Clarity redesign

[precision grace]

Grace, that is brilliantly helpful, thank you. It shows me exactly where the problems are, I can make a list and go and look for help with them.

A question: on the home page, you had horizontal scrolling (argh) before you clicked 'mobile site' at the bottom. (That shouldn't happen; it should detect your screen size and adjust automatically.) Does that also happen on other pages eg a blog post or http://www.onlineClarity.co.uk/learn ? Or do they work right from the start?

Do you know what your screen resolution is?

And is the menu behaving itself? It should become 'mobile friendly' at least to the extent that things appear when you tap them and you follow links by tapping twice. (I found that worked politely in Chrome on my tablet, but not in more obscure browsers.) Something you said earlier about not being able to access one menu item because another started popping up made me think it might not be.

Ahh, my silly Chrome had zoomed into 175% hence the weird layout. When I zoomed out to 100% it displayed fine. Also checked on IE and that looks fine too now.

 

[hilary]

Funny story.

Highly competent and very sweet web developer to me: 'Here is a copy of the new site on the sandbox; come and check it's OK.'
Me to HCWD: 'It's mostly OK, but the font size is smaller than in the test copy on my site! Why is the font size smaller? How mysterious! Apart from that, it's OK and you can go ahead with the move - just so long as you can solve this big mystery with the shrinking font.'
Me to HCWD: 'You know, a browser add-on actually tells me the font is the same size, so I wonder why it's appearing smaller?'

...pause in which husband points out browser zoom settings applied to my site...

Me to HCWD: 'It would be a kindness if you could pretend I never said anything about the font size... husband has just very kindly pointed out browser zoom...'
HCWD: 'OK, pretending!'

 

[Trojina]

testing

 

[precision grace]

Funny story.
..'

Well, the thing is, the reason we have our browsers set up with such a high zoom is because we can't read the tiny font sizes that come with new technology. We shouldn't HAVE to set our browsers to 175% just so we can read comfortably and the websites shouldn't REQUIRE us to change our own comfort habits in order to view them properly.

I've tested it now on Microsoft's own browsers as well, I hope it shows what I mean.
(you will get a pop up advert with this link, but it's a completely free video upload which is helpful in terms of not wasting one's Gb allocations )

 

[Liselle]

If you could use one at this point -

(Or maybe a nap.)

I like the bigger headings!

(And please ignore my last post :bag: - when it appeared not to submit, I decided why am I being so nitpicky when I really do like the new site. And then it submitted anyway. Will shut up and just enjoy the atmosphere now... )

 

[hilary]

You'll find the forum search options now appear under the 'search' menu when you're logged in. They might as well, mightn't they? And the bolding is corrected. And it says 'site search' not 'search page'. And glory hallelujah, the forums seem to be working without breaking the website. It's probably going to cost me an extra $15-$20/month to keep it afloat, but right now I just want to throw money at the problems until they all go away. (Er... I wonder if bottle-tops would work instead?)

Okay, yes, so not bold then. There could be a lot of options...bigger might do it, unless it'd run out of space horizontally. I like the background image & would hate to see it faded too much - I don't think it's too bright per se, if the headings could be tweaked. Hard to say without experimenting.

I'm not kidding, though, for a millisecond when I first opened the site this morning I wondered why there was a vast empty banner on top, then realized it wasn't empty at all.

I am now in the awkward position of having had my husband re-edit the image for the header/footer, so the sun is over on the right and out of the way of the menu text... and then having LiSe say very definitely that it looks much better the way it is. Question for the oracle: 'How can I please all the people, all the time?'

(I can certainly make the font 20px instead of 18px, though. I'm pretty sure that will still fit on the page horizontally.)

I do think the site title would benefit from being quite a bit more conspicuous. Larger, maybe in italics (though maybe I'm still just used to seeing the old one in italics), maybe in one of the lighter colors pulled from the clouds, maybe a different font...no one wants a site with ten fonts on every page, but a couple would be fine, I think.

Mmph. I think it's sort-of OK as it is, and just now I am aiming for sort-of OK.

