LibraryThing "2.0," First Pages: #2

Continued from previous very long thread.

Continued from previous very long thread.

>1 lilithcat:
You can say that again...

>3 Crypto-Willobie:

Okay.

Continued from previous very long thread.

When I click on the icon at the top, using my phone, to get to the menu with Your Groups and Posts etc, if I use the back arrow to get back to the thread the text is ghosted out.

Others have complained about this already, but it is quite confusing that the initial post always shows as read, even when you click at a thread for the first time.

>6 AndreasJ:
And there's no way to mark it as unread.

>5 jjwilson61: What device and what browser are you using? What text is ghosted out: everything or just some text (if some, what sections/parts)?

>8 kristilabrie: Android on an Honor 5x phone. Chrome browser.

The whole thread is obscured.

>8 kristilabrie: Actually, looking more closely, what's happening is that I use the up arrow icon to go to the top of the thread, then select the icon after Talk > Then if I back arrow it takes me to the bottom of the thread but the menu is still active which is why the thread is blurred.

ETA: Why can't I reply to my own post?

If you have posted to a thread, even if you don't follow the group and haven't starred the thread, it shows up in Talk / Your World / Groups and Posts.

Someone in the previous thread mentioned that a starring disappears in a continuation thread, so the new thread doesn't appear in Your World. The same happens until you post to the new thread.

not sure if this has already been addressed as I haven't read this whole thread, but I dislike how the page jumps right to the bottom of my thread. When I go to my own thread and want to update my first post I have to scroll back up.
It used to load at the top and have a button to jump to bottom. I prefer that. Or perhaps put a button at the bottom to jump to top.

>12 ChelleBearss: You can jump to the top of a thread by clicking the up arrow next to any post's timestamp in the thread. Hope this helps!

>12 ChelleBearss: click on "More" on the first post, and choose Add to favorites.

Then when you go to the thread it will stop on the first post. You can always use the "first unread" link to get to the bottom.

When I start typing a new message the ‘Post message’ button below darkens - dark brown? - making the lettering almost illegible. Doesn’t matter, I suppose, but doesn’t look nice.

Using an iPad, Safari, mobile view, style A.

>14 Collectorator: Can you clarify this message at all? I'm not sure what you're referring to.

>16 abbottthomas: Oh, yep! I'm getting that too. Thanks, will add to the list.

Already fixed, awaiting a push of the new code to production (later today?).

>18 conceptDawg: Could you decrease the height of the Reply text box on small screens? When I reply to a message on my Android phone when the keyboard pops up it pushes the top of the textbox off the top of the screen so I have to drag it down again to see what I'm typing. It doesn't really need to be more than three lines tall.

>19 jjwilson61: I can certainly take a look at that.

>19 jjwilson61: Take a look at it now and see if the current size works better for you.

>21 conceptDawg: Much better. Thanks.

>19 jjwilson61: and >20 conceptDawg: I don't know if there's room for compromise on this, but I often do need to see more than a few lines while typing on my Android phone.

>23 aspirit: I’m working on a possible solution for that.

>24 conceptDawg: thank you. I'll see if I can keep to Twitter-length messages in LT Talk in the meanwhile.

I have a suggestion for a different issue. I keep trying to click on the group name from the Talk module on my Home page to go to the main group page. Could that be a feature? The link would cut out steps to get to a similar threads not in the list. If someone accidentally clicked on the group name instead of a topic name, they'd likely have the topic in from of them to select, so that doesn't seem to me as if the link would cause any major problems on the user side.

>26 aspirit:

Seconded.

>26 aspirit: The main issue is that the entire line is now a single click. We could 'break' that but I hate exceptions to rules of interaction. We'll talk about it though.

>28 conceptDawg: I'd really hate to have to "precision" click on that line, if different parts of it opened different pages.

>28 conceptDawg: I think a Home module linking to my groups would be as good.

Either way, it's a want, for more convenience, and not a feature needed to use the site well.

>30 aspirit: There is a "Your Groups" module available, but it's hiding under the "Community" Home subpage by default: https://www.librarything.com/home#community You can add a copy of it to the main Home Dashboard page by using its "Add To" button.

>31 Opteryx: wonderful. Thank you.

>26 aspirit:, >28 conceptDawg:

I do find the present setup quite counterintuitive. Indeed, I think I made a suggestion like asprit's in the previous thread.

>26 aspirit: >28 conceptDawg: Yes, that would make a lot of sense! Perhaps the Group and Topic would need to go to separate columns for clarity then, which would probably cost some screen space.

