Changes due to feedback on Neowin 5

By Steven P.
in Site Announcements

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Veteran

White Cuban

Posted
Posted

well, i started using Neowin "finity" mod 95%, look it in stylish scripts directory or google it, some guy in forum made it, it makes everything way nicer, and makes the ad less interuptive.

heres the source for it, i hope it will get implemented in site as it makes it look loads better, if not, ill just keep using stylish :)

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);
@-moz-document domain("neowin.net") {
/*resize*/
.page,body>div{width:95%!important}
body>div>table[width="942"]{display:none!important}
#content-main p, #content-main h4, #content-main-archives, #content-main-top {padding-left:20px !important}
#content-main p, #content-main h4, #content-main-top, #content-main-archives {padding-right:20px!important}
#content-main-archives h4 {padding-left:0px !important}
#content-main p {text-align: justify !important}
#content-main-square, #rev-square {margin:10px!important}
#content-main-featured>a>img {padding:10px!important}
#content-sidebar-main {padding:20px!important}
#content-sidebar-main {padding-top:10px!important}
#content-main-square, #rev-square {float:right!important}
#content-main-square {width:auto!important}
#sidebar-skyscraper {padding-left:20px!important}
h4>a, h3>a {font-size:1.1em!important}
h4>a, h3>a {color:#204872!important}
}

the 100% one made the strikes on side's go away, which kinda made it ugly in my opinion, with the stylish mod, the ratio is about like the forum page to the blue bars on sides.

Grand Master

Richard Hammond

Posted
Posted
well, i started using Neowin "finity" mod 95%, look it in stylish scripts directory or google it, some guy in forum made it, it makes everything way nicer, and makes the ad less interuptive.

heres the source for it, i hope it will get implemented in site as it makes it look loads better, if not, ill just keep using stylish :)

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);
@-moz-document domain("neowin.net") {
/*resize*/
.page,body>div{width:95%!important}
body>div>table[width="942"]{display:none!important}
#content-main p, #content-main h4, #content-main-archives, #content-main-top {padding-left:20px !important}
#content-main p, #content-main h4, #content-main-top, #content-main-archives {padding-right:20px!important}
#content-main-archives h4 {padding-left:0px !important}
#content-main p {text-align: justify !important}
#content-main-square, #rev-square {margin:10px!important}
#content-main-featured>a>img {padding:10px!important}
#content-sidebar-main {padding:20px!important}
#content-sidebar-main {padding-top:10px!important}
#content-main-square, #rev-square {float:right!important}
#content-main-square {width:auto!important}
#sidebar-skyscraper {padding-left:20px!important}
h4>a, h3>a {font-size:1.1em!important}
h4>a, h3>a {color:#204872!important}
}

the 100% one made the strikes on side's go away, which kinda made it ugly in my opinion, with the stylish mod, the ratio is about like the forum page to the blue bars on sides.

Erm if you look on the links bar you will notice 2 little arrows, click it and it will make the page wider.

Grand Master

Smigit

Posted
Posted

@Rob or other staff. Have you considered "justifying" the text on the main page as opposed to left align. I've been using one of the custom CSS as above and it's actually very close to the wider version you just added (much appreciated BTW) and I think the text justified really goes some way to making it look a bit neater.

I've mentioned this one previously but I don't think I've seen a response as it hasn't received the same attention as the ads and refresh things.

Mentor

ScorpioRGc1

Posted
Posted

The changes look good. You guys used my suggestion about a normal mode/extra-wide mode toggle (though I'm sure others had the same idea). I do like the idea shown above about moving the Neowin ads up to the same line as the GUIC bar. After that, I think it'd look perfect (I agree the big ad could be moved, but I don't see a good place to move it to... ^_^). Good job, guys, and thanks for your hard work! :D

Grand Master

Rob Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Justifying the text is currently being considered - but here's something you might not know actually, the justification algorithm is so very different between browsers! It astounded me when I looked into it that it doesn't work as nicely as, say, Word Processors - some browsers do it horribly. So yes we may choose to do this but only if we can have a fall-back for browsers whose justification implementation is, frankly, crap.