(Deleting a two-paragraph witter about italic and fonts.)

Speaking of fonts - I really like the new post font (again, nothing against our friend Trebuchet, who I started using in real life after meeting him here ).

But - the font in the post quote boxes, not as lovely. IMO it's too small, not crisp like the main post font, and the line spacing is a bit too great. Maybe another half a point in size or so would fix all of that at once? Maybe the italic version of whatever-font-it-is just isn't very well done? Don't know.

I suppose it could just not be in italics? It'd still be in a grey box, after all, so perfectly clear. I'll put that on the list.

Also the font in the Quick Search box seems a bit tiny.

Err... what box is that, where? Help?

There was also an option "Latest started threads" or something. I certainly didn't use them all the time, but they were nice to have.

And that's different from 'latest posts'?? I'm lost.

Now it seems that logging in to the site in the normal way doesn't log you into the forums.
...blah blah blah...

Ignore. I'm being stupid.

Well, the thing is, the reason we have our browsers set up with such a high zoom is because we can't read the tiny font sizes that come with new technology. We shouldn't HAVE to set our browsers to 175% just so we can read comfortably and the websites shouldn't REQUIRE us to change our own comfort habits in order to view them properly.

I've tested it now on Microsoft's own browsers as well, I hope it shows what I mean.
(you will get a pop up advert with this link, but it's a completely free video upload which is helpful in terms of not wasting one's Gb allocations )

Nice video, thank you. I can't quite see, but isn't the font on the website about the same size as the fonts in the native menus for the tablet? More or less?

If you could use one at this point -

(Or maybe a nap.)

I like the bigger headings!

(And please ignore my last post :bag: - when it appeared not to submit, I decided why am I being so nitpicky when I really do like the new site. And then it submitted anyway. Will shut up and just enjoy the atmosphere now... )

Your last post was fine - detail about what could usefully be changed is great. Especially if it happens to be something I know how to change - that's a considerable bonus.

Hug much appreciated, nap overwhelmingly required. Worked about 7.30am to 12.30am yesterday without much by way of pause, and I've been going about 12 hours today too.

 

[Trojina]

Well, the thing is, the reason we have our browsers set up with such a high zoom is because we can't read the tiny font sizes that come with new technology. We shouldn't HAVE to set our browsers to 175% just so we can read comfortably and the websites shouldn't REQUIRE us to change our own comfort habits in order to view them properly.

I've tested it now on Microsoft's own browsers as well, I hope it shows what I mean.
(you will get a pop up advert with this link, but it's a completely free video upload which is helpful in terms of not wasting one's Gb allocations )

Er 'we' at least I don't have our browsers set up with a high zoom and I have never ever needed 175% so I think this is your particular problem. The font is the perfect size for a 100% well it was but now to me it seems rather too large presumably because you said it was too small. Has it been made larger because of what PG said Hilary ?

Can we go back to the usual size ? Just joking...but it wasn't too small to start with as far as I was concerned.

 

[Trojina]

NEW PROBLEM - NOT URGENT

I went to find one of my threads I had started on clouds. I went to my profile and clicked 'latest threads' but there was just a message saying nothing matched my search So I cannot find any old threads of mine. I will go and see if I can find latest posts

 

[Trojina]

Oh dear went to my profile and clicked on 'latest posts' and there were only 3 there.

I hope this function can be fixed as it is one I use a lot to find things

 

[hilary]

Er 'we' at least I don't have our browsers set up with a high zoom and I have never ever needed 175% so I think this is your particular problem. The font is the perfect size for a 100% well it was but now to me it seems rather too large presumably because you said it was too small. Has it been made larger because of what PG said Hilary ?

Can we go back to the usual size ? Just joking...but it wasn't too small to start with as far as I was concerned.

I haven't changed it since the redesign. I'm short-sighted, so I keep wanting it bigger. If you look at PG's video you'll see what she means - at 100% the text does look stupidly tiny. But on my laptop it's fine, or would be if I weren't blind as a bat.

PG - could you be somehow viewing in the mobile style (for phones in portrait orientation) and hence not using the full screen width?