34> FYI: They CAN be in separate columns now. Just click the little arrow int he column header and it splits or joins them.

But I don't think I'm going to make the groups clickable right now. We'll see, but for the short term: no change.

>35 conceptDawg: Thanks for the info, but I don't think that works on the "Talk" menu on the homepage dashboard, does it? It does work on the Talk page.

I really miss the "star this thread" option AT THE TOP when I first visit a thread. I come across threads that I want to save for later, but have to scroll down in order to star it.

In post 315 of the previous thread, on October 22, I asked, "Is there any chance my request to increase the contrast between the color of the headings of read and unread posts in Talk threads will be addressed?

And in post 316, Tim responded, "Yes. It's basically the most-requested change. We'll change it soon."

How are we coming with that? :)

rocketjk (#38):

You've been here long enough to know that we're still well within the window of "soon" by LT standards. ;-)

>36 igorken: You are correct. Although the home page talk will eventually get the same code and layout as the main Talk page. We just haven't gotten there yet.

>37 fuzzi: This will soon move back up to the top. Just not enough time in the day to get to the things that I want to.
But it will return to the top area.

>38 rocketjk: They have been changed. Twice since you posted that.

>40 conceptDawg: Great to hear, both 36 and 37 I'd consider welcome, but not priority!

>40 conceptDawg: "They have been changed. Twice since you posted that."

Well, OK, but the contrast is still barely apparent to me. Before the redesign I had no trouble seeing the difference. Now it's very difficult for me to tell the difference. Still.

>42 rocketjk: Really? That's strange. Do you have a very bad monitor or a vision disability? (No offence meant!) The read ones are grey and the unread ones are blue, they are very different on my screen.

>43 anglemark: I don't have a problem seeing the difference either, but I could imagine some people do since the beige/grey and blue are both similarly light in shade/tone. Perhaps a good way to enhance the difference without having to alter the color scheme would be to make the border thicker/bolder around the unread posts' headings.

>40 conceptDawg: thank you. I can wait for the star button to be moved to the top...

The difference between grey and blue is less than the difference (to my eye) between the gray and the pink-brown before (was that way back in salmon days, and I've forgotten what the chocolate color scheme was?). But it's distinct enough for me now - both were much paler and thereby harder to distinguish when 2.0 first came out.

Yeah, maybe something else - fading the font on the read ones a little? making the unread headers actually wider as well as blue? something.

>43 anglemark: As I described several times in the first comment thread on the design changes (And I can't believe you don't have all my posts memorized. Yeesh! :) ), I'm red/green colorblind. If I were in England, I'd be red/green colourblind. I can see the difference between the colors as they are now if I stare hard at the screen. Before the redesign I had no problem whatsoever determining which posts were previously read and which were new. I would love to go back to the original colors. I can't imagine I'm the only one having this issue. But, what the heck, maybe I am. Obviously, I'd like things to be easier along these lines, but I guess I will muddle through if no further changes are on offer.

I think part of the issue for me is that when I click on the "Unread messages" link on the Talk list on my homepage, I'm no longer always taken directly to the first unread post. Sometimes I have to scroll down to look for the first unread comment. Not being sure what I'm looking at, color-wise, exacerbates this issue for me, naturally. I haven't paid close enough attention to discern a pattern, but my guess would be that longer threads make it less likely that the "Unread Messages" link will jump directly to the first unread post. (Or maybe it was always that way and I just didn't notice because I wasn't having such an issue determining which was which.)

It's also often a problem if there are pictures and other things (like tickers) that take longer to load. The link jumps you to the location of the first unread...and then the page finishes loading and the actual unread is down a screen or several.

Good point, colorblindness makes this difficult - which would make changing the shape/look of the unread post header helpful - making the color not the only distinguishing point.

>47 rocketjk: Thanks for filling me in! I obviously remember and cherish every single word I ever read, so I have no idea why I didn't know this. Perhaps, as you suggest, the US spelling confused me.

Posting here; I assume it’s the right place.

I just edited a meme post on my thread which has a lot of touchstones; presumably that’s why the text box was very small - only about 3 lines. Would be helpful if the text box was larger since we can scroll down the list of touchstones anyway.

Mind you (still on my phone) this text box is only 5 lines high.

I've discovered we can shrink the text box from five to three lines on a phone, but I could only get the text box to expand by leaving the site, which I guess is what resets the box to its default size.

In my opinion, being able to make the box longer would be more useful.

