As you may have noticed, we’re shaking things up in the design and layout of the site.
Most things will continue to work very similarly to how they have in the past, but the site will work much better on mobile devices and smaller screens now, and should be generally easier on the eyes.
We’ve also simplified the basic design to make finding information a little bit easier (there’s still a ways to go on this bit) — we’ve simplified the menus at the top to make it easier to find what most people are looking for: new articles, articles that are generating a lot of attention, teaser solutions by newsletter, and active discussions of any kind.
Some of you will hate this immediately, and I’m sorry to spring the new design on you, but this is generally a pretty quiet time of year hereabouts so hopefully we’ll all have time to get accustomed to the new layout.
We’re not trying to make life more difficult, but we are trying to make the site as accessible as possible for more people.
This is step one, and we will be working on fixing bugs for a little while as well as pushing forward with some larger additions and alterations as funding and time permit (including improving subscriber reviews/rankings of newsletters and hopefully improving our search functions).
So, two things: First, thank you to the Irregulars who make it possible for us to continue investing in the site…
And second, if you notice bugs or have concerns or questions about how the new design works for you, please comment below so we can compile those questions and concerns in one place as we move forward. There are plenty of small things that aren’t working perfectly yet and where fixes are in process (like the custom avatars for commenters, for example), but there are likely some issues that we have not yet identified.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for your help!
P.S. if you’re not yet seeing the new design, that’s either because we pulled it back to fix something or because your browser cache still is still feeding you the old design — you can clear your cache if you’re anxious to see the new layout, but for 99.9% of you it will update on its own before too long.
AH Never mind. I just read this is a WP site and feel your pain.
The easy ‘Contact Us’ link at the top, isn’t at the top???
At the bottom now, bottom right. We tried to move the stuff that almost never gets clicked on in order to make navigation simpler.
It sucks – automated form filler/password manager did not work in either Firefox or IE.
We’re not attempting to block it, though it may need to be cleared and re-entered for the new login page.
My first reaction to the changes was “this is harder to read’ .
My eyes are elderly and need more contrast. I liked it better before.
I have not yet evaluated any other changes. Please increase the contrast.
Thanks for the comment… Funny enough, “too hard to read, not enough contrast” was a common complaint about our previous design as well.
We’ll continue tinkering… Thanks, everyone, for the comments and suggestions.
Always bumpy at first but I like the upgrade and find it has better contrast at least on the iPad . Kudos for jumping into it. A little honing and all will settle.
Thanks, hopefully we’ll all be pleased with it in a few weeks.
Ron If you left click on message and then key ctrl and + you can enlarge and might make reading easier.
I promise to give it some time, but all this glaring white is way too bright for my aging eyes. How about vanilla, ecru, or the old beige that I came to love dearly. Also, the font on the right has been made too darn small.
The content? Well, I haven’t got that far yet. But I’ll weigh in again.
Thanks for the feedback, Barb.
The search facility does not work for me. Hopefully this will be fixed. No problems with previous site.
Do you mean that you can’t search for things, or that the things you seek don’t come up in the search? More details would be helpful, thanks!
We used to be able to put up a name or teaser to review, but now I don’t see how to do that. Please advise. rjweghorn.
Under “discussions” in the top menu click on “start a discussion”
I don´t like your new look.
fonts must be more readable ex. arial 12
Regards
I go to “more”. get told I have to subscribe to the thread–I do so, and nothing happens—The “new version” needs work
I like the new design but am I right in thinking that when I do a search the results USED to show the date of the article? It was useful in determining if it was a recent article before opening it. It seems that no longer happens.
Yep, that’s on our bug list — thanks.
More specifics on my problem with the search facility. I click the search icon and the type setting appears on my cell phone. However when I type nothing appears and there does not seem to be a space where anything should appear. I suppose I have yet to learn how to use this new site as others must be making searches easily! I am a technological troglodyte and whereas I found the old site straitforward and have found plenty of wisdom, unfortunately I find the search facilities on this new site do not work for me.
What phone/browser are you using? We haven’t tested all combinations.
I would like to see article dates on the search page. When looking at a list of articles, it would be helpful to know when the came out so I could know which were most recent. Love your site and commentary. Great job!
I wish you still had the old design. I find this new design incredibly hard to navigate and I can never find anything easily. None of the comments are numbered and I find it really difficult to know if I am in the right place. For example if I choose ARTH my browser seems to take me to a ton of different places that have nothing to do with ARTH. The same happens for other specific pages as well. On top of that, the bright white background hurts my eyes. What about the yellow colored background you used to have. I’m sure you’re trying hard to come up with something new, but this is not it.
Thanks for the comments — do you mean searching for discussion about ARTH? We haven’t yet done anything to search that differs from the original design, though that’s something we’re also trying to improve.