Oh dear went to my profile and clicked on 'latest posts' and there were only 3 there.

I hope this function can be fixed as it is one I use a lot to find things

Ah - er - sorry - that information's lost. Database corruption, impossible to post messages, and that was the table that had been corrupted. So the price of getting a functional forum was losing the 'latest posts' list.

However it may be possible to regenerate it - or it may regenerate itself given time. I'm not inclined to go and actively seek to re-build the search index just now. Let's give it a few more days to check something like that wouldn't break the website. (Again.)

 

[precision grace]

'We' meaning people who do have this particular problem as evidenced by them choosing to set their browsers to a higher zoom.

The problem with optimisation isn't Hilary's fault - whoever is designing the website should automatically optimise for all platforms as evidenced by tons of websites which don't have viewing issues regardless what platform you use to view them. Even the free website templates (e.g. Wordpress) will be automatically optimised to deliver cross platform without any issues.

I can't quite see, but isn't the font on the website about the same size as the fonts in the native menus for the tablet? More or less?

If I am understanding your question, than the answer is yes - when I switch to tablet, there is no noticable change in font size. The weird thing with tablets is that it is possible to resize the screen indpendent of the browser zoom setting, but doing this shouldn't affect the way Menu displays, whereas changing the zoom setting in the browser - does.

The only update I have now is that the link for changing from mobile to full site is no longer visible at the bottom of the page - not sure if this is meant to be this way or not, but just fyi.

Also the Search box at the top with options is brilliant - many many thanks for this! (although the Hexagram in forums search is only visible once you are IN the forums, oh well)

- not seeing this in mobile view because the links are displayed across the page which is a dead giveaway that one is in a desktop view.

 

[Trojina]

Ah - er - sorry - that information's lost. Database corruption, impossible to post messages, and that was the table that had been corrupted. So the price of getting a functional forum was losing the 'latest posts' list.

However it may be possible to regenerate it - or it may regenerate itself given time. I'm not inclined to go and actively seek to re-build the search index just now. Let's give it a few more days to check something like that wouldn't break the website. (Again.)

I go to my profile, I go to 'find latest started threads', click it and it says 'search no results' or something. So the heading under profile indicates the function is there. But if the function is no longer there at all that heading would need removing eventually. But perhaps as you say it might recover by itself. I guess we can just use the search function anyway. Not to worry.

Oh and Hilary please could you go to bed now since I don't think you have slept much for 48 hours and whatever snafus show up I think we can manage till tomorrow.

 

[Liselle]

After-sleeping stuff:

I am now in the awkward position of having had my husband re-edit the image for the header/footer, so the sun is over on the right and out of the way of the menu text... and then having LiSe say very definitely that it looks much better the way it is. Question for the oracle: 'How can I please all the people, all the time?'

(I can certainly make the font 20px instead of 18px, though. I'm pretty sure that will still fit on the page horizontally.)

And now I'm in the also-awkward position of having seen twice, with my own eyes , the banner looking PERFECT (at least to me), and then the perfection disappeared somewhere, so I can't make a screen clip to show you.

I also love the banner image the way it is and do not want it changed. What I think looked perfect was when the menu headings font was the size that caused "About" and "Search" (the magnifying glass) to go onto a second horizontally-centered row. Having two rows looked fine, I thought, because it was centered, and I thought that one simple change solved everything about the banner. Being larger made it automatically darker (without using up the "bold" attribute) - I thought the size worked well with the site title - and, being on two rows, it filled and balanced the banner space nicely.

...the font in the post quote boxes, not as lovely. IMO it's too small, not crisp like the main post font, and the line spacing is a bit too great.

I suppose it could just not be in italics? It'd still be in a grey box, after all, so perfectly clear. I'll put that on the list.

Could try different things, or could let it alone for a while and see what everyone else thinks. I mean, it could be just me, couldn't it now :bag:

Err... what box is that, where? Help?

Click on the magnifying glass in the menu, type in the "Quick Search" box.

[Edited] Actually now when you type in that box the letters seem the same size as everything else, that is, not tiny. Either you changed it, or I really am delusional...

