Journal The Only Constant is Change 86
Slashdot Engineering has been on a cycle of continuous improvement and continuous deployment for the past few months -- ten code launches so far this year. Today we're announcing a few feature enhancements, and another announcement we think you'll welcome.
First, we've smoothed the way videos show up on the site. Whatever's on the other side of a given link (text or video), Slashdot itself is about conversations. So we've made our videos fit better into the page and the Slashdot comment system, rather than feeling like they're on a separate site. Please check out the new video page. (Also, stay tuned: we'll be bringing you video from other sources, too, with reviews, product close-ups, how-tos, and more.)
Secondly, we've removed the left-hand navigation links and tuned the top-of-page navigation bar. We recognize folks access the site with a huge range of browsers and platforms, and this provides more real estate, sacrificing links that metrics show were largely unused.
And effective today, we've jettisoned the Slashdot Beta platform out the side portal. Slashdot has always been a bit quirky, and "user friendly" is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. After heavily experimenting on the Beta platform and splitting traffic between Classic and Beta, we've made some decisions about which platform changes ultimately make sense: starting today, we're unifying users back on our Classic platform.
If you had fallen in love with Beta and are now seeing Classic for the first time, our apologies. But if you were one of the users who commented on the superiority of the Classic UX, we agree. In any case and as much as ever, your feedback is welcome at feedback@slashdot.org. If you notice any weirdness that might be due to our efforts to reconcile URLs that reach specific parts of the Beta site, please let us know. A screenshot is always worth a thousand words, and sometimes it seems as though the Devil lives in URLs.
wow, much improved! (Score:1)
I've felt that /. has deteriorated from a UI perspective since I've been using it (yes since the very early days), and I've seen the modern web 2.0 trend of fitting 3 words on a page, rather than all the content that I'm interested in.
The beta annoyed me and I really didn't like it, though I assumed we were destined towards it. I hate to think I just don't like change because it's different, but I've gotta say the new tweaking IMO is far superior! It's fantastic, thanks for doing some research and seeing wh
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Like the "Post" and "Load All Comments" buttons show up as light green text on the teal background for me, making them almost invisible. They only turn grey when I hover over them.
Same.
The tab behind the "Comments Filter" is probably 20 px higher than it should be, so the bottom edge of it is half-way through the "All" text.
Same, and weird.
The comments are now too far to the left edge, which is distracting.
You're just used to too much white space on other websites.
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Some of the features also don't survive a zoom very well.
Christ. So they are managing now to fail to copy the old design...after a year..
Perhaps the design wasn't the only thing that should have been flushed??
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But hey, its your website so act like a big greedy corporate if you want to. See how far that gets you.
I have karma to burn anyway baby!
Really, really need to stop autoplaying videos (Score:5, Insightful)
I pretty much always avoid the video articles because they autoplay, you can't pause ads (don't care about skipping), and I think they're also missing volume and mute.
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I think this is fixed now. Try this page [slashdot.org] -- if it autoplays for you, please let us know. We're working on adding a volume control, as well, but it's not implemented yet.
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Cool, looks good! Thank you! The styles are a bit wonky right now, the article summary is mostly hidden behind the video itself in Chrome, but I'm guessing that'll get hashed out along with everything else. (or maybe my browser is just using a cached css file, who knows)
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Neither can I, so I'll reply to your reply. I'm so glad that one web site in the world finally stops wasting my screen real estate. The width is actually used for content, not cruft! And once side navigation is scroll past, the comments actually take up the width of my screen. It's like someone who actually uses web sites finally designed on.
Some minor bugs to report (Score:3)
My rig: Firefox 36 on Windows 7:
* Signatures are overlapped by the Reply To This, Parent, and Share links.
* The Post and Load All Comments buttons at the top of the page are, in their default state, the same color as the dark green background, with dark grey text, making them barely readable. They turn gray when I mouse over them.
* The Post, Moderate, Moderator Help, and Delete buttons at the bottom of the page seem to be extending past the top of the dark green bar, and are overlapping with the advertisement content.
* After hitting the "Preview" button, the three new buttons "Submit", "Continue Editing", and "Preview" buttons overlap the yellow bar just above them.
