So as Alain has said, he is updating the site tonight and it will be constantly changing while he slowing adds and subtracts things in what sounds like a tedious process.
Since it looks like many want to comment on these changes, and you’re ignoring the post he put up for comment, here’s a shiny thread to do it.
Complain and compliment to your heart’s content.
Ready, set, go….
Three-nineteen
Testing…
The site’s not completely borked yet — keep trying!
dmsilev
Huh. The scroll wheel on my mouse doesn’t work on this page, but does on other tabs and so forth. That’s an interesting …quirk.
Mnemosyne
G insisted on watching our brand new copy of “The Force Awakens” tonight. John Boyega is adorable, so I’m willing to go along with it. I should probably eat something now that I’m almost done with my rum and ginger beer.
Mnemosyne
Also, the new top and bottom arrows are nice so far.
The Lodger
I’m on my phone and can’t switch to the mobile version. I once saw a link at the bottom of the page that allowed such a thing, but it’s vanished.
Anoniminous
My scroll wheel isn’t recognized for a second or so and then it is.
Still can’t get access to the +14 thread. Sends me to https://balloon-juice.com/wp-admin/setup-config.php
SiubhanDuinne
Many thanks for the down arrow. I’ve been wanting that for ever so long.
Alain the site fixer
There’s lots to love with the new stuff. Lots to bitch about, but it should be considered an improvement to most.
There are a few cosmetic things to adjust tomorrow but that’s like font size or color for a widget and similar small stuff. The heavy lifting is done.
But please folks, I’ll look at these comments, but not likely until the morning as I’m tired and have a few more things to tidy up before sleep.
Anoniminous
And the annoying bandwidth eating autoplay annoyance is still here.
Baud
@Alain the site fixer: The recent comments box will be fixed tomorrow also?
Librarian
I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m still getting the autoplay ads that you supposedly got rid of weeks ago.
Omnes Omnibus
The “+14” thread is borked.
Davebo
The up and down arrows are annoying to me. But then I know keyboard shortcuts, some will probably find them useful.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@The Lodger: Same with me — no mobile site on my iPhone 6s Plus.
debbie
Scrolling is painfully slow on my iPad where the down button isn’t.
Steeplejack
@Alain the site fixer:
It looks good so far, Alain. The pages load very quickly for me, and when I click on a comment’s time stamp it pulls that up to the top of the screen immediately, without the “cool” but tedious “sliding” effect from before. Ditto when I click on a commenter’s name to see the comment being replied to. And the back button seems to work! (Firefox on Windows 10 here.)
ETA: Haven’t tried the site on my phone or tablet yet.
Just Some Fuckhead
Just do the humane thing and shoot the blog.
Alain the site fixer
@Baud: Not sure if going to improve the combo box or return to the two separate boxes. I prefer the combo but I’ll see what folks here have to say.
Let me double check mobile site.
TaMara (BHF)
The back button is…..BACK!
TaMara (BHF)
Testing
Testing
Testing
testingtestingTaMara (BHF)
Well link is borked.
Trying again.
Omnes Omnibus
@TaMara (BHF): Worked for me.
chris
Dog bless, Alain. The pagination works, my endless nightmare is over.
Adam L Silverman
@TaMara (BHF): Its worked both times. I don’t know what you’re seeing, but its showing up fine.
Mnemosyne
@Davebo:
The down arrow is handy on the iPad.
Ked
Ooooh, I
the blockquotes.
Something’s wonky with the scrolling – I’m in current firefox on w7, and I have what looks like an extra scroll bar on the right side of the window. Why I try to use my scroll wheel, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes it works if I try twice. Hard to explain, but I’m sure it’ll get fixed.
I still wish the background was less grey, but fonts are looking nice.
Steeplejack
The Rippingtons, “Hideaway.”
kdaug
Yeah, mobile’s borked on my droid, too. (Although I seem to remember it just defaulting to the mobile site on my phone – I didn’t have to set anything… In any case, it’s gone now. Defaulting to regular site now)
Steeplejack
@TaMara (BHF):
I think you might have shot yourself in the foot on that first link. Linkage is working for me.
Alain the site fixer
The untested assumption will bite you in the ass!
So the mobile site seems to be not coming up for me on my iPhone either. And the switcher doesn’t show at the bottom of the page. Not sure what’s going on but I didn’t touch the settings for it as all my work was on the desktop site. It looks like some config got screwed up.I won’t be working on that tonight, not sharp enough.
Ruckus
@Alain the site fixer:
As I said on the test site, given the restrictions that were placed and the restrictions of things that are necessary and the various and opposing desires, I think it’s a damn nice job. Things seem to work for me just fine.
I’m used to the separate recent post and recent comment areas but this works fine, it’s just different.