And that's different from 'latest posts'?? I'm lost.

In the old search menu there were several options. Activity Stream was a live feed of posts that updated itself, sort of like Twitter. Latest Posts showed new posts. Latest Started Threads showed new threads (instead of new posts). Different focussed views of the information, is all. Sometimes nice to have; not essential. (And if I'm the only one noticing, then by all means don't fuss with it.)

 

[Liselle]

Folks, look at the site header image...then look at the footer image...

 

[hilary]

I also love the banner image the way it is and do not want it changed. What I think looked perfect was when the menu headings font was the size that caused "About" and "Search" (the magnifying glass) to go onto a second horizontally-centered row. Having two rows looked fine, I thought, because it was centered, and I thought that one simple change solved everything about the banner. Being larger made it automatically darker (without using up the "bold" attribute) - I thought the size worked well with the site title - and, being on two rows, it filled and balanced the banner space nicely.

That isn't supposed to happen, and I would regard it as a giant disaster if it did. Well, OK, not a giant disaster - learning a sense of proportion from the last few days - but ugh.

You can make it do that by using browser magnification, though. CTRL-+, as you no doubt already know.

Click on the magnifying glass in the menu, type in the "Quick Search" box.

[Edited] Actually now when you type in that box the letters seem the same size as everything else, that is, not tiny. Either you changed it, or I really am delusional...

Well, I haven't edited it, so...

In the old search menu there were several options. Activity Stream was a live feed of posts that updated itself, sort of like Twitter. Latest Posts showed new posts. Latest Started Threads showed new threads (instead of new posts). Different focussed views of the information, is all. Sometimes nice to have; not essential. (And if I'm the only one noticing, then by all means don't fuss with it.)

I won't actually lose sleep over it, but will try to remember the urls for those and put them back one of these days. Today's task, though, is what I'd planned to do on Saturday: fix the Amember-generated pages.

 

[hilary]

Are you still getting logged out a lot?

I am blithely assuming that since I'm not hearing from a lot of people about this, the problem has gone away. However...

If you are repeatedly automatically logged out of the forums, please do these two things:

1. Let me know. (I've followed some instructions that should remove the problem, so if it isn't removed it would be good to know.)
2. Clear your browser cache. Here is a guide if you don't know how. This should fix the problem for you - if it doesn't, please see step 1!

 

[bradford]

Everything I've tried is working. I like the changes.

 

[Sixth Relative]

Hi Hilary

Everything seems great here. I just want to acknowledge all your work as a huge act of love, for the Yi and the Clarity community. Thanks!

Regarding the free reading page. I too will miss the old style one, but I do miss even more the older old style, the one with the red and blue marbles. That was incredible beautiful, calming and -in my experience- more accurate than the newer ones. At least, I got more accurate answers with that one.

 

[buzzurro]

Yes, yes, it's beautiful, I like this new design, don't miss the old one!
:claps:
But I think the main menu should be made more visible: why not give it a semi-transparent background, as in those two middle sections of the home page...?
So that when hovering each menu item you'd see the background changing color, and also transparency, instead of popping up as it does now...

I guess somebody else already suggested this, but you don't like the idea. Ok, never mind...

But while I'm here I also suggest you to change the foreground color of the links at the bottom of the footer, cause I just can't read them.

 

[hilary]

Everything I've tried is working. I like the changes.

Hooray, thank you.

Hi Hilary

Everything seems great here. I just want to acknowledge all your work as a huge act of love, for the Yi and the Clarity community. Thanks!

Regarding the free reading page. I too will miss the old style one, but I do miss even more the older old style, the one with the red and blue marbles. That was incredible beautiful, calming and -in my experience- more accurate than the newer ones. At least, I got more accurate answers with that one.

Thank you!

About the old-style reading: I'll see what I can do...

The even older old reading... the big problem there, besides the fact that it's made of Flash which means it won't work for a lot of people, is that it used the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. I'm not allowed to use that. And I don't know how to edit the Flash program to change the translation, and the original developer (who very kindly made it for free, so I can't complain) isn't available.

