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.

What is the Firefox3 minimum font problem? I have FF3 and can't see anything wrong.

Soupdragon - in order to view many websites including mn I have to set the minimum font size to 20.
Tis under Tools->options->Fonts&colours->Advanced->minimum font size

The default is none but I can't read the little writing if its none. If I do set it none I don't have the annoying big block of nothing at the start of every thread and the website arranges itself neatly.

Where do you email screenshots to? The contact us link at the bottom doesn't work by the way - goes to an 'In development' page.

OMG, I HAVE LOST ALL MY WATCHED THREADS WITH THE NEW LOOK? I HAVE BEEN KEEPING SOME OF THEM FOR YEARS TO REFERENCE. HOW CAN I GET THEM BACK??? PLEASE TELL ME I CAN GET THEM BACK!?

It's on the To Do list, MT!

Ah, I see Bad Kitten - the font size isn't a problem for me anyway so I wouldn't have noticed. I've been looking at my screen thinking "but it looks fine..."

Below, Justine said [email protected]

Okay. I'll relax a little. I've years of essay notes in that little cache

Are we going to get threads we've already looked at purpled again - is that in hand?

OhYouBadBadKitten,

Thanks for the screen shot. I assume you set the minimum font size to 20 for reasons related to your vision, rather than just aesthetics?

It's really difficult to design things so that they work well when the settings we've chosen are overridden locally, as is this the case of your setting a minimum font size. For example, certain titles are chosen because they fit in a space without wrapping around on to a second line - when these are shown in a size significantly bigger than we envisaged it causes lots of problems.

The issue with the screenshot you sent is that the contents of the pale blue header bar can't fit in the available space when the font size is increased, so they get pushed down until they can "get" the full of width of the page to display themselves. I'm not sure how we're going to solve that to be honest. I can see it's not ideal for you but are you able to live with it? If you simple hit the space bar you'll be taken down a screenfull's worth of content, so you can start reading the thread proper very quickly and easily.

I'm sorry it's not better news. If you're still having problems once we've ironed out some other things then we can have another look at it.

have you got the time being 12hrs behind on your list?

typogrelf, thanks for your screen shots.

I do understand what you mean. The problem we have is that a lot of people like an uninterrupted "right across the page" look. The BBC example you've sent uses a narrower than full page centre column. One line of their text is:

"The Tories said they did not back the strikes either but said My Brown's 2007"

whereas a full line of our text would be something like this:

"There are still a few problems with using the various "Mumsnet Classic" options. However, for a lot of people matters are significantly improved"

If we only displayed as much text as the BBC site does then of course we could allow for more zooming before scrolling. But a lot of people would complain about that.

YMT, can we not go back to having wraparound text when we narrow our pages? I have problems reading a full-width line

Ponders, I am not saying we can't but it was a conscious and carefully considered decision to move away from it. A lot of people don't like it and most websites don't do it these days.

I find the thread titles difficult to read in each forum contents page. Think it's the thinness of the font combined with the pale blue - bold would be much clearer.

Thanks YMT yes it is set that way for my vision. Its not ideal but its not exactly a hardship. Many thanks for your detailed response

Well it is true that none of the media sites do (not the ones I've checked out today anyway) but as I believe has already been pointed out, their "full-width" is never more than about half the screen anyway, & much less in some cases.

If your full-width was cut to, say, 2/3 of what it is now, & pushed to one side instead of centred, then I would be quite happy

In fact the width of the posts at the top of the screen alongside the square ads is perfect!

Then you could have lots of useful home-page type pieces, or more ads (quiet, immobile ones preferably ) down the RH side of the page?

It was pushed to one side for a short time yesterday and a lot of people complained

You have to admit, MNHQ do try to please everyone. Most websites wouldn't listen at all I suspect.

Where is the time 12 hours behind?

Oh really? I missed that bit.

Oh well. I'll just continue to hope that, like before when things got changed drastically, they'll revert

Or else I'll just read the 2-3 posts at the top of the thread & skip the rest

Glad you got the screen shots. I'm not actually suggesting you make it narrower - I like it wide, I'm with the people who prefer it that way. But I think having it that way means that a fixed-width design may just not work for many people. It's the fixedness of the width that just doesn't work well with text that's the full width of the page (whereas fixed width does work with e.g. the BBC site, but only because the BBC site has narrow columns).

Unfortunately right now I don't even need to zoom to have the lines too wide for my browser, all I have to do is not have my browser full-screen.

Would it be possible to have full-width-but-not-fixed as a customise option for people with smaller browsers, people who want to zoom, people with lower resolutions...?

Fixed-width-but-not-full (narrower columns, in other words) would solve the scrolling problem too but I it would be a shame to start having distracting sidebars and so on down a thread.

wierd, it is right on the rest of the site, it is 12 hrs behind on the active convo's page.

It wasn't made narrower though yesterday, was it?

At the moment the lines are already shorter than they were two days ago, for me, because of the margins round the fixed width. The lines still go the full width of the 'page' (i.e. no sidebars) though and they did that through all of yesterday - wasn't it just that the whole 'page' was moved to the left but stayed the same number of pixels wide?

Are you sure it's 12 hours behind and not just using 12 hour clock?