>47 rocketjk: While I haven't memorized every post I certainly have looked at the new colors in as many chromatic simulators as I could AND got feedback from my dad, who is also red/green colo(u)rblind. Neither of which gave me any indication that these colors are hard to differentiate. Obviously the variation in color perception amongst the population is nearly impossible to imagine, let alone simulate, so I don't doubt you for a second. I'm just letting you know that your needs are not lost on me and that we are attempting due diligence with respect to accessibility in 2.0. (a process which was nearly non-existent for LT1, if things worked it was only by accident).

I haven't stopped the updates on this front, I just haven't had time to roll back around to finding a better solution. The original colors don't "work" with the new design (although you likely wouldn't see the clash of hues that would be happening).

>50 humouress: & >51 aspirit: Yes. It's on my short list to find a smart solution for this. I have an idea for it but just haven't gotten to it yet. Soon!

>52 conceptDawg:"Obviously the variation in color perception amongst the population is nearly impossible to imagine, let alone simulate, so I don't doubt you for a second. I'm just letting you know that your needs are not lost on me and that we are attempting due diligence with respect to accessibility in 2.0. (a process which was nearly non-existent for LT1, if things worked it was only by accident).

I haven't stopped the updates on this front, I just haven't had time to roll back around to finding a better solution. The original colors don't "work" with the new design (although you likely wouldn't see the clash of hues that would be happening)."

Sincere thanks for all that. Much appreciated. If you can somehow makes things better for me and for other folks who are not seeing enough of a contrast, that would be great. If my situation is unique and even most red-green colorblind folks are not experiencing a problem (or at least not giving you feedback along those lines), then I will muddle through. It's not an LT dealbreaker for me, as the enjoyment I get from the site and the services and community offered far outweigh the inconvenience I'm experiencing from this issue.

>52 conceptDawg: "I just haven't had time to roll back around to finding a better solution."

Give the header border thickening a try. :)

I’ve changed new posts so that they have the thicker left bar (it mirrors the one you get on your own posts). Hopefully new posts are more readily visible for all members now.

>55 conceptDawg: Super. That's extremely helpful to me. Sincere thanks.

>55 conceptDawg: I like!

>56 rocketjk: I'm curious to know if there is enough of a difference between the "this is your post" left bar (it's red) and the new "unread" bar (blue).

If there isn't I can probably make the red one dark brown or something. There's more leeway with this color because there's no text or links on top of it.

Here is a sample image of the variations you might see.
I'm curious if those sidebars work.

>58 conceptDawg: "I'm curious to know if there is enough of a difference between the "this is your post" left bar (it's red) and the new "unread" bar (blue)."

Yes, it's fine. The red is dark enough for the difference between that and the blue to be clear. And thanks for asking about that.

"If there isn't I can probably make the red one dark brown or something."

Actually, that's kind of funny to me, because the difference between the red and the brown would probably not be readily apparent to me.

Glad it helps you. It's tremendously jarring for me, but I'll give it a few days to see if I get used to it. For now my response is "Why did I spam this thread with so many posts? I don't remember doing that!"

>59 conceptDawg: Love it. I didn't have any problem reading the other ones but this makes it easier to roll quickly through all the posts to see if any are mine.

Couldn't get junk drawer to work right now.

>63 mdoris: Junk drawer?

>64 conceptDawg: Is this not the part of your member gallery (under profile)? Seems unrelated to this topic but that is what I thought of.

>52 conceptDawg: Thanks. Appreciated.

>61 lorax: :0) The first time I saw it I was startled too and I had just returned to a thread I had marked as ‘unread to here’ so I thought I had marked it wrongly. But now I know, it's fine for me.

FWIW, to me, the colour difference was more than enough to dispel any confusion with my own posts.

>64 conceptDawg: I presume mdoris wanted to put up an image, and tried to upload it to LT and failed. I succeeded shortly before that, so I'm not sure what the problem was. That's what I mostly use my junk drawer for.

The LT "2.0" pages so far (Talk and Groups) omit the Profile tab. I hope it is not intended to dump members' Profile pages; the Home page is a hideous mess.

>69 Cynfelyn:

Clicking on your user name (top right above the search bar) directs to your Profile page, available on both the new Talk and Group pages.

To reach another LT user's Profile page, as always it's available by clicking on the user's name (for example, from a post header).

Was there another access point that has changed with the 2.0 updates?

No. There hasn't been a profile tab for years. It's always been available from your member name in the top right (and still is) and as an option in the subnav when on the Home page.

