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August 14, 2007Glenn Turner

Ah, much better. We've been busy working on this new version of the site for the past month or so (yes, that's why we've been quieter-than-normal lately), and it's nice to finally unveil it! Let me walk you through a few of the changes:

Comments For All

Our comments system untwined itself from the forum and now nicely resides at the end of each article. For those of you too lazy to sign for an account, you can post anonymously!

Those who do sign up (or already have an account – old forum users can use the same username and password to comment) can play with some of the new user profile features.

Search It Good

Finally, I can stop using Google to locate old entries!

Reviews/Features/Journals, Who Cares?

We've finally ditched our old front page category system and are lumping everything into one, features, reviews, journals and all. That seems to make a bit more sense now, doesn't it?

With new features come deprecated elements, namely our old forum which is now read-only. It may return in a new form in the future but for now it'll be a silent, static archive.

And that's it! Unfortunately there'll be no Chiptunesday tonight, but there will be updates later this week. Until then, please let us know whether you like the new changes, pass along any suggestions or problems you have, or simply type whatever pops into your mind!

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22 comments for ‘Simplify, Simplify!’

#1 Overproof Aug 14, 2007 06:56pm

Daron you fgt, stop sucking up.

This is a horrible layout.

I'm assuming it's only temporary.

#2 WholeFnShow Aug 14, 2007 06:54pm

The new layout is all kinds of slick. The banners for the articles are muuuuuch more attractive, and I like the idea of consilidating all the different types of entries. Defiintely a good overall look.

The only complaint from this end is that there's a whole lot of space on the sides of the article/post window. Looks to be equal 1/3s for the left, middle, and right blocks. Dunno if it's just my browser, but it seems empty.

Other than that, like I said, the overall look is very very nice. And this little text box extender is Cool! Congrats.

#3 zman Aug 14, 2007 06:58pm

Honestly, I think the new layout is incredibly ugly. Sure the pictures are pretty, but there is waaay too much space on the sides and the article itself is far too narrow.

#4 WholeFnShow Aug 14, 2007 07:00pm

You kids have no sense of style.

#5 zman Aug 14, 2007 07:02pm

Just because a layout is unique and different doesn't mean it is any good.

#6 Duffman Aug 14, 2007 07:10pm

It's really annoying that your post moves to the bottom if you edit it, because now I look like a fool.

#7 Metal Monkey Aug 14, 2007 07:04pm

Well for one the site is too narrow, like others have said. I've seen similar styles on other sites, but they were wider. This way makes the site look really empty.

Also, lumping everything together makes it unorganized. A long list of all your content is a chore to sift through, even with an archive and a search button.

#8 Soup Aug 14, 2007 07:06pm

I'm a much bigger fan of relative width than fixed. But even if this is relative, is it set to just 40% or what? It has the nice effect of invoking old newspaper clipping style, but at the cost of economics. I think bumping it up to at least 65% (personally prefer 80%) would make it seem more space-efficient.

Also, I've always had a bit of a squinting problem looking at text here. It's fine on a 1024 resolution, but 1680 or even 1920 is straining. Freeing up the text size to be relative/browser-determined would help that.

But I like the retention of the color scheme and the elegant new background.

#9 Duffman Aug 14, 2007 07:09pm

I gotta say, I agree with MM on this one.

DO YOU APPRECIATE OUR COMMENTS?

#10 HektiK Aug 14, 2007 08:14pm

Colors are good, though the red pattern ends too soon. Honestly didn't even notice it the first time. I like the idea of it looking like a newspaper article but seems empty with all the space on the sides.

#11 Hockeypuck Aug 14, 2007 09:30pm

I'm having trouble reading a lot of the article titles, maybe a little less transparent background for them?

#12 Servo Aug 14, 2007 11:49pm

Simple is good, though I agree with the "too thin" comments. I look forward to seeing how this site evolves.

P.S. Who is the blue water droplet headed guy?

#13 Omega Aug 15, 2007 04:48am

shame about the lack of forum tho. I kinda liked hearing what you guys thought about games, or movies etc... and valued the opinions. hell, so many of my games would not of been bought if it wasn't for these forums...
movies too... I would of never of watched Cube, if it wasnt for you guys...

...I love you guys.

#14 w3a2 Aug 15, 2007 05:42am

I kind of like the new layout, except it felt like I was scrolling downwards for an eternity.

Still, it's unique enough without being ugly?

#15 eric_c Aug 15, 2007 08:57am

Glad to see you guys are still working on the site! I hope to see more updates soon!

#16 Glenn Turner Aug 15, 2007 10:45am

First off, thanks for all the comments. I do appreciate them, and will keep all of them in mind for future tweaking.

Re: Duffman - Concerning comment editing, that is an odd behavior that I didn't catch in testing, although I understand its intention.

Re: Soup - Yes, it's a fixed width design, not relative. I understand your squinting concern though.

Re: Title background - Agreed, it's a bit too light.

Re: The droplet guy, that's the icon for the software that runs TNG, Drupal.

Re: Lumping everything together, perhaps I wasn't clear enough. It's only on the front page, and category/tags are available in the archive navigation and at the bottom of each article. We only have a few posts a week and there's really no need to separate them the way we used to, especially when the segregation criteria was pretty nebulous to begin with.

That said, we'll be expanding the tag list for older articles as we add title images to the archives, so users can check archives by platform, developer, that sort of thing.

Hopefully that clears up a few things!

#17 w3a2 Aug 17, 2007 06:19am

"Re: The droplet guy, that's the icon for the software that runs TNG, Drupal."

oh, I was hoping he was a new logo.

#18 Grimson Aug 18, 2007 03:28pm

I'm pretty okay with the basic changes, but kind of agree that a wider look would be more aesthetically pleasing to me. I'm looking forward to more updates.

#19 TrueTallus Aug 20, 2007 12:06pm

Somewhat late to the party here, but I have to say I like the new look and search function. Maybe I'm just a glazed eyed, ADD addled shell, but the pretty colored pictures make articles much more inviting.

#20 KillerTeddy Aug 29, 2007 01:38am

No more forum :(

Well, I hope its working out.

#21 Stilgar Sep 27, 2007 06:37pm

Wider is better and would be nice.

I like the pretty pictures for each article.

#22 Max Walrus Oct 2, 2007 01:15pm

I don't see how this fosters community in any conceivable way, but hey, whatever.

For those of you that miss the old board (Omega), we've restarted it at http://dont-read.com/forum/index.php. There's some kind of insane rotating password to get in for whatever reason, so I guess just ask around.

Assuming anyone even reads this.