I appreciate the feedback from all, especially when stated constructively, and plan to address many of the items that have come up frequently on this thread. I am working on this...

Thanks all.

-m

I hope my feedback was stated constructively. I guess I should have also added that the site is looking great, and I really appreciate all of the work you are putting into it! The sidebar is a great improvement. I love the pictures that go with the events bar, they make them more enticing and hopefully will get more people creating and attending events.

laikom wrote:I hope my feedback was stated constructively.

Of course it was.

leek wrote:it used to be that along with the poster's name there was the name of the thread (topic title?), unless the poster had changed it. When I go to the "new post" for a thread, it doesn't let me know what the topic is unless I scroll to the top or bottom of the page. I tend to open a bunch of new tabs with all the "new post" things that I am interested in. So then I go to one of the 7 tabs I have opened and I have no idea what the topic is.

Bumping this to see if it's an issue for anyone else? Or if clarification is needed?

leek wrote:

leek wrote:it used to be that along with the poster's name there was the name of the thread (topic title?), unless the poster had changed it. When I go to the "new post" for a thread, it doesn't let me know what the topic is unless I scroll to the top or bottom of the page.

Bumping this to see if it's an issue for anyone else? Or if clarification is needed?

That used to happen Back In The Good Old Days - sigh! - too. Sometimes the opening TOC page would show the title & latest poster's name of the latest-to-receive-a-post topic in each forum, sometimes it only showed the poster's name. Never figured out why, or cared much either.

leek wrote:

leek wrote:it used to be that along with the poster's name there was the name of the thread (topic title?), unless the poster had changed it. When I go to the "new post" for a thread, it doesn't let me know what the topic is unless I scroll to the top or bottom of the page. I tend to open a bunch of new tabs with all the "new post" things that I am interested in. So then I go to one of the 7 tabs I have opened and I have no idea what the topic is.

Bumping this to see if it's an issue for anyone else? Or if clarification is needed?

I agree that it would be nice to see the topic title displayed at the top of each post like it used to be.

ditto

I agree too. It would be nice to still see the topic, not just the last poster.

Not sure whether the font has been changed in the last 24 hours or whether it's a difference in OS/browser, but as of now the font for thread titles and forums is so super readable. Much better than what I saw yesterday. Kudos!

posted on a super old MacBook running OS 10.9.5, Firefox 42.

Also agree with others that the list of posts is WAY too large with too much white space... I much preferred when I could see twice as many threads.

My 2¢: I don't at all mind the size of the font that members' posts are displayed in. But on the main Chat page, the one that lists all the fora (Eating Out in Chicagoland, et. al.), I'm not fond of having to scroll down through my window to see all of them. Unless my window is sized to the maximum height of my 27" screen, I can't even see all of the Culinary Chat fora, let alone those in Social Life and in Resources. Not a huge deal...but somewhat annoying, yes.

No other complaints at the moment.

I can now confirm that while the title/topic font looks great on iOS w Firefox, it is still difficult to read on Windows a Chrome. I guess maybe iOS or Firefox doesn't support that font so I got lucky with a substitute? I don't know enough about these things. But I do know that this is a site I'll be visiting primarily from home or mobile (SUPER legible on my iPhone!).

Not working for me. Font size is huge, I have to scroll and scroll to see anything. I'm on a MacBook Air using Chrome with a touchpad... I used to be able to see all the recent new posts on one screen, now it's spread out and huge and cumbersome. And with the stuff on the right side pushing in, things are even more spread out vertically. It feels like the G+ remodel (and I had to quit using that site entirely... I guess it's completely aimed towards people reading on their phones. Is that the goal for LTH as well?).

If so, is there a way to do a mobile site? I know a lot of places have mobile sites that adjust to phones, while the main site is still friendly to other devices.

Since we don't eat out, I only scan for the cooking- and gardening-related posts... now it feels like they are buried and hard to find.

The off-centered "table" T of the logo makes me flinch. Any chance of a proper centering?

The word "chat" for forum use feels wrong. Chat is usually a live back-and-forth thing, not a bulletin board-style system.

I think Mamagotcha has a lot of good points for those of us using desktop and also, yes I think of chat as live/synchronous communication. I didn't notice the off-centeredness of the T in the logo, just that it was weirdly short I know that some of us are needing reading glasses, but I still think the type font is too big (like here in the posting section)

I'm with mamagotcha and leek. I use a desktop and find the font way too large. I prefer to keep using desktop as I find that the easier way to reply vs my smartphone.

That big head with the LTH Seal and CHAT|ARTICLES|GUIDE etc. I mean.

If I'm scrolling down a forum or a thread, whenever I scroll back up, BANG! the head appears, blocking an inch and a half of my laptop's 7 inch (by 13 1/2) viewing area.

It's unnecessary and annoying and it would be great if it would stop.

Roger Ramjet wrote:That big head with the LTH Seal and CHAT|ARTICLES|GUIDE etc. I mean.

If I'm scrolling down a forum or a thread, whenever I scroll back up, BANG! the head appears, blocking an inch and a half of my laptop's 7 inch (by 13 1/2) viewing area.

It's unnecessary and annoying and it would be great if it would stop.