We are planning on reworking the top-level navigation of the site (the current brown bar) once we get most of the main content modified for LT2—it has actually already been redesigned but we haven't released it yet because it would mean that the LT2 pages would look very different from the LT1 pages in the interim.

The Profile isn't going anywhere. We have no plans to get rid of it. Home isn't going anywhere either. There are just too many people that count on various aspects of it. But that doesn't mean the either or both of these pages won't get a makeover to improve performance, ease of use, and features.

>71 conceptDawg: The overall experience on mobile is so vastly improved that it seems churlish for me to complain about a somewhat minor thing, but ... I wish there was a way to tell from the mobile Talk screen that you have a private message. As it is, you have to click on the "hamburger" then "Profile" and I don't get so many PMs that it's likely to become a habit to do so regularly. Some sort of visual notifier would be so helpful.

>71 conceptDawg: "No. There hasn't been a profile tab for years."

There certainly is still a profile tab. I was looking at it mere seconds ago in the salmon version of LT, my default LT. That's why I was asking about it's absence from the 2.0 pages of the chocolate version of LT.

>73 Cynfelyn: Yeah, but the salmon version of the site hasn't been updated in years. So even though it is still your default version of the site, it isn't what most people are using.

Cynfelyn:

The profile tab has been gone from the chocolate version, all pages, for years. It's completely unrelated to LT2.

The salmon version of LT only exists for you.
Let's repeat that out loud. There is a version of a website used by over 2 million people that has an entire UI devoted to just one person. ;)

In all seriousness though, none of us have even LOOKED at the salmon version of the site in years. It's completely unsupported.

But you can get to your profile from the top level of the site by clicking on your member name. (it just doesn't say "Profile" on it).

>72 rosalita: Yes. That will be fixed when we have the "real" LT2 header. We're still in a bit of a middle-ground for the main header since it is really there just to be a mock LT1 header—so that all of the LT2 pages look like LT1 until we can switch everything over. We're getting closer every day.

>76 conceptDawg: (i) "In all seriousness though, none of us have even LOOKED at the salmon version of the site in years."

That is to the credit to the stability of the system, and the skill of LT's programmers. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

(ii) "The salmon version of LT only exists for you. Let's repeat that out loud. There is a version of a website used by over 2 million people that has an entire UI devoted to just one person. ;)"

If that's the case, you have a rock-solid business case for switching off the salmon version, and bugger Rip Van Winckle. But it really would be a pity to lose the cosmetically better-looking version, on PCs and laptops at least.

>76 conceptDawg: Yes. That will be fixed when we have the "real" LT2 header.

That's great to hear! I can wait patiently. Semi-patiently. :-)

Just popping in to say that I really dislike the fact that "Starred Topics" is suddenly now hidden under "More" on the left sidebar. That is a much more important link for me than, say, Groups You Admin (which is zero) or even "Your Posts". Any way that could be altered??

>79 leslie.98: If you click to open the list under More, the cookie will make sure it stays open in the future.

>80 anglemark: Thanks. That is a help but I still question the priority of putting that link under More... Oh well, I am sure I will quickly adjust and no longer think about this in just a few days.

>81 leslie.98: Hopefully I will, too, because hiding the starred topics seems like a very odd choice to me. Surely those are precisely the things you're likely to want to look at?

>82 bragan: Yeah, that is how I feel as well...

bragan (#82):

I suspect it's a matter of different use-cases. I don't follow any of the super-high-traffic groups (where people are likely to use stars to track the topics they want to follow), so I use stars to reference threads to make sure I come back to - so I'll check starred topics maybe once a week, when I come back after a couple days, to make sure they don't get lost.

The "More" link stays open once clicked, though, so is it really a problem? (Seriously asking, not dismissing.) If so you might convince Tim to swap Starred with something else (maybe Groups you Admin, given that most people don't admin any groups?)

>84 lorax: Not really a problem, just what seems to me like a very odd choice, hiding from you precisely the things you've deliberately indicated that you care about. (I also think having the "more" tab open all the time looks kind of ugly, but this is more a minor, inconsequential, petty annoyance I will probably stop even noticing a week from now than a complaint.)

For what it's worth, I also don't use the stars all that often, but don't want to have to click around or hunt for it when I do. So I am going to want to keep that open. Which sort of seems to negate the point of even having stuff hidden behind the "more" in the first place, at least for what I suspect is going to be a lot of people.