Grand Master

Smigit

Posted
Posted
Justifying the text is currently being considered - but here's something you might not know actually, the justification algorithm is so very different between browsers! It astounded me when I looked into it that it doesn't work as nicely as, say, Word Processors - some browsers do it horribly. So yes we may choose to do this but only if we can have a fall-back for browsers whose justification implementation is, frankly, crap.

Thanks. At least for now I have the stylish implementation. If it wasn't for the justification I'd actually probably just use the new wide option you added. The extra width IMHo goes a good way to lessening the impact of that ad even even if it's only a few hundred pixels difference.

Thanks for the reply.

Grand Master

Calum Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Adding to my previous post, I have unfortunately been having the following problem:

For the past 2 days or so the images in the top banner have not been fully loading for me, even though the page appears "Done" in the status bar. I have cleared my cache, etc, tried 'Ctrl-F5' & yet still it appears the same.

I have attached a screenshot of the problem & I am using Mozilla Firefox 3.0.3.

Thank you in advance & I hope Rob or somebody can help.

Problem1.jpg

Grand Master

brentaal

Posted
Posted
<snipped>

This will seem like a rather primitive way to "fix" it (if it works at all), but I guess it's worth a try...

Load the following image

https://www.neowin.net/themes/theme_images/...5/header_bg.png

See what happens after you load it, whether the header will view normally on the main page...

Veteran

TheDogsBed

Posted
Posted

What an unusual situation I find myself in - defending Neowin.

Firstly, I don't much like the Richard Hammond design suggestion above either. It makes the page look for too linear, boxed-in, and boring. That's not even touching upon how arrogant it is to take a brand new design and make a couple of changes to try and infer that it is better than the original, but I digress.

The current Neowin design is one that, in my opinion, the developers and designers should be very proud of. It balances very well. There's enough AJAX to make things logical, without it being AJAX for the sake of AJAX. Only a really quite small percentage of the page is consumed by ads, and there's plenty of white-space left on the page for the eye to rest. (An important factor on any site where articles are aplenty.)

The font is clean, crisp, and easy to read. More importantly, it's nice to see the articles being 'home-grown'. I just read through all of today's and they're actually a pleasure to read, being both concise and largely free from grammatical errors. (Surely this can't be in the true spirit of unprofessional journalism?)

I really don't understand the neomorphic vitriol towards the new centre ad. My screen is set at 1280x1024 and it seems perfectly fine to me. And I'm old enough to grumble at having to dress myself in the morning, let alone at having supposed obtrusive ads blocking my view.

If I was to be critical for the sake of joining in with those who have gone before me, I would say that some of the article images now need to be made a little cleaner and sharper to match the design. (The nVIDIA and Android being two examples.) Other than that, it's stunning work by all those involved. I really tried to not like it but alas, other than my previously mentioned Opera quirks, I'm unable to. Usual grumbles will resume shortly. :)

Grand Master

Calum Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
This will seem like a rather primitive way to "fix" it (if it works at all), but I guess it's worth a try...

Load the following image

https://www.neowin.net/themes/theme_images/...5/header_bg.png

See what happens after you load it, whether the header will view normally on the main page...

Unfortunately that didn't work, but thank you anyway.

I have no idea why this is happening to me but no one else.

Grand Master

Mike

Posted
Posted
Firstly, I don't much like the Richard Hammond design suggestion above either. It makes the page look for too linear, boxed-in, and boring. That's not even touching upon how arrogant it is to take a brand new design and make a couple of changes to try and infer that it is better than the original, but I digress.

seeing as "better" is an opinion, it is in no way arrogant to show how you would prefer things. Personally i prefer the forum based activity table and so have used some js to copy it to the main page for myself to use, i prefer it that way so does that make me arragant too? :rolleyes:

I really don't understand the neomorphic vitriol towards the new centre ad. My screen is set at 1280x1024 and it seems perfectly fine to me. And I'm old enough to grumble at having to dress myself in the morning, let alone at having supposed obtrusive ads blocking my view.