* After hitting the "Preview" button, the user is presented with another "Preview" button, which of course is completely redundant.
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Thanks for the reports.
Fantastic (Score:2)
The beta site was poor and added a bunch of bad requirements. It's excellent that Slashdot won't go down the road that so many poor sites traveled. Solid decisions.
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Margins (Score:2)
As someone who was quite vocal against Beta in the original announcement article, I've got to say that this about-face is a pleasant surprise. I don't love everything about it, but it's a far sight better than what we saw on the beta site. Glad to see the powers that be came to their senses, and were not persuaded by UX blowhards.
One bug/design issue is with the comment margins. Here's what I'm seeing in Firefox: http://i.imgur.com/YPhBVI0.png [imgur.com]
Playing with the CSS, I think this is easier on the eyes and
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Thanks for the suggestions. We haven't done anything design-wise for comment pages yet, but it'll probably happen soon.
Unicode support is always on our list, but keeps getting pushed back. I'll bring it up again and see if we have the time.
post button is invisible (Score:2)
at least on iceweasel 31.4.0 on debian, the "Post" button on articles is invisible unless the mouse is over it.
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Thank you. (Score:2)
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We made tons of changes to the beta site, based on feedback, to try to find something people liked. A majority never did, so we scrubbed it.
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We listened to them from the beginning, and tried to modify the Beta to suit their needs better. It didn't work, so we closed it down.
Also, development is not a fast process, particularly for a codebase like Slashdot's.
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Well, we had the classic site fully operational alongside the beta, so there wasn't really anything to revert to.
No left menu on user page: (Score:2)
And no obvious replacement for it, for some things.
I can get to journal pages, friends, foes, etc by typing in the url, but if someone doesn't already know that, it'll be hard to find. These links were in the left menu on the user page, but they're gone now as well as the left menu on the main page.
(Maybe I'm missing something obvious.)
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No, you're not missing anything -- this is on our list to fix. My apologies for the inconvenience until we do.
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This is definitely in the "first world problems" class.
You don't expect a rollout to not have minor issues. And that's what this kind of feedback is for. :)
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Compared to how god awful Beta was and how forcing it on me would force me to become a literal Slashdot Refugee, I have to say, I will gladly sacrifice these missing links for the possibility of being able to use Slashdot for 10 more years!!
I wish they could have told us about this decision to jettison it MONTHS ago when they started working on it!! I've been living with a very real spectre of not being able to daily visit a site I absolutely love and is a big part of my entire adult life (17+ years) at ANY
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These menus should be back now with our first round of fixes which was just deployed.
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Previous stories/next page button? (Score:1)
Hi., since today there is no more button to just continue reading the stories as they came. All i see is a row of buttons at the end with 'today','thursday','wednesday', etc. Why no simple 'previous' button to just continue from what you see now? Or is this a bug?
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It's a bug, and high on our list of things to fixed. Thanks for noting it!
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Thanks for fixing it! :)
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The beta was always optional, and we've now gotten rid of it entirely. I'm honestly not sure how we could agree with feedback more than that!
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There were multiple opt-out links for all users.
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Correct, the beta was opt-out instead of opt-in.
Victory, Motherfrackers!! (Score:1)
It's been EXACTLY a year since Beta was forced down our throats and we staged the 2014 Valentines Day Slashcott!
WE WON!!!!!! The new interface is *really* nice, too! So win/win after we convinced Upper Management to jettison their ill-conceived desires?
WOOHOO!!!! As a 15+ year member of Slashdot, I look forward to the next 10 years now!!!
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Pipe down, Brother!
I was so anti-Beta I helped organize the 2014 Slashcott and I also had my own personal slashcott this Valentines Week, too. just last week.
I am happy to emphatically say that WE WON!!! Like you accurately point out. I seriously doubt without our antics and loud voices that the corporate overlords of Slashdot would have seen the light, and the site would already have died of Betaitis months ago.
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Jesus. Talk about replying to the wrong thread. I'll make it even more meta by replying to myself thrice :-/
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And thank you for that. I found beta unusable (and unreadable unless I turned CSS off). I'da hated to give up on.... good gods, 17 years I've been here??! the site is older than some of its users!
