Well it looks different, more pics, shit flashing and jumping around BUT!!! less useful, I found the longer list of recent posts to be useful, now I'll have to spend more time looking through the forums to see what's new.

Why are tech people such idiots? New is better, flashy is better, utility and convenience count for nothing. It's not only here. I've noticed other sites that have been "improved" by changing colors and eliminating useful features. It's as though the people who change the sites don't actually use them which would at least explain why the changes take away from the usefulness of the site.

Seems that the lighter blue is in vogue this year. Too bad foolishness is as well.

Well the site is different. I think will take some getting used to just like anything else.

I would have to agree, that while some things arguably look better, there are other things that are not improvements (yes... as the post above says... it used to be one click to see all unread posts... and now that had moved into a dropdown list. Both harder to find and harder to do even if you know where it is). Changes like that are not as well received.

Then there is this... how much of my page is an ad?

Mixed emotions on the new format. Will have to get used to it...

Most web browsing today is done on small-display devices like smart phones, etc., so many admins are headed in that direction: more & bigger graphics, scrolling headlines, etc. It's just a fact of modern life. Maintaining 2 separate sites, one formatted for larger screens (PCs, laptops, etc.) and one formatted for smaller screens (smartphones, etc.) is quite time consuming and inefficient. So I get where & WHY we're going here. If such decisions keep the lights on and help pay the staff, I'm OK with them.

One BIG problem: <BEST NEW STUFF> is all screwed up. Looking at the urls, "Object type" is set to 5 on most of the categories. Went to see last 30 days best photos - got trip reports instead (object type 5?)

Glad to be a beta tester here, guys!

Best,

Big Lew

Let me preface my post with saying that despite my somewhat recent signup, I've been visiting and enjoying this site for over ten years.

I know that the rationale Matt has given behind the redesign is that search engines demand mobile-friendliness in return for higher search rankings, which is how SP has been positioned to reach viewers for some time. However, every site that I've seen make this change has lost functionality by way of wasted space, eye-straining fonts, and bizarre layouts. This is now true of SummitPost.

The charm that brought me back over and over again to this place is mostly gone. It takes much more time and effort to view information (especially suggested mountains/partners) than before, and the social media plugs everywhere are unappealing. It seems like a very slick, impersonal website for an intimate, human subject.

I've also noticed that this change was implemented with no input (that I've seen) from the community. Hopefully, management will be open to hearing their concerns.

Thank you,
T. White

Hmmm, if this is advancement I'll likely be spending more time elsewhere. I'll give it a few weeks of adjustment to know for sure.

The constant moving of pictures/content across the screen is really annoying.

The BEST NEW STUFF is now correct, but I see on the Front Page that the photos accompanying the FEATURED MOUNTAINS, ROUTES, TRIPS AND ARTICLES are distorted, I explain myself better: pics are very elongated in the vertical sense. This is of bad effect considering that it is right on the opening page of the site.
Another question: on the page of my profile I cannot find in any way the possibility to browse all my photos, I can only find the "Highest score" and the "Most recent. The button "See all of my .... images"is not active!

I can't find the "Mark Forums Read" option. It would be handy to have it in the "Useful Links" dropdown. I thought I found it in an "Options" box yesterday, but today it's not there.

My SOP for all forum boards is to "View Unread Posts," then "Mark Forums Read" when I'm done reading the posts that I'm interested in, so that each time I visit, I only see the posts that are new since my last visit (i.e. I don't want to wade through the posts I'm not interested in over and over each time I come back.)

Also not finding a "View Your Posts" option.

I mostly like it. The front page is visually impressive. However, the images shifting around every five seconds are really distracting. There's got to be a way to make that smoother, or slower, or placed under user control. (I'd hate to be about to click something just as it vanishes.) Just as one possibility, an in-place dissolve effect would be less jarring than the current scrolling effect.

On some of the items (like new member list), the current scheme of having the title as an overlapping photo caption is clever and attractive. For things like trip reports, though, I'd like the titles to be easier to find and easier to read. I like good photos in a trip report, but I also look for good writing, so the title is important. It's even more important for mountain pages.

