to tun on Mumsnet New? Mine stayed at classic and I was playing with the options but didn't like the New options so hadn't chosen them. When I did I got New - which I like - and could then chose the colour option I wanted and stay in New.

ANd this is if I am in New or Old Mumsnet, and in FF and IE.

(Now I see the blue is on purpose. I really really don't like the blue)

As I'm getting hunch backed and neck ache from leaning to the left, I'm going to go and drink some wine and see if I can counter it by leaning to the right.

Right, no votes for the blue and a few against. I've removed it. Refresh again people!

on - and the time is 12hrs behind?

I go to do some work for 5 minutes and it's back to white... [snort] I thought I was going mad

robinpud - I think both your problems would be solved if you zoom in (Ctrl & scroll or Ctrl &=) - the text will get bigger and will fill up the spare space on the right.
And if you are using Firefox 3, it'll save that zoom setting for MN without affecting other sites.

Can I just say Tech, you are doing a sterling job and you know the saying, 'you can't please all of the people, all of the time.'!

There's another one that springs to mind too. 'You can't judge a book by it's cover!' MN is the same on the inside. Still laughing, crying, trolling and flouncing! FWIW, I love the new look. Very modern and dare I say it, the old one was looking a bit dated!

Well done and thanks for all your hard work!

I am having problems in that I can't see a thread I've started in active convos (although assume others can as they are posting on it) and in my 'threads I'm on' view, the dates are not in any way connected to reality and I show as the last poster on most of them although I'm not.

Sorry, am not trying to be critical but thought you'd like to know.

It does look lovely and I like all the new bits

I like it better on the left but would find centred much easier if like some other sites (e.g. BBC and others) the margins were tinted. I'm not sure I know many (any?) sites with fixed-width centred designs that don't have some kind of guide to the edge of the 'page' (the fixed-width bit). If you have such a guide, then it's still a normally designed page with narrow margins, floating on a wider background (tinted or whatever). If you don't have some kind of page guide then it's like a huge wide page with massive margins, which feels quite different.

Typesetters always want to make it as easy as possible for the eye to find the start of the next line - one reason why books don't have really really long lines relative to the height of type. No tinted background or faint line just to the left of the left of the text is also hard on the eye - one reason the left alignment makes it easier to read even if it is a bit unsatisfyingly asymmetrical.

I think fixed width where the main text people are reading goes the full width of that fixed width is harder to get right than fixed width for other kinds of websites that are like newspapers. If you've got lots of different columns you can't really have the whole layout flexible if people resize windows but at least usually any one bit fits in as all the bits are smaller so that doesn't matter as much. If you've got one big column it's a real pain not being able to resize the window but still read the paragraphs - having to scroll sideways is really annoying (sorry ).

I know fixed width is all over the net but is Mumsnet the same as most of those other sites? The main site may be but Talk is quite a bit different. Could Talk perhaps not be fixed width, even if the other pages are? Or could there be a display option where for the main body of threads the text breaks out fixed-width so windows can be resized at will, even if headers and footers stay fixed? That could be great for some people. (You would have to accept that in the Talk area they might not be seeing a page where the right margin of the messages lined up neatly with the right margins of the headers and footers, but need that really matter to you if meant they were much more likely to get drawn in and reading a lot?)

Gosh you've got a tough job YMT - and still here on a saturday night...
However, The Glare is actually really difficult for me. I have got an eye disease (thyroid related thing) so it's probably worse for me than for most people - but my eyes are hurting after being here for 5 mins tonight and I can usually tolerate looking at a screen for way longer than that.
Also, thread titles are not changing colour (in active convo list for eg) after I've looked at them - are they still supposed to? I'll never be able to remember what I've already read! Thanks

All the threads I was watching have gone.

I can't get on with this new layout at all

See I'm a bit late and a tint has already been tried but I missed it!

If I go to a typical newspaper site I can zoom up to 200%+ before I get to the point where I have to scroll across to read the whole of a single line. So I've got all that magnification available to me. And even at 200% for the BBC I can still fit a whole line in the window, I just need to scroll once to get the main story in the middle - a whole line still fits in the window, I've just lost the sidebars (which I don't care about while I'm reading).

With the current Mumsnet fixed width I can only get up to 120% before I'm having to scroll line by line, i.e. the lines I'm reading are too long for the window. I think that may be why a lot of other sites get away with fixed width and you may get more complaints with these particular pages...

Just explaining one point of view here more than complaining - personally I do like a lot of other bits of the design and I do sympathise as I know what it's like to have people quibbling when you've spent so long on something. But I zoom all the time, up and down, according to how close I'm managing to get to the screen (baby on lap, leaning across table, whatever - I'm rarely sitting neatly in front of it as if I was at work). So this is quite a big niggle for me personally, it changes the readability a lot.

Oh tech, we're giving you a really hard time aren't we.

MaureenMLove speaks alot of sense

Thanks for your hard work.

Hi - I have a wide screen and mn looks strange over on the left as it is at the moment. Think it was better in the middle (for me, anyway).

can't we reset everything to how it was a week ago and pretend all this never happened?

I still prefer the text to be in the centre as opposed to on the left....