Home » Forum » Bug Report and Feature Requests

Forum: Bug Report and Feature Requests

Change in site appearance

Ernest Bywater 🚫
Updated:

Has there been a change in the site templates on how it appears or has something gone crazy with my browser?

edit to add: Well since it seems to be a site issue: If this is an intended change can it be set to also use the Story Display Settings in the My Account section, please? The brilliant white background is most annoying.

further edit: It appears to be on the story lists only, so far. It also affects the sister sites too.

Most of the main screen area hotlinks that were right aligned are now left aligned too.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

Mine is different too. And I hate it.

joyR 🚫

Ditto

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@joyR

Ditto ditto.

Good thing I ate my evening meal a few hours ago :(

AJ

K_Cool 🚫

from my limited understanding of coding (none) and such, somebody deleted an apostrophe or semicolon when they shouldn't have

Dominions Son 🚫

I just took a look around the site. Everything has the new look, except for the premium my library function. That is still using the old style setup.

Replies: tendertouch

tendertouch 🚫

@Dominions Son

My Library isn't as badly mangled but it's still noticeably changed.

tendertouch 🚫

I remember Lazeez mentioning he was working on something for dark mode on macOS - I wonder if this is related? Yes, the new look is pretty bad.

Replies: Ernest Bywater

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@tendertouch

I remember Lazeez mentioning he was working on something for dark mode on macOS - I wonder if this is related?

It probably is as he said he needed to do a major change to the templates to do that, and this is a major template change.

Ernest Bywater 🚫

I find the lack of borders between stories and them all having the brilliant white background of the story lists almost impossible to read what relates to what story.

joyR 🚫

I know that Lazeez checks or is notified about issues posted here, but has anyone actually used the 'contact' option to inform him?

Replies: Ernest Bywater

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@joyR

I know that Lazeez checks or is notified about issues posted here, but has anyone actually used the 'contact' option to inform him?

I believe posts here send him a message, but I'll do so now.

Ernest Bywater 🚫

Weird - I changed from the big screen settings to the small screen settings and it looks a lot better, so i'd say we have a coding error.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

Yippee, normality is back ;)

AJ

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@awnlee jawking

Mine is fixed too (on a Mac)

Ernest Bywater 🚫

Yippee, normality is back ;)

Let's hope he found and corrected the coding error and not just backed it out for now.

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Inadvertent deployment of beta level code for the new method of doing themes.

It's fixed now.

And yes, it does have to do with the new dark theme.

If you go into 'My Account' and into listings settings, you'll find the new 'dark mode' theme available. Although, it's in very rough status and horribly not done yet.

Replies: joyR Ernest Bywater Michael Loucks

joyR 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

It's fixed now.

My eyes and stomach thank you..!!

Might I suggest you save that code and use it on people who don't quite deserve a ban? It's truly cruel and unusual punishment..!!

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Sol and SciFi are fixed, but FS still needs correcting.

Replies: Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@Ernest Bywater

fixed, but now FS looks exactly like SOL and Scifi.

I'll have to figure something to differentiate the sites.

Replies: Ernest Bywater

Ernest Bywater 🚫
Updated:

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

I'll have to figure something to differentiate the sites.

Most of the pages display as three main screen segments and you already have a logo in the top left of the banner. In the main screen you have the menu items on the left with the main display in the center while the right is usually empty unless the list takes the entire screen. Why not have a book spline on the right with the site name on it in vertically aligned words. You could even have a different color spline for each site. that way all you need to do is have each site calling that one image for each page and the site name is always there on display.

edit to add: My first thoughts were for an open scroll for Stories on line and an open book for Fine Stories and the existing planet image for SciFi as logos with transparent backgrounds on each page with the text display section overlaid blocking the image and the user's personalized background color which is why the transparent background on the logo.

Michael Loucks 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

If you go into 'My Account' and into listings settings, you'll find the new 'dark mode' theme available. Although, it's in very rough status and horribly not done yet.