Travis,
Again how come our likes (well at least mine) no longer are added to our total count? Seems it has been this way for months. Thanks.
V/R
Tom
Because that software is in conflict with some other software, we haven’t fixed it yet. Hoping to revamp comments more, so tallying “likes” will be rolled into that.
Travis,
Why is it now that if I click on a posted link to a SG previous article (While I am viewing posts in my inbox) such as
http://www.stockgumshoe.com/2015/08/atnm-the-browning-of-the-green/
I am taken to the Article, but then asked to Login and after you Login, the Article is now gone and you have to search for it. Do you understand my question? Thx- Joe
That’s a bug, we’ll work on it — thank for letting us know!
I tried making a comment on the “Conflict Diamonds” article but after submitting was notified that I hadn’t provided name and address. Never saw a place for that and was never prompted to do so. My comment, submitted twice, just went into the ether.
ed
ELEE: That happens when youre not logged in. It doesnt know who you are so asks for your name. Try going to the log in screen and ticking the remember me box.
The older page was better.
No more words !
Overall, I like the look better, Travis. I do miss, however, the latest comments box on the right. It was easy to see when something new was gaining interest and then being able to jump to the exact comment I just noticed. I am sure I’ll adjust to just watching the number of comments in the Recent Articles frame and parsing through the latest 1 – 50 to find the newest comment. I haven’t played with the “Recent Comments” drop down so maybe that accomplishes the same thing navigationally.
The Recent Comments page is just the most recent 50 comments on all articles/threads in chronological order — the sidebar (which is still on the home page, though not on each article page currently) was the most recent 10 comments in chronological order.
Like it
I hate to say it, but while I like the “look” of the updates, I find the site navigation extremely confusing and not intuitive at all. I basically read the ARCH thread in detail and I read whatever one of Dr. KSS articles is the most recent since we all seemed to migrate our conversation of all things biotech/KSS in these threads. Forgive me, since I am sure all of this has been covered since the update, but this is the first time I have been back since. And I am STUMPED. I can read the KSS article but I cannot find the comments under it. Can someone post a link to the ARCH thread with all the comments under it and a link to the most recent KSS offering (I think it was the one called “Diamonds”…..something.
The comments are currently hidden by default, that may change when we get a handle for how it’s working. Just click the “show comments” bar near the comment entry box to see them all.
Hi Dr. Bonz. The most recent $ARTH comment is here: http://www.stockgumshoe.com/2015/08/microblog-discussion-re-arth/comment-page-15/#comment-4866563
and the most recent ZKSS article comment is here: http://www.stockgumshoe.com/2016/06/conflict-diamonds/comment-page-4/#comment-4866577
Do you subscribe to the articles? That’ll help you. btw $BOIV filed for 150M IPO today. Best2U-Ben
A system of having only one bio discussion thread seems most useful to me, since many bio discussions do not necessarily index themselves under any particular Dr. KSS article. It is cumbersome to have to search multiple threads to read the excellent comments of Dr. KSS and the very gifted gummy Kssmunity. My other observation is that I often fix things that were working well enough and regret the fix. I feel somewhat that way about the new indexing system. However, I have faith in you, Travis, that we are engaged in some inconvenience from having a work in progress. It may be like traveling on a road construction improvement and the detours and delays may be just in the nature of making good improvements.
I enjoy your personal Friday reviews. I have to concur that Dr. KSS is a jewel (where else does one get honest unbiased good advice in a field so rewarding for so little) and that his articles and the learned comments that follow are worth many times what we are paying; however, this comment should not be taken as a request to raise the subscription fee.
Roger: KSS, others and I thought long and hard about whether it was a good idea to maintain a single ticker thread. As it says in the preamble at the top of the ARTH thread, it was an experiment. It’s clearly been a hugely successful experiment thanks to ARTH’s own stella success (so far). But there is a drawback or two worth mulling.
The first is that new Gummies wont quickly become aware that there is a specific thread running, so are unlikely to benefit from the DD buried there. Also, it means that the Gummies wont meet up so often on the main bio threads, which could fracture/dilute the ‘team’ atmosphere which is key to our USP. There again, by hiving it off, it does keep the main bio thread more focused on KSS’s current subject. I dont think theres a perfect solution to these probs, especially when there are now so many gummies, all with diverse reasons for being here. Id be most interested to hear others’ thoughts.
Rgs
AlanH
Overall the new look and feel had been very helpful, especially in the mobile browser. The readability improvements there are quite noticeable.
@travis, one thing that would be really useful would be the ability to follow users of one’s choice, and to get an email alert or regular digest whenever any followed user posts. One would of course want to be able to jump directly to each comment that was included in the digest via links as well.
Is ‘follow’ functionality on your list of possible improvements?