About more accurate answers - I think the clue is in 'calming'. Not so much because you need to be calm to cast an accurate reading - far far from it IMO - but that pausing and taking time work wonders.

Yes, yes, it's beautiful, I like this new design, don't miss the old one!
:claps:
But I think the main menu should be made more visible: why not give it a semi-transparent background, as in those two middle sections of the home page...?
So that when hovering each menu item you'd see the background changing color, and also transparency, instead of popping up as it does now...

I guess somebody else already suggested this, but you don't like the idea. Ok, never mind...

But while I'm here I also suggest you to change the foreground color of the links at the bottom of the footer, cause I just can't read them.

You mean the Vbulletin stuff in small print at the very very bottom of the footer? In which case yes, I agree, not legible. (Not that it's very interesting.) I will put it on my list of things to fiddle about with.

Making the main menu more visible is definitely on the list of things to do (after returning from a holiday ). I'm not super-keen on the idea of putting it in a semi-transparent box because it would make the header look a bit like a giant pillar box. (Mail box, for Americans.) At least I think it would. If any tremendously kind person wanted to experiment making graphic mock-ups of a header with a more visible menu I would not complain at all.

 

[Liselle]

Had again decided to drop this notion for good, since, despite all appearances in this thread, I really am enjoying the new design tremendously.

However (since you're asking), what about something vaguely like this (click on the photo and use the Dropbox controls to view full size):



Ignore the logo's white background - that's what happened when I pasted it into MS Paint, and I don't know how to fix it. And the fonts and colors of things aren't right (e.g. I think your more subdued text color would look beautiful in the larger size). And the Home and Search graphics are missing... so the menu headings would have to be a bit smaller to accommodate them, and then the title might need to be smaller, too, so it blends (hard to tell without seeing it).

Actually - the title in this picture is bigger than what I intended. Look at it in Dropbox. The forum is changing the size. (Edited - actually I like the headings better in the forum rendering. lol)

Anyway, the basic idea is to make the text larger inside the background photo, so it's more visible and fills more of the banner space.

On the other hand - I can see how some of the brilliant V-shaped "opening up" effect of the sun and clouds is lost now. That might not be desirable.

 

[Liselle]

Oh nuts.

I just noticed the browser cuts off a massive amount of the right hand side of the photo. It's completely different from what I got from right-clicking View Background Image. No wonder there was so much horizontal space.

Never...mind...



(Um...how committed are you to all the words? What if it just said "Learn" and "Readings"...?)

 

[rodaki]

all good on my browser as far as I can tell (and I love the look of it as it is!)
kaloriziko!!* (that's a greek wish for everything new )

. . now can we think about that old style reading again?

I mean, it won't be a huge deal if it's not back on but . .. hm, old habits die hard I guess

 

[hilary]

Oh nuts.

I just noticed the browser cuts off a massive amount of the right hand side of the photo. It's completely different from what I got from right-clicking View Background Image. No wonder there was so much horizontal space.

Never...mind...



(Um...how committed are you to all the words? What if it just said "Learn" and "Readings"...?)

Um... a little bit. They're probably useful for SEO and... you know... just in case anyone thought they were going to learn tiddlywinks here instead...

I see what you mean about the bigger text - perhaps it could be that simple. I will experiment - later.

all good on my browser as far as I can tell (and I love the look of it as it is!)
kaloriziko!!* (that's a greek wish for everything new )

. . now can we think about that old style reading again?

I mean, it won't be a huge deal if it's not back on but . .. hm, old habits die hard I guess

Well, since you asked...

 

[Trojina]

I seem to be able to stay logged on now.

If I use the online tool at all I much prefer the old style but if you are going to reinstate it it's not something I think you need to sort out before your holiday.....oh hang on you already did it . Yay

BTW I hope you will be sending us a 'postcard' of you relaxing. ..oh no you'd have to log on to do that and that would be 'work' and what you need is no forum to worry about at all for a few weeks.

 

[Liselle]

BTW I hope you will be sending us a 'postcard' of you relaxing. ..oh no you'd have to log on to do that and that would be 'work' and what you need is no forum to worry about at all for a few weeks.