My eyes! The green just doesn't cut it. I know it's beta, but if you're interested in feedback, the color scheme for 'dark mode' has got to change! ;-)

Replies: Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@Michael Loucks

Of course I'm interested in feedback.

Replies: Michael Loucks

Michael Loucks 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Of course I'm interested in feedback.

I knew that. It was a rhetorical device. :-) The green has got to go. Just sayin'.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Michael Loucks

The green has got to go.

It's quite trippy. Green might work, but not that shade IMO.

AJ

Replies: Michael Loucks

Michael Loucks 🚫

@awnlee jawking

It's quite trippy. Green might work, but not that shade IMO.

I wondered if I'd had some sort of contact flashback from my godfather's LSD usage in the 60s! ;-)

grob39z 🚫

Whew! It wasn't just me. Back to normal it is

tendertouch 🚫

Story lists still seem to be odd - no longer tabular. If I go to an author's page, for example, there are no longer clickable headers to use to sort the list. Instead there's a drop down with a radio button for ascending/descending. If no one else is seeing this maybe it's just Safari on my iPad that's at issue? I much prefer the tabular format.

Replies: joyR Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

joyR 🚫
Updated:

@tendertouch

f I go to an author's page, for example, there are no longer clickable headers to use to sort the list.

Either it's been fixed or it's you. What you describe isn't happening to me.

(Safari on 10.14.1)

ETA

But it does when I switch to mobile view. Duh. Sorry, need more tea.

Replies: tendertouch

tendertouch 🚫

@joyR

I wasn't in mobile view and it *looked* somewhat different from mobile view. But after switching to mobile view to check it out and then switching back it's fixed so it was likely an artifact of my having tried mobile view when things were wonky.

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@tendertouch

You're describing the 'Modern' theme.

In the 'My Account' page you can switch to 'Classic'.

Dinsdale 🚫

For a bit of background information, look at https://betanews.com/2018/11/09/android-dark-mode-apps/

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Made a small update. Home, New Stories and story updates should work better. I toned down the blinding green.

Replies: Michael Loucks joyR

Michael Loucks 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

11/10/2018, 4:17:19 PM
Made a small update. Home, New Stories and story updates should work better. I toned down the blinding green.

Better for the story listings, but the 'read' blog entries are pretty much unreadable because the light grey on lighter grey is pretty poor in contrast.

joyR 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Is it me or has the size ratio between story title and description changed?

In the main stream the titles seem to dwarf the description text. Would it be possible to lower the ratio a little please?

Replies: Grant

Grant 🚫

@joyR

Is it me or has the size ratio between story title and description changed?

I'm pretty sure the story description/blurb text & tags etc text used to be the same size as the Top Lists etc links text. It's considerably smaller now.

Grant 🚫

I hadn't consciously noticed any colour changes (using the Classic theme on my desktop), but the main page is certainly different.

It looks Ok at the top of the page with the Top lists & Links boxes acting as a wall of a box around the story list, but as I scroll down the best I can describe it looking is "odd" with nothing on either side of the listing, and the front & end of the listing open. It's not bad, just odd.

In fact the thing that makes it most odd, or even difficult to read, are the headers for the listings. ie Serial Update, New story etc.
There is no space between them & the story above, but there is a space between them and the story below and there is a line under them- so it looks like they apply to the story above, when they actually apply to the story below.

If the line were above the Header (and it's background maybe just a little darker) it would be much clearer that the header applies to the story below, not the one above as it now appears to do.

awnlee jawking 🚫

I don't suppose we could have a 'classic classic' and 'new classic', could we? ;)

AJ

Dinsdale 🚫

What looks like a bug here (Home page only):
Normally the stories I already saw the last time I clicked "Home" are somewhat greyed out. Not any more, all story headers are greyed out.

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

I made some changes. To make sure you're getting the latest versions, reload the site's home page, while holding down the shift key on your keyboards.

I just tested the home page with the classic theme, the modern theme and the dark theme and the fonts are small for the links and the greying out works as expected.

Replies: joyR Grant

joyR 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Much better (at least for me) Thank you..!!

