Hello,
I’ve finally done something that definitely should have been done long ago, updated the blog’s appearance.
I took special attention to suggestions that you gave so these are the “patchnotes”:
- Browsing options on the left
- Authors, Contact Support and Social widgets on the right
- Now it’s easier to find the “Reply” button in the comment section
- “Up & Down” and “Back to Top” buttons
- Patreon now is more visible for those who wish to support
- Thumbs Up and Down on comment section
Other:
- RSR’s Browser has now a blog Icon
- With the new layout, I am looking forward to adding other content creators as partners so “hola” me, I don’t bite. Much.
Current struggles:
-Help if you know how.
- Facilitate the use of images in the comment section.
- Allow readers to zoom-in single/solo images.
Let me know if you have any other suggestions in the comment section.
Thank you, everyone, for the support.
Rita Sobral
Awesome stuff Rita. Love the new look.
Thank you! I’m a bit panicky because is such a drastic change but it was done to ultimately facilitate your usage! Xxx
Nice one, but I guess the contour for the A39 at the back is too… prominent ? sharp I guess
Looks a bit funny on my phone but eh.
Oh my this is new. I have a dual monitor set up and I was wondering what was in the back ground… I am not disappointed. I have a tortoise stretched across both screens. This is GLORIOUS!! I LOVE IT! Keep up the good work!
I’m not sure yet, but a few things seems off on my android, I’ll be sure to say if there’s problems.
I still prefer the old one
There’re less stuff to look at and I can actually focus on the content
I could get used to this.
Seriously dislike the new look. Especially having to scroll back up to go to an article page. This version has serious problems on mobile. More wasted space too. Sometimes simple is better, Rita, even if it’s less “pretty”.
Hows the “back to top” button working on mobile?
Just fine on my phone browser.
Oh it works. But 1) that makes it two touches to enter the article’s page, and 2) it’s not in keeping with the normal way one uses websites on mobile (yes I acknowledge I’m being a normal “it’s new so I don’t like it”) , and 3) it adds to the greater clutter.
Will work on the back to top button then. Need a nap first however. Thanks for letting me know!
Appreciate you. And I’m grateful for the site either way. ^^
It works fine in my phone. The only issue I have is that the home screen doesn’t really work on my phone, and I’m seeing this with others too so I’ll try and be as detailed as I can to help you fix it. I can’t actually use the tabs on the left. I can see the very right edges of them but there isn’t enough to click on. This is common across both home page and in an actual article. In the homepage, my screen is split in half vertically. On the left is those faint edges of the tabs, and the scroll list of articles, which are very small and take a bit of zooming to read, which makes it a little harder to scroll through and read content. On the right, is mostly white space with the left edge of a distinctly tortoise shaped muzzle brake. I think there is supposed to be a tortoise there but it seems to have been cut off at the nose. This may just be my experience with building a website with wix and I have no idea if your blog builder features a similar functionality, but wix featured a separate editor for mobile, so you could load your existing pc site into it and then rearrange things to be better optimized for mobile. I would consider seeing if your blog can do something like that, and if so, it would be greatly appreciated by all like me who mainly catch up with your news feed from mobile if you could optimize it a bit better for mobile, as it is a bit less well optimized than your older model was as far as mobile goes. That said, I appreciate all the hard work you’ve put into it and I hope my feedback was helpful and didn’t seem too negative.
Thank you! I dont have a mobile phone and doubt wordpress has an option to edit for mobile, I did search for it but failed to find anything, but rest assured if I dont figure it out I will pay someone who will which is why there patreon, to cover such expenses.
+ I will try to make the SR logo image clickable into “home” to facilitate mobile users.
Dislike button? Hmm…
@VladCelTroll Hehehe
Hehehe
The new look is horrible, especially trying to read it on an iPad. The page doesn’t fit on the screen and the overall look is like the cat’s been sick while walking backwards, bits of this and that spread randomly all over the place.
The “back to top” button is a great idea, but why the “page up”/”page down” buttons? They have no use on any device – on a phone/tablet it’s easier and more natural to swipe, on a laptop/desktop it’s easier and faster to scroll or use the physical PgUp/PgDn buttons.
the old is looks better
I love the new look.
However it is not very optimized for mobile browsing. The logo is cut and only shows “STAT”, the “comments” button and counter disapeared from outside thr article, and the borders mean that text is gonna have less space for it thus even little articles will turn into walls of text.
hmmm… dunno if i like these changes. i nearly cant read anything on my main monitor (27″, 4k) ’cause everything is so damn small now. I honestly liked the former look better. think it was more structure in it and was way better to read and more pleasing to the eye than now.
nonetheless appreciate the work and time you put in, Rita 😀
I think that the Dark color is too much and hurt a bit the eyes.