It's become a common thing among a lot of websites - and it's amazingly annoying.

Agreed.

I don't mind it, but if one thing was going to follow me, I'd like it to be the links for unread posts and active topics. Those are my 'home keys' where I go when I want to find a new thread to read.

Darren72 wrote:I don't mind it, but if one thing was going to follow me, I'd like it to be the links for unread posts and active topics. Those are my 'home keys' where I go when I want to find a new thread to read.

YES!!! It's kind of tedious to have to go back to "Chat" just to get to "unread posts"--especially on mobile when the icon is so tiny (again, the things I need the most seem to be the tiniest/most inaccessible). Thanks!!

I was just now taking a look at the topics in EOiC, & noticed a thread titled Best Thing You've Eaten Lately. And there was like a little needle-thin blur on either side of Lately. When I looked closer it saw the blurs were actually the ghosts of brackets, needle-thin and only a shade or two darker than the background. Then I remembered the thread used to be titled Best Thing You've Eaten [Lately].

Can the weight of the brackets be changed to make them easily visible?

Darn, I read this thread title and thought we were going to get some questionably legal March Madness brackets going on best things we'd eaten lately.

But I see what you mean about the almost-invisible brackets. And the off-center LTH "T", which I can't keep from noticing now every time I visit the site.

Otherwise, I don't want to complain, because I feel that the enormous change in the appearance of the site is prima facie evidence of the enormous amount of work that has been done on it, which I do greatly appreciate and am greatly impressed by, and because I'm still learning my way around and getting the hang of how things work now.

Well, okay, maybe one teensy comment or two? I've seen a few comments concerning how nice it would be for links to "active topics" and "unread posts" be more readily accessible, and I concur. But I am patient, I hope, or try to be; Rome wasn't built in a day.

Maybe I should also add, just as constructive-I-hope feedback, that I used the italics button to try to make "prima facie" appear in italics above, but it didn't seem to work.

Katie wrote:, I don't want to complain, because I feel that the enormous change in the appearance of the site is prima facie evidence of the enormous amount of work that has been done on it,

I get the concept, but the thing is, if nobody calls attention to the shortcomings in the redesign those shortcomings will most likely not be addressed.

Katie wrote:Maybe I should also add, just as constructive-I-hope feedback, that I used the italics button to try to make "prima facie" appear in italics above, but it didn't seem to work.

This was noted (by me) on January 25, in a topic all about that. I'm glad you're raising the issue again, Katie.

riddlemay wrote:

Katie wrote:Maybe I should also add, just as constructive-I-hope feedback, that I used the italics button to try to make "prima facie" appear in italics above, but it didn't seem to work.

This was noted (by me) on January 25, in a topic all about that. I'm glad you're raising the issue again, Katie.

I'm guessing Katie didn't see your earlier comment but we did and we acknowledged it. Fwiw, it's not really an issue to be raised (again). It's a bug that's already been noted and which Matt has already posted will be addressed.

Our plan is to deal with as much of the aggregated feedback as is feasible all at once rather than piecemeal, which is why you will not likely see individual items addressed along the way. I'm sorry I cannot give you a time frame for this but I can assure you that our goal is to have the site running optimally as soon as we can. In the meantime, feel free to continue providing feedback (especially technical and user interface issues that have not yet been mentioned) here, on the other designated threads, or feel free to start a new one if you want.

Thanks again,

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:Our plan is to deal with as much of the aggregated feedback as is feasible all at once rather than piecemeal, which is why you will not likely see individual items addressed along the way.

Good to have this info--explains the delay. Thanks, Ron.

Here is my problem with your ( I think philosophical ) decision to immediately take the viewer to the first unread post when clicking on the topic title.

Most boards take you to the first post in the topic and then you can click to go to unread posts as this board use to. The problem comes when someone posts in a thread that hasn't had a post in a year. My reading this new post in an old thread gives me little context because I don't remember even what this thread is about without reading that first post. So now I must go back to the first post, read it to get some context, and then again find my unread posts again.

There are a substantial number of posters in this thread who have complained about the enormous size of the (default) font. (I will also note that a few have noted that they like it.) For what it's worth, I'll add my voice to those who believe it is unnecessarily enormous in Firefox (1920x956, thank you for asking). I also note that on the same monitor, the font size is reasonable in Chrome--1920x991--and somewhere in between, tending toward too large, in IE, where I'm at 1280x624.)
Given the large number of people raising the issue and the fact that there has never been a reply addressing that particular issue, I'm wondering whether the topic is open for discussion or whether this is the size we've got and it ain't gonna change. (Or is it a Firefox issue or something else?)
Thanks.

I'll note it's not just the size of the font but the vast swaths of wasted real estate on either side of it. You have to scroll for ages just to read a couple paragraphs. I find myself browsing through the topics section much less -- virtually never, actually -- and sticking to threads to which I'm already subscribed. At least those are easy to access.

I would add that I don't recall seeing the issues of:
1) huge font and cut off posts on mobile (even when you switch to horizontal orientation) and
2) the fact that you can't make minimize or maximize the screen view on mobile addressed and they're definitely not fixed.

I think it would be great if we could just get an update on whether these and the various other issues are still being worked on or if it's something that can't be adjusted.

thank you!