One thing that comes to mind on this 'new' look is make sure you check how it behaves at very large font sizes (which a lot of low-vision folks do use) and not necessarily an ultra-wide screen. Right now the Search box winds up overlaying part of the top menu.
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Thanks for the notes. Hope to get these fixed soon.
I still don't see it. (Score:2)
I don't see any way to change the page style. I've been all through the "settings" menu. I want a dark page. I do NOT want an all-white page, with some black print sprinkled across it. I want a dark theme, preferably black. Anything dark though. Come on guys, let's see some choice here!
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LOL - I got that!! Actually, I'm using VT100 over on Soylent. But, you've nailed it!
You never hear about the "Slashdot Effect" anymore (Score:2)
This. This kind of decision-making is why you never hear about the "Slashdot Effect" anymore. Because you're driving away the people who would normally click on your links.
The Star is Missing (Score:2)
You've done away with the star next to the "Slashdot" title at the top of the page.
This was very useful for seeing what the most popular stories were for the past week, month, and quarter.
I hope you bring back the star and add "year" to it also.
Signature (Score:2)
Great, but could you please tell me how I can change my signature? I've looked in the Options and Account settings and can't find it anywhere.
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I seem to be suffering from the same thing. Can't figure out where to edit my sig.
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Okay, found it, but it's obnoxiously hidden. Go to the Slashdot FAQ Page [slashdot.org] and click "Login" in the upper-right-hand corner (even though you're already logged in). Type in your credentials, and login. You'll then go to your account screen where you can actually edit your sig (and a few other things).
I can't find any other way to get there, and that particular path is as obscure as it gets.
Quick Update (Score:5, Informative)
We've just rolled out several bug fixes.
We still have more to fix, and we're going to get started on that.
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Look at this load of bullshit: "But if you were one of the users who commented on the superiority of the Classic UX, we agree." No, you didn't agree. How long did you try to push that pile of shit against all the complaints and boy
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Ha ha, I can appreciate the corporate-speak here (to truly appreciate the announcement you have to imagine the speaker pronouncing those words while simultaneously gargling a ballsack). I'm glad to see the reversion back to a more usable interface, and sorry to see management took a year to wake up and smell the coffee. I can only imagine page views were really dwindling there.
All is not lost. It was a year ago I left Slashdot over this Beta mess, and I've been active at three places since then: comp.mis
1 issue with the menu (Score:2)
The top menu does not display link text in opera on android. Just a bevy of square placeholders. the topics menu renders as well as the links at the bottom; it's only the very top of the page near the logo. Luckily i was already logged in.
"Read the rest of this comment..." bug (Score:2)
"Read the rest of this comment..." link appears sometimes even when there is no rest of comment (or is invisible whitespace?)
Not related to recent changes, has been happening for awhile
On this page [slashdot.org]
search for 49153131
does not happen when individual message page is shown, only on static discussion page.
what it looks like [photobucket.com]
Just a peeve.
The Prev and Older buttons are back. Yay!
Thanks and keep up the good work, putting up with us whiny malcontents.
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Would you mind telling me which browser/OS combination you're seeing this on?
Broken layout on vertical screens (Score:2)
While I think the new layout is much better than beta, it has broken my normal Slashdot reading experience.
I was reading using Google Chrome on a Microsoft Surface Pro 3.... vertically. I tend to browse a lot of news vertically. This limits the vertical screen resolution.
The old slashdot layout imposed a minimum screen width and would provide a horizontal scrollbar which allowed me to see the stories without a sidebar visible.
The new slashdot layout locks into the screen resolution such that the stories on
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Thanks for noting this. I've raised it with our UI guy, and hopefully we'll get that fixed soon.
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Cheers, thanks for replying.
I must say the change this time is being handled very well compared to beta.
In case you need any further information here's a screenshot of what I'm seeing [dropbox.com]
Screen resolution is 1440x2160 and because of the small HDPI screen I browse with a 150% zoom on Chrome.
Of note is the topics bar already runs off the screen on the right but the main content is squished into just the standard browser width.