As usual, I hate that screen space is wasted on stupid "like me!" buttons. I hope the HTML design is such that I can easily block those in my browser and the layout will adjust to fill in that space, in which case it's no big deal. (Edit: quick and easy with AdBlockPro. I nuked the "home bar" at the top of the site, which saved a little space. I then deleted the various social media links on the "object detail" pages (same code for all object types). That doesn't reclaim any space, but at least I can find the "vote" button now. I suspect that the voting function of SummitPost is going to be utterly useless now. Is the site tracking Facebook likes instead? So it could have been a lot worse, but it's still an annoying task I'll need to do in each of my browsers before I can enjoy the site.)

A lot of the pages have strange layouts and margins on a full-size screen (e.g., right now if I want to look upthread to see what I'm responding to, I can't see anything above the last sentence of Teresa Gergen's post without scrolling, even though there's tons of empty space on my screen). I'm not a fan, but I'm resigned to this kind of thing.

Woodswalker wrote:The constant moving of pictures/content across the screen is really annoying.

I wasn't a big fan of that either. I'll look into other options. I believe that there are several we could employ to still display the content but not be so distracting/annoying.

Silvia Mazzani wrote:the photos accompanying the FEATURED MOUNTAINS, ROUTES, TRIPS AND ARTICLES are distorted

Yes, we had worked a lot on fixing that but never arrived at an elegant solution. We'll continue to work on it. The designer I'm working with says he has some ideas.

Silvia Mazzani wrote:Another question: on the page of my profile I cannot find in any way the possibility to browse all my photos, I can only find the "Highest score" and the "Most recent. The button "See all of my .... images"is not active!

That's the way it has always been. When you click on the "Highest Score" and "Most Recent" buttons, it does show all of your images sorted by whichever one you clicked on. The "See all of my ... images" isn't a link, but just text. We can change it to make it look less like a link.

Teresa Gergen wrote:I can't find the "Mark Forums Read" option. It would be handy to have it in the "Useful Links" dropdown.

Agreed. I just added it.

Teresa Gergen wrote:Also not finding a "View Your Posts" option.

I'll add that as well.

nartreb wrote:However, the images shifting around every five seconds are really distracting. There's got to be a way to make that smoother, or slower, or placed under user control. (I'd hate to be about to click something just as it vanishes.) Just as one possibility, an in-place dissolve effect would be less jarring than the current scrolling effect.

Good idea. I'll look into what options we have. I agree that the sliding is distracting and annoying. We can slow it down a lot, but I do like the idea of an in-place dissolve effect. I'm not sure if that's available but I'd guess it might be.

The option to run an advanced search by proximity to latitude/longitude coordinates has been removed. Can it be restored?

T. White wrote:The option to run an advanced search by proximity to latitude/longitude coordinates has been removed. Can it be restored?

Possibly. The functionality is still there. The form would just have to be changed. I never liked how cluttered the advanced search form was. And it was very infrequently used, so we streamlined it a lot. Though we can play with adding some of the functionality back in there based on demand.

Most of this is fine and will just take some getting used to.

Two things I particularly like:

* The drop-down editing bar. If I'm reviewing a page of mine and find an error near the end, I no longer have to scroll all the way up to the editing tab.
* Rotation of featured images.

One thing I really dislike: the forum feed not being near the top. When Mountain Project did this, lots of people were unhappy (and they changed it back). I think there will be a similar reaction here. Although our forums are not nearly as active as those on MP, members want to see a forum feed prominently visible on the home screen. Can the forum feed and the new members be switched? My impression is that not many people look at new profiles, anyway, except when there is a picture of an attractive woman or a photo otherwise stands out.

A request/suggestion: add more photos to the featured images rotation. I'd suggest a randomized assortment of photos with a certain minimum score.

Also, I know the new format is supposed to be mobile-friendly, but I really dislike the display on my phone and like it on my laptop much better.

Bob Sihler wrote:Can the forum feed and the new members be switched?

Sure. Moving stuff around to make it more convenient isn't an issue. But I'm not sure I know what the "forum feed" is. Can you post a marked up screenshot or somehow describe it so I know what it is?

Bob Sihler wrote:Also, I know the new format is supposed to be mobile-friendly, but I really dislike the display on my phone and like it on my laptop much better.

I don't like looking at much of anything on my phone. But if there is a way to improve SummitPost's new design on mobile, please post those suggestions as well. I honestly haven't spent a ton of time looking at the new SP on my phone. I couldn't see it at all until the switch yesterday and since then I've basically been squashing bugs on the desktop size of the design or in code logic.