Omnes Omnibus
Scrolling seems to be just a bit off.
ETA: Thank you for removing the redundant “suggestions” under the Leave a Comment prompt. And for removing the silly label on the rotating tags.
Ked
So, can you
Anoniminous
@efgoldman:
Those darn Wobblies! Always showing up.
Davebo
I haven’t looked at the mobile version but overall I’d say the upgrade didn’t suck!
Nice job Alain.
Technocrat
@Ked:
Ked
Just one more
PaulWartenberg2016
That’s odd. We haven’t opened any portals for eldritch abominations yet.
Triangulum, entangulum. Meteforis dominus ventium. Meteforis venetisarium!
Technocrat
@Ked:
Not your fault. It’s addictive.
Anoniminous
Scrolling works fine if the arrow is in the scroll gutter.
Omnes Omnibus
@PaulWartenberg2016: Cruz won a primary.
Mnemosyne
Crap. I’m getting the “there is a problem with this website and it had to be reloaded” message on the iPad again. Since other people are saying they’re still seeing the autoplay ad, it may be related to that. It seems to show up a lot when a takeover ad doesn’t load the way it’s supposed to.
Ked
Ia! Ia!
ftagn!
They do look a little portalish. But the fantastic thing is they just seem to work – in all the previous systems they seemed to get away from anyone who tried.
CaseyL
The new quote blocks are
.. the up and down arrows are quite large and occlude some of the screen. Not complaining; just pointing out.
Otherwise, all seems well on my laptop.
FlyingToaster
I’ll reiterate my comments from the “14” thread:
Site in general is great!
There is a pseudo-scroll-bar (much like the one you get in a comments box when you go over 6 lines) on the right, next to the real scroll bar. It’s solid grey, as if it’s a scroll bar running the length of the page.
The ads are no longer cropped.
The ora.tv Flash thing is still there. Because it tends to s l o w e v e r y t h i n g d o w n for me, I’m blocking it. If John isn’t being paid for it, you really need to kill it. It’s also giving me a security alert (some non-https content warning), if I don’t block it.
With ora.tv blocked, the site loads and reloads instantaneously.
Mac El Capitan, Firefox 46, Chrome 49.
Well done, sir!
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I put my objection in that thread, and appreciate this one as well. My problem means I can’t read the results thread, but I recognize that it is my problem and perhaps no one else finds it problematic. Editing also doesn’t work in Win10/FF, so any other users of that combo might be troubled.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Davebo: Can you give me a keyboard short cut to scroll down (comment at a time…) with keyboard arrows? used to could, and up/down arrows featured go straight to top/bottom.
Gin & Tonic
Where’s balloon man?
Alain the site fixer
Last Update…Till Brooklyn (really, my bed)
Mobile site should be back soon. The plugin behind it stores site data in its Cache directory so since we ignored all Cache directories when making our set of files, we wiped out the mobile site config. Our new approach is making recovery simple – we’re pulling in the mobile site plugin files from what was on the live site before the new files we copied over.
Besides that, I’m not sold on the combo box for Comments/Posts. Some like some don’t. It was more a design thing for me; this takes up less space for an interface to similar information. I might go back to the two separate widgets. Either way, some tweaks and font fix will need to happen.
Not sure where second scrollbar is coming from but I will remove it tomorrow.
Good night all, but please do put feedback here as I will read it tomorrow and incorporate what makes sense and can be done easily and quickly. Anything broken will of course be fixed.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Librarian: Adblock addition of player was suggested to me and worked.
@Anoniminous: Waht kind of scrolling? No matter where I put my curson – either side, within a commeny, or in light or dark gray gutter on the R, I can’t scroll with keyboard arrow, and up/down arrows go all the way.
Alain the site fixer
@Gin & Tonic: Which one? He was removed as a placeholder for default images for posts months ago. I’m not aware of him being missing from anywhere else.
Steeplejack
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Checking to see if I can edit this comment . . .
ETA: Can I? I can. (Firefox on Windows 10.)
Gin & Tonic
I know he was removed ages ago. I like him and will whine about his absence whether it’s appropriate or not. I think I whined about it in the last redesign, too.
Ked
I’m just noticing the lines between comments and solid on the right side of the comments area. I really like the open left side – it’s a happy medium between some of the more claustrophobic boxed-in things and the white-space-everywhere ethos we’ve seen at some steps. Might be nice to have another pixel or three of padding on the right side. Nothing’s literally running into it but there’s some text that runs close enough to it to be legitimately described as a visual collision.
…or maybe it’s been like this for a week or three and I just haven’t noticed? Still, I like it.
Alain the site fixer
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): OOh that’s a good one. We all missed that one in testing!
I’ll have to do some research on that one. Likely it’s related to the new scroll bar. GREAT catch!