Speaking of use cases, I star threads to make them appears on Groups and Posts even though I haven’t posted in them, and basically never look at the Starred threads view.

I star threads so they'll appear in the Starred Threads view on my homepage in the Talk module. I don't go to the Starred Threads view itself. Still seems an odd thing to hide.

I use the 'your posts' view and only star threads for reference (including my own so they're easy to find again). But I didn't see stars when I was looking at LT on my phone.

(Safari/ iPhone 6/ iOS 12.something).

1.The chocolate header and side menu no longer scrolls up and off the page on the new design pages. It still works on the older pages.

Has this option been disabled in the new design?

2. The 'fire-alarm red' indicator bar on the left menu reminds me of the CHECKOUT button for online shopping. Seems overpowering for a reader/book site.

Perhaps highlight only the font?

(full screen, not mobile)

>89 casaloma: Hmmm, yeah. I don't care about the header on the pages that have moved to the new design so far, but I really need to be able to make it be gone on the homepage - the stays/scrolls option is not present in the new-design footer. I don't remember if it was there before, though. In any case - a(nother) request for that option to be present, at least on the home page.

casaloma:

I found that I got used to the DANGER DANGER red. I still don't like it, but it no longer screams for my attention the way it did for the first few weeks. I hope you find the same.

Remember that the brown header is not the final iteration of the LT2 design. It is a holdover from LT1 so that the different generations of pages look similar until we have moved everything to LT2. Once we do that the header will get its own rethink.

We have removed the ability for a toggle to a fixed header. That logic presents TONS of issues in UI handling and, frankly, our limited development resources are better spent elsewhere.

>91 lorax: Danger Danger Red :) I'm hoping it is minimized on the Author and Work pages where many of us spend a great deal of time.

>92 conceptDawg: I'm sure we drive you & Tim batty with our nattering and complaints.
However, Tim did envision a unique and wonderful situation where we could all be Librarians, which has resulted in a band of very invested players.

No one begrudges the updates, but the loss of seemingly arcane options does impact the experience of many long-time members who have spent years contributing to the site.

Thanks for letting us grumble and for all your hard work on the update. ...except maybe that danger danger red ;)

>92 conceptDawg: You've removed the option to a disappearing header, yes? It's now fixed, without option (or will be, when all the pages are LT2). I'd be perfectly happy with a disappearing header all the time. I'll manage if it's always there...but I warn you, I'll be bugging you about Recent Member-Uploaded Covers again. If there were a way to select and dismiss multiple covers, it wouldn't be so important to be able to scroll the header out of the way so I can click, click, dismiss, click on the next cover... without moving my mouse and giving myself a sore arm with tiny repetitious movements.

>94 jjmcgaffey: Regarding RMUC, I wish there was an X enabling us to dismiss covers without clicking on each one. Unless you setting is 'just your ISBN', there's tons of covers you don't need to see enlarged. I know immediately I want to dismiss them. So being able to do it by just x-ing the image right there in the module would be a life saver

Yep. Or a separate page, if that couldn't be done in the module.

I also wish your own cover (on the lower right) showed the size - it's sometimes hard to tell if the (much larger) new cover is better, worse, or the same(ish) as the cover you're already using.

This doesn't really apply to LT2, though (except in that apparently LT2 changes will make these requests more important, again), so probably shouldn't go on discussing it here.

Yep. When we get to that page for LT2 make sure you bring up these requests again.

Will do.

So I'm not sure if this is part of the new interface or just something I've done, but when I got to "Your Books" there is now as flesh-colored band titled "tags" above the books and I can no longer use the "covers" display as when I click on a cover nothing happens.

Is this a deliberate change that has an explanation, or did I do this myself? I've tried exiting from LT and coming back in, hoping it will reset to normal, but no dice.

Anyway, if there's a way to use the "covers" display of titles and click into the book information, I'd love to find out how to do this or how to get myself out of whatever I put myself in.

Thanks!

(I can also post this to some other forum if it's not a part of the new redesign.)

RidgewayGirl (#99):

Can you share a screenshot? (This would also help disambiguate what you mean by "flesh-colored"). I don't see anything unusual:



My own skin tone is somewhere between the "chocolate" and the "very pale pink" bars so I'm not sure which, if either, of those is the color you're referring to.

Hope this words. And sorry, that was stupid of me. I mean that pale pink/peach/beige color.

RidgewayGirl (#101):

You're in Power Edit! Click on the lightning bolt to get things back to normal.

>101 RidgewayGirl: Thank you so very much!