DON’T PANIC: Changing Designs
Posted on June 12, 2013 Posted by John Scalzi 40 Comments
I’ve decided I’m officially bored with Whatever’s design, which has been the same for about two years now. I’ll be making some changes today, effective around 3pm Eastern. Between then and whenever I’ve said I’ve stopped, the blog may look weird or wonky for a bit, and features may disappear, reappear, or otherwise flicker and shift. Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out.
Not that you asked, but it would be WONDERFUL if you changed your profile picture. I didn’t especially like it the first time I saw it, and it really wears over time. Remember that this is practically the only time most of us see you, which means that you are etched in our minds with one eyebrow raised perpetually.
LOVE LOVE LOVE the coloured circles! KEEP!
Please keep the Hitcher’s Guide References coming!
And here’s me without my towel.
Which youth hostel in the outer spiral arm of the Milky Way makes the best Harvey Wallbanger?
What?
You said “Don’t Panic!”
I should note that I am likely not to be paying attention to recommendations at this point — right at the moment it’s all about me fiddling with the details.
That tree is so pretty. I want to be in it.
Just remember to take SCE to AUX and everything will be fine.
Out of curiosity, what plugin are you using for the share bar at the bottom of posts?
Fiddling with details while Whatever burns.
Actually, I quite like how it is at the moment. Maybe I’ll like the next iteration even better. Who knows?
I don’t like Change.
Ps. the Post comment button is missing when using IE as a browser (work computer)
Also the website is running extremely slow since the switch over.
For your convenience, your part of the galaxy is being switched from matter to antimatter.
It occurs to me that it’s very sad Douglas Adams did not live long enough to see the release of the Portal games, because I think he’d have loved them dearly.
“Good news. I figured what that thing you just incinerated did. It was a morality core they installed after I flooded the Enrichment Center with a deadly neurotoxin, to make me stop flooding the Enrichment Center with a deadly neurotoxin. So get comfortable while I warm up the neurotoxin emitters. “
Nooooooooo!!!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkO5VyY78xQ
By which I mean, preview’s gone bye bye.
I was the same as you, then I’ve changed my blog’s theme at least twice this year. I’m enjoying the change though =)
Enjoy the switch!
“Watching the days go by….Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.” — Talking Heads
I’m currently reading this with IE8. The text of reader comments is laid out in a box that’s roughly centered on the page. When I have my browser window fairly narrow (looks like 1200 pixels or so), that looks fine, centered between the comment author section and the pinkish-gray bar on the right.
But when I expand the page to full width, e.g. 1920 pixels, the text boxes are wider and farther right, underneath the pinkish bar, which starts about 2/3 of the way across the page. That also made it a bit tough to enter this comment, since its box is partly underneath the pinkish bar, and so was the “post comment” button.
This time I’m reading it with Firefox 17.0.5, and the layout works fine with a wide window, though with a narrow window the pinkish bar vanishes.
I think that anyone commenting before you’re finished fiddling is a little like putting newspaper down on a freshly waxed linoleum floor so you can walk across it, which, if you were alive in the fifties and your mother used liquid wax on the floor to make it shiny [but you got confused and thought the floor was just wet with water], makes the paper stick to the floor like Superglue — so much so, that the newspaper has to be removed with a scraper. I’m just sayin’.
Bill Stewart:
When the window becomes too narrow, the sidebar goes underneath the comments.
this will never do. MOAR COMIC SANS!
*Grabs his towel and peril-sensitive sunglasses*
Okay, I’m ready. Bring it.
But John, I fear the unknown.
I TOO AM FRIGHTENED AND CONFUSED BY CHANGE. D: Specifically, the lack of the “preview” button.
MasterThief:
I will look into returning the preview button.
Love the background image of you that can only be seen under your posts.
The pictures look nicer in this new format. I like.
I want to put hugelkultuered garden beds and swale paths on your hillsides. Just sayin’ neither here nor there, only your new header photo makes me think about it. Love the updated design here.
Is it just me or do the post headlines look REALLY BIG? Often stuff like this is just me (well, my browser), but otherwise I really like the new design.
Don’t imagine too many folks will pick up on an obscure Apollo 12 reference, stoicjim, but I still liked it. :^)
At the moment (in Firefox and in Chrome), the headlines make me think John is shouting in excitment about *everything*. :-)
It’s very pretty, but I foresee vast amounts of scrolling on the iPad…
So the jsbg.jpg thing made me think that my laptop screen was broken, since wiping it clean didn’t make it go away. Well played.
@stoicjim, Canyon42: just goes to show the importance of all-weather testing.
Notice: I just enabled the preview button once more.
This new theme looks like it’s mobile-enabled.
I’m not sure how I feel about that – it tends to leave my iPad browsing experience looking like a blown-up iPhone.
Then again, comments appear to work much, much better in this incarnation – no more disappearing text box!
But the preview shows over dark green, not white, making it hard to read.
Keep up the good work!
@studer: I had the exact same thing happen to me many months ago. I’m glad I’m not the only one.
Ditto on preview showing over green instead of white.
It needs to be more flat. Or less flat…or more skeuomorphic. Or less. I dunno, what’s Jony Ive say about it? He’s not busy right now.
Is there any hope of post numbers within threads?
Looks good. I like having the comments link at the bottom of the post, instead of the top. It was slightly annoying to have to scroll back up to see the comments. (If that’s how it was. If not, I’m thinking of somewhere else and you can ignore the previous sentence.)