I expect part of the problem is Neowin has always been about non-obtrusive ads and didn't want to appear as wanting to make money only, now couple with dropping an ad into the middle of the article list it seems the pages are become more about ad revenue (eg less article text on the main page so people *have* to click the article to view yet more ads to know what the article is about)

Grand Master

Richard Hammond

Posted
Posted
What an unusual situation I find myself in - defending Neowin.

Firstly, I don't much like the Richard Hammond design suggestion above either. It makes the page look for too linear, boxed-in, and boring. That's not even touching upon how arrogant it is to take a brand new design and make a couple of changes to try and infer that it is better than the original, but I digress.

I never tried to inferr that mine was better than Neowins original design it was just my take on things to see what the staff thought nothing more.

Grand Master

Jase

Posted
Posted

promo_right_windows.png

I don't understand why this Banner has the Windows Vista Gem and not some kind of tech related icon?.. because Tech related is not only windows?

"Think about the children" - or in this case the alternative Systems.

Grand Master

Smigit

Posted
Posted
I really don't understand the neomorphic vitriol towards the new centre ad. My screen is set at 1280x1024 and it seems perfectly fine to me. And I'm old enough to grumble at having to dress myself in the morning, let alone at having supposed obtrusive ads blocking my view.

I found it an issue on say 1900x1200 displays where the narrow design meant your vision sort of got tunneled into the centre and thus bang into the ad (at least thats how I personally perceived it). Now they have the option for the wider one I think it's far less of an issue as my attention isn't being so "forced/funneled" if you will into that location. I'm sure the impact on say 1280 x 1024 would have been quite different due to the different impact the boarders would have on such a display.

Infact I dare say with the fixes they've made, barring the Justification which I can achieve anyway via a firefox plugin, I'm quite happy with it now where at first i was pretty "errr...arrr" about the whole thing. I did say it would just require a few small modifications and that's all it's been so consider me happy.

Veteran

TheDogsBed

Posted
Posted
seeing as "better" is an opinion, it is in no way arrogant to show how you would prefer things.

But one of the beautiful things about the web is that each of us are free to wander off and create our own technology news site, just as we like it. Thus, we don't need to waste time posting images of how sites we visit should be.

I expect part of the problem is Neowin has always been about non-obtrusive ads and didn't want to appear as wanting to make money only

I am no Neowin expert of course, but my understanding is that it's always been about technology and relaying technology news to the masses. To make this happen, revenue is needed.

now couple with dropping an ad into the middle of the article list it seems the pages are become more about ad revenue (eg less article text on the main page so people *have* to click the article to view yet more ads to know what the article is about)

If the majority of the page was consumed by ads, I could begin to understand your stance, but it's nothing like that. I'm afraid this argument will forever remain a mystery to me.

Grand Master

Rob Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
promo_right_windows.png

I don't understand why this Banner has the Windows Vista Gem and not some kind of tech related icon?.. because Tech related is not only windows?

"Think about the children" - or in this case the alternative Systems.

Among the rotations are specific versions for Windows support (this one), Mac support and Linux support. It's part of an advertising approach to show the community aspect is not just for Neowin.

Grand Master

Richard Hammond

Posted
Posted
But one of the beautiful things about the web is that each of us are free to wander off and create our own technology news site, just as we like it. Thus, we don't need to waste time posting images of how sites we visit should be.

Why not, if no one offered differing opinions on the design none of the changes that have already been made to the site would have been made?

Veteran

TheDogsBed

Posted
Posted
I'd agree on the images front - I think we need to tweak the process we use to auto-generate the image thumbnails because there are some aliasing on the pixels that is unintended. SIMON!

Ah, that explains that. I didn't realise they were auto-generated.

Grand Master

neufuse Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Anyone else unable to reply to comments in news posts? it just gives me syntax errors when I try to

Line: 228
Char: 2
error: object doesn't support htis property or method
code: 0
url: https://www.neowin.net/news/main/08/10/16/would-you-pay-1500-for-your-very-own-microsoft-surface

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