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@joyR

Much better (at least for me) Thank you..!!

Ditto.

AJ

Grant 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

I made some changes.

Thanks.
The box around the stories makes it much easier to read them- much improved separation between them.

Dinsdale 🚫

Now n-o-t-h-i-n-k is greyed, refresh or shift-refresh make no difference.

Replies: Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@Dinsdale

You need to clear your browser's cache.

Replies: Dinsdale

Dinsdale 🚫
Updated:

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

You need to clear your browser's cache.

I have cleared cache, closed down for the night and then powered up again, no difference.
I have used a second browser - one I have not used for SOL for months - no difference. That browser is set to clear cache on termination.
I have fired my old Windows XP laptop up and tried from there (I do that frequently), no difference.

This is just the home page, mostly on a desktop machine under Linux. The browsers involved are Firefox and Seamonkey. "New Stories" and "Updates" work as ever.
To me this a comparatively minor annoyance, especially because "New Stories" and "Updates" work. The SOL home page on my Android/Firefox setup has never worked properly so I just try and remember when I was last on the site.

Replies: Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@Dinsdale

I made another change. Try it now. Clear your cache first of course.

Replies: Dinsdale

Dinsdale 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Yes. Thank You.

rvandewoestyne 🚫

I've logged out turn off computer then logged back in. On Android tablet. On home screen used to b new stories that I hadn't viewed yet were white and old stories were gray. Now since ur reprogramming all stories are gray. Liked the old way. Can u get it back to that pls. Ty

Replies: rvandewoestyne

rvandewoestyne 🚫

@rvandewoestyne

I dont no what u did but ty. Main home screen is back to way it was as of today. New stories that have loaded since last logged in are white, while old stories are gray. Not entire page gray. Ty.

Grant 🚫

I noticed the headings are now a lot smaller.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Grant

I noticed the headings are now a lot smaller.

For which I'm grateful. I now get more than one-and-a-half entries per page.

Is it my imagination or have the borders around the stories on the 'New Stories' and 'Updates' pages become incomplete?

AJ

Replies: Dinsdale joyR

Dinsdale 🚫

@awnlee jawking

Is it my imagination or have the borders around the stories on the 'New Stories' and 'Updates' pages become incomplete?

Now that you mention it . . .

joyR 🚫

@awnlee jawking

Is it my imagination or have the borders around the stories on the 'New Stories' and 'Updates' pages become incomplete?

You are correct, however, you are also due to get shot with my nerf dildo... Why?

Because having gone to check I now have even more stories to read and no extra time to do so... Thanks very much..!!!

Actually, thank you, sincerely.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@joyR

you are also due to get shot with my nerf dildo...

I hope that won't cause a penetrating wound ;)

AJ

Replies: joyR

joyR 🚫

@awnlee jawking

I hope that won't cause a penetrating wound ;)

No wound... Good e-nerf..?

solitude 🚫

Any way of getting rid of the green hue on the home page, please? (I use the classic theme on my mobile.)

Also, ever since the activity stream became part of the home page, I no longer get any indication of changes since the last visit; previously, older entries on the activity stream were shaded out. Is this behaviour only available if using the desktop view?

Replies: Dinsdale Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Dinsdale 🚫

@solitude

Also, ever since the activity stream became part of the home page, I no longer get any indication of changes since the last visit

I normally get around that by clicking New Stories or (more frequently) Updates. Firefox on Android, and I did not know it had ever "worked".
Older entries are still shaded out if I saw them on a Desktop, even if I am using my phone.

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@solitude

Bugs fixed.

Reload the home page on your phone a couple of times maybe to see the difference.

Replies: Dinsdale solitude

Dinsdale 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Works for me on Android as well now.

solitude 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Thanks for the fixes - sorry for the late reply, but they did not cut in until I had (accidentally) logged off and on again; hitting refresh a few times did not suffice. Odd.

Reply to topic

Forum: Bug Report and Feature Requests

Change in site appearance

WARNING! ADULT CONTENT...