I wasn’t seeing it but once I click in the text box then those controls don’t “come back” once I click somewhere else in the browser window. That’s not right.
Really, off to be for me now. I will look for more issues reported tomorrow!
Steeplejack
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I don’t know if Alain has stopped working for the night, but even a short while ago I noticed something or other would change every time I refreshed a page. Maybe the dust is still settling.
RaflW
I’m liking the updates. And I appreciate all the hard work.
Mike J
@Steeplejack:
Still b0rked for me. Popup takes the whole tab, accepts a click on the button but nothing happens.
Steeplejack
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
If you click on the time stamp under a commenter’s nym, does that not pull that comment to the top of the screen? Or is that even what you’re trying to do?
ETA: Okay, I see what you mean. Up and down arrow keys do not scroll. And I discovered that the Home and End keys no longer take you to the top and bottom of the thread, respectively.
Mike J
@efgoldman:
Editing not needed, just clicking on the text will screw it up. When you move to a new thread, cursor focus is outside the div with the extra scrollbar. When you click on the text, mouse focus is inside that div, and there’s no place to scroll.,
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Steeplejack: Nah, that wasn’t my issue, but Alain answered above and will check. Thanks for asking; you’re a mensch for that.
Now he needs some well deserved rest. Thanks Alain.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
And now those keys work! Shazam.
Kay (not the front-pager)
Yay! the Amazon link is near the top again! Now I don’t have to scroll down the gazillion times a day I go shopping at Amazon.
Also, I can now go to previous pages again. Thank you Alain! And the site looks great. Different, but really pleasing.
Mnemosyne
Yeah, it’s not great cinema, but it’s a fun ride.
Alain the site fixer
Mobile fixed. It may or may not have all the settings as they were before so if you spot something, please do tell. I didn’t write them down because I didn’t move or touch its settings, but I’m sure you daily mobile users will spot something that’s wrong.
Shutting down and heading to sleep.
Mnemosyne
Mobile version is back.
Mike J
To get rid of the extra scrollbars and allow scrolling with the cursor keys, add overflow:hidden to the body selector. Just tried it by bringing up the dev tools in chrome and turning it on and off.
Davebo
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): It’s not possible to go comment to comment via keyboard shortcuts.
And honestly, I’m not sure why you’d need to.
Omnes Omnibus
@Davebo: She has desires. Who are you to judge?
Mike J
@Davebo: Not so much comment to comment, but scroll down smoothly as you read. If you’ve clicked inside the page, you can’t scroll with the keyboard.
WaterGirl
@Mike J: What do you mean by “you can’t scroll with the keyboard”? Do you mean with the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard? Because they are working for me just fine in Safari on my mac.
My kitty has decided it’s play time, gotta go.
Steeplejack
@Mike J:
Ah, I see what you’re talking about. I withdraw my earlier comment that the arrow keys were working again for me.
caring and sensitive
The back button works. Hooray
Prescott Cactus
Alain By Prescott Cactus
Alain Site Fixer
Questions answered and more solved
Deluxe Web guru
Amir Khalid
The fonts look much too big. When do they go back to a more decent size?
frosty
PageUp, PageDown, Home, End, and arrow keys don’t work.
Wow, and my typing in the comment box is invisible!
IE and Windows 7
frosty
OK, now the comment box is normal. No idea WTF just happened.
Luthe
@Alain the site fixer: The mobile site is currently lacking comment numbers and timestamps on comments. Not huge issues, but it does make it a little inconvenient to track the pace of conversations and find the comment you’re looking for.
NotMax
Just in case Alain doesn’t peruse Mr. Cole’s thread above on this same topic, my own list of positives and negatives there.
proterozoic
Scrolling is broken now. I’m guessing it’s some really bad implementation of “smooth scrolling” that achieves nothing other than an annoying user experience – there is a delay on the scroll wheel, so when you scroll up and immediately down or vice versa, the first scroll isn’t recognized, and you have to do it again.
It’s pretty horrid.
Cookie monster
iPhone user here. Scrolling is unusable (mostly just didn’t work, occasionally moves a half screen) unless I disable scripts in safari (using purify). Chrome on iOS unaffected, oddly.
worn
@Omnes Omnibus: oo@Ruckus: @Omnes Omnibus: i@Gin & Tonic: o@proterozoic: Same annoyance when visiting the regular site via iPhone. One touch for focus, another required to fingertip scroll. If you lift your finger off the screen, it’s two touches again to reactivate scrolling. This showed up at one point during one of the early permutations of the evolving site design, but was killed. Very sad this feature/bug has been re-implemented.
Also, the go to top or bottom of page arrows cover a portion of the content. The way they react to zooming (on mobile) is also quite strange: they hold their edge padding for a portion of the zoom, then move offscreen of continuing to zoom in.