Engineering Update 2-27-2015

We're posting a quick update after yesterday's code launch to keep you apprised of what's happening.

As many of you noted, there were a number of bugs introduced yesterday. We've just fixed the first round of them:

• The Post button (and similar) should no longer be hidden on /story/ pages.
• The Older/Newer buttons on the front page should be back.
• Tags should now be visible.
• The left-hand navigation on user pages should be back.
• We've fixed some of the responsiveness issues with the new header (more to do yet).
• Contrast on Slashbox titles should be fixed.

There's more work to do, and we're going to keep squashing bugs.

We also wanted to take a moment and talk more about yesterday's changes. This is not a full redesign — far from it. We got rid of the left-hand nav bar because it just wasn't getting used very much. One of the biggest pieces of feedback from the Beta test was that the community didn't want us to waste screen real estate. The left-hand nav bar wasted a lot, particularly on smaller browser widths. Aside from gaining more space on the page, all the comments and stories are the same as before.

The most noticeable change was to the header. We didn't want to take away navigation functionality altogether, so we put it there, and made the header look and scale a bit better. We're not done working on it, and we're cleaning up the places in which it breaks.

We appreciate all the bug reports and feedback we've gotten over the past day. Another big thing we learned from the beta was that the community preferred to have changes roll out incrementally so they had a chance to evaluate them and provide feedback on a case-by-case basis. That's what we're trying to do here — when we make updates, they'll be small, and we'll open up a discussion about them. Let us know what you think at [e-mail].

Real Estate savings

[Jstlook]

We also wanted to take a moment and talk more about yesterday's changes. This is not a full redesign â" far from it. We got rid of the left-hand nav bar because it just wasn't getting used very much. One of the biggest pieces of feedback from the Beta test was that the community didn't want us to waste screen real estate. The left-hand nav bar wasted a lot, particularly on smaller browser widths. Aside from gaining more space on the page, all the comments and stories are the same as before. The most noticeable change was to the header. We didn't want to take away navigation functionality altogether, so we put it there, and made the header look and scale a bit better. We're not done working on it, and we're cleaning up the places in which it breaks.

I think one of the biggest fallacies that developers make is forgetting that vertical real estate is far more precious than horizontal real estate. Even now on a 27" screen, I've got two inches of vertical real estate eaten up by browser menus, tabs, and headers. I've got perhaps ten inches of horizontal real estate that serves no purpose other than to brighten my room. Needless to say, I'm not a huge fan of the changes, but I understand you have a larger market to serve. I am obviously not part of that

Re:

[Sowelu]

I dunno, man. When I scroll down, I get all the vertical real estate back. I think that counts for a lot when compared against page-length side menus.

Re:

[Soulskill]

I think one of the biggest fallacies that developers make is forgetting that vertical real estate is far more precious than horizontal real estate. Even now on a 27" screen, I've got two inches of vertical real estate eaten up by browser menus, tabs, and headers. I've got perhaps ten inches of horizontal real estate that serves no purpose other than to brighten my room. Needless to say, I'm not a huge fan of the changes, but I understand you have a larger market to serve. I am obviously not part of that market, and that's why these changes make me sad...

I'm not sure what you mean here, could you clarify?

Text overlap

[jones_supa]

Thanks for the improvements so far.

A small glitch I still see is that if the browser window is narrow enough (about 1100px or less), the "You may like to read" headlines overlap the text in the column right to it. Here's a screenshot from Chrome [imgur.com].

Re:

[Soulskill]

Thanks for the note -- that's definitely on our list.

Beta is gone

[flux]

For me beta.slashdot.org was way nicer than the current main site, and in fact I removed slashdot.org from my web browser history so that slashdot-arrow-down would bring me there instead. Sad to see it gone.

I imagine some of its features will be eventually brought to the main site, but as history has shown, the vocal /.tters are allergic to change.

Re:

[flux]

..I should add that I had disabled pictures and opted to have long texts in the beta site as well :-).

Re:

[Soulskill]

Sorry! There were a fair number of people who liked the beta, and we were bummed to disappoint them.

Re:

[Lokaj]

would be nice to bring it back, the infrastructure shouldn't be that large.

The Star

[HughPickens.com]

Do you plan to put the "Star" back in the upper left next to "Slashdot" with a link the the most read stories for the past week, month, and quarter?

Re:

[Soulskill]

I'm not sure what the plans are for the mini-Hall-of-Fame star. I'll bring it up with the development team on Monday. I'd sure like to keep it around, too.