Ok a little fail… I would go for the same blue color as the logo instead.
One request:
– Im an old git and sometimes I miss some basic stuff, like, where is the comments button, for instance… I found out it was that number, somewhere near the tittle…
Is it possible to make it stand out a bit more? But great job, Rita.
I appreciate the desire to improve, but i am not sure this is a good solution for mobile devices. The content is relegated to the middle third of the screen on my android, with only 5 or 6 words per line, meaning i have to scroll constantly to read anything in landscape mode. Also, the top status report image appears so large it is truncated after the letters “Status R”.
Looks good, but I can’t find my notifications 😐
which notifications? I perhaps just need to add a plugin for them
Sorry, as I said notifications are gone, and I’m not quite an active user of wordpress.
I mean this little line, which might damages the look of the page, but helps communication greatly.
http://imgur.com/a/BcquD
I think there are a lot of better wordpress templates than this …
surprised at first but it looks really good, although I’m surprised since the background is not the sketch of a M3 Lee
Like the new look when on pc but on my phone there are issues.
When looking at individual articles it is not too bad, but when on the home page there is loads of wasted screen space.
Rita status report https://imgur.com/gallery/KEFcl
Attached photo link to show
Trying to get a Web developer to fix this asap.
Personaly I think the website needs a bit better shade grading, for now there is too much black/white stuff. A bit hard for the eye to spot important bits. I would recommend some more shades of gray.
Also, I think that Q&A articles are somehow eye-straining. Perhaps some extra divs or even italic could help for that. I found previous Q&A style way easier to read.
It is awfull. We all have widescreen monitors and now u squeeze it in the middle with even less space for the text because of the navigation bars at the side. If u try to get a site with more placed for ads u nailed it. For everything else its way to narrow and looks like a 90s timeline forum.
It looks like a newspaper now imo. That tank in the back should be replaced with something else imo.
Don’t like it at all. The previous version was much more cleaner and easier for the eyes. This one is just cluttered and tight.
Hmmm… the Tortoise!!! 😉
Kinda rare you spot this one in game now a days… a shame really!!
Its a temporary background image but it felt fitting. 🙂
Not very nice on mobiles, i prefer the old one, wordpress must support mobiles, but not like this.
Im working on ways to improve mobile. Thanks for the feedback!
Not a fan. Looks very cluttered.
Good new look. Works on my moblie devices. Only gripe is on the front page the post kind of blend together. Maybe a border between post?
A lot of good improvements functionally. hmm, it will take time to get used to it, a bit weird getting the spike in complexity and all the hullabalu on the sides. Chances are this is a great change for the majority of existing users but I can’t blame new users to be a bit intimidated.
I’m sorry to say Rita, but readability has gone down with this new look.
This “Lora” font, I don’t know. Personally I’m not a big fan of fonts with serifs. It makes the page simply look like “under construction”. It’s not modern, and for me personally, more difficult to read.
Even small things like the background image have a huge impact on the overall impression of the website. The current one (black and white Tortoise outline) is not a good choice because of contrast. Black and white are already used in the content area. Plus, the mega contrast between full black and full white in the background always draws the eye to it. It’s distracting in the peripheral vision.
It’s just a suggestion though. Try to use an image which has less contrast in itself. You can even use color. It just needs to be clearly different in tone and brightness compared to the content area.
Greetings.
Hey atleast I’m not Comic Sans bad! which font do you suggest? I am not good on recognising font names…
Creating websites from scratch or with the help of a CMS like Joomla or WordPress is part of my job (software engineer), and when we have to resort to webfonts, many customers prefer fonts like “Roboto” or “Exo 2” (they have all necessary styles included as well, many font weights, italics etc, and are loading fast).
Read the “About” section on the right about Roboto for example:
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Roboto
But in the end Rita, this is your page. Use whatever floats your boat.
Greetings
Fix the background please… just plain black could work
Make top banner click goto main/first page.
That is defacto standard behaviour on any site these days.
I liked the old one a lot more. Just the fact that I can’t see my wordpress notification bar and I’m already disappointed.
Really, please revert this change.
Top title is no longer clickable, I miss that. Else it was really refreshing looks, now to get used to it 😀
On posts with a lot of comments it is an improvement to add a ‘Go to end’ button as well. Especially when you already read all the earlier comments.
New look takes some getting used to for me.
I don’t like the new layout, It’s too cluttered for my taste 🙁
Bad for me.
I need just middle, left and right are always out of visible screen cos I zoom page to fit middle content.
Now I’m unable to do that – middle got srinked while left and right stays same.