But there could always be a wee commemorative post upon return, as proof of relaxation.

I see what you mean about the bigger text - perhaps it could be that simple. I will experiment - later.

Had an idea for a slight modification which keeps all the words! Will dummy it up & post (later) (if it actually works).


Also - dead link - the red "Click here to order" button on this page from Into the Flow of Change produces an error back on Clarity. (Someday I'll buy that from you...)

 

[buzzurro]

Had an idea for a slight modification which keeps all the words! Will dummy it up & post (later) (if it actually works).

Is it something that has to do with fonts, perhaps...?
It seems to me that changing the menu headings' font-family might improve visibility a bit.
One of the settings that seem to work is Trebuchet, which you mentioned a few pages ago:




But also Arial, Verdana, Comic Sans MS...
Well, I hope you had a better idea...

By the way, somebody must have noticed this before: for some reason the "About" menu heading has a 50px padding-right, which pushes the down arrow symbol too far from the text and makes the whole menu larger than needed...

 

[Liselle]

One of the settings that seem to work is Trebuchet, which you mentioned a few pages ago:

Well, all I was trying to get across was that just because I like the new site doesn't mean I didn't like the old one - it came out awkwardly. I do like the new font; I think it looks elegant (which of course is just my personal opinion though I probably wouldn't pick Comic Sans for this particular application, and no I'm not a Comic Sans hater.).

the "About" menu heading has a 50px padding-right, which pushes the down arrow symbol too far from the text and makes the whole menu larger than needed...

You have good eyeballs, Buzzuro - am not even going to ask how you ferreted out that information from the bowels of the internet...


The little adjustment I was thinking of is just word-wrapping the longer headings, like this:

Learn
the
I Ching

...if there's a way to do that that's attractive, plays nicely with the other headings, and actually makes enough of a difference to the horizontal space so the font can be bigger.

 

[buzzurro]

Sorry for the delay...

Well, all I was trying to get across was that just because I like the new site doesn't mean I didn't like the old one - it came out awkwardly. I do like the new font; I think it looks elegant (which of course is just my personal opinion though I probably wouldn't pick Comic Sans for this particular application, and no I'm not a Comic Sans hater.).

I used to be a Comic Sans lover, but I agree it wouldn't look great on this site!
But of course I wasn't suggesting to change font for esthetic reasons, I still believe that the best way to enhance the menu's visibility would be the semi-transparent background, but since Hilary didn't like the idea I said, ok, let's try some alternative solution...
One possible alternative solution could be to use a sans serif kind of font for the menu - I should have been more clear, sorry!
I chose Trebuchet just to show something, not because I was attributing other meanings to your words...

You have good eyeballs, Buzzuro - am not even going to ask how you ferreted out that information from the bowels of the internet...

Well, I'm no css guru, but I have to deal with it everyday at work, that's it.

The little adjustment I was thinking of is just word-wrapping the longer headings, like this:

Learn
the
I Ching

...if there's a way to do that that's attractive, plays nicely with the other headings, and actually makes enough of a difference to the horizontal space so the font can be bigger.

Well, I tried to experiment with this idea of yours, it surely enhances visibility much more than a simple change of font, but I haven't been able to make it particularly attractive...
Do you want to see the screenshot anyway...?

 

[Liselle]

Yes of course I want to see it!

Anything any of us comes up with are just ideas - Hilary might hate them, or tweak them, or combine them somehow, or decide to stay with the current one, or whatever.

Here's my word-wrapped version:

Again ignore the wrong colors in the logo. The black squares are just placeholders for the "home" and "search" graphics.

I have no idea how this would look when the highlight boxes are added (the ones that appear when you hover over a heading). My guess would be that all those boxes should be the same size, so it doesn't look jumpy when you swipe the mouse across the row. But there will be varying amounts of empty space inside them because of the word-wrapping.

A variation might be to make the "the" in "Learn the I Ching" a smaller font size, to minimize how much taller it is than the rest of the headings.

Another tweak might be to make the headings flush (align them) at the top rather than the bottom.

Etc.