Q: Could This (new discussion format) Be Any Worse?

PlotinusVeritas wrote:

 

You see this above:    Branched to a new discussion

 

 

It means the 'gods' are watching this thread, with lightning bolt in hand.   

…and that links to something quite different

ChitlinsCC wrote:

I'll just come right out and claim that NewSite has LESS white space than archived site - both vertically and horizontally*. The picture does not lie.

Actually, the picture does sort of lie. To make an accurate comparison, you need to set both pages to their actual (default) sizes when you take the screen shots. Zooming, unless done carefully to make sure both pages are zoomed to the same magnification, can lead to deceptive results. So with that in mind, in Safari's View menu, I set both pages to actual size (shortcut is command + zero), took screen shots of each & did some comparisons. This one, showing four, two line entries for each page side by side should, as you say, speak for itself:

It is easy to see that the new format uses more height per entry. Look carefully & you can also see that the font size is now slightly larger & the grey or white background bars are taller in the new format.

R C-R wrote:

It is easy to see that the new format uses more height per entry. Look carefully & you can also see that the font size is now slightly larger & the grey or white background bars are taller in the new format.

Yup! And the old version used more vertical space than the version previous to that.

R C-R wrote:

 

ChitlinsCC wrote:

I'll just come right out and claim that NewSite has LESS white space than archived site - both vertically and horizontally*. The picture does not lie.

Actually, the picture does sort of lie. To make an accurate comparison, you need to set both pages to their actual (default) sizes when you take the screen shots. Zooming, unless done carefully to make sure both pages are zoomed to the same magnification, can lead to deceptive results. So with that in mind, in Safari's View menu, I set both pages to actual size (shortcut is command + zero), took screen shots of each & did some comparisons. This one, showing four, two line entries for each page side by side should, as you say, speak for itself:

It is easy to see that the new format uses more height per entry. Look carefully & you can also see that the font size is now slightly larger & the grey or white background bars are taller in the new format.

Well, in this side-by-side comparison, I can see where it would result in less clicking on the wrong link by mistake. That's a bit of a positive, as is the slightly larger font size. However, this still does not mean that I like the changes. I don't. I'm glad I didn't depend on the "Your Stuff" malarkey in the last version. I would probably be really torqued off if I had.

John Link wrote:

 

R C-R wrote:

It is easy to see that the new format uses more height per entry. Look carefully & you can also see that the font size is now slightly larger & the grey or white background bars are taller in the new format.

Yup! And the old version used more vertical space than the version previous to that.

Isnt it wonderful that people that have been here for YEARS are trying to figure out this jigsaw puzzle thats upside down and in the dark. ?

Surely the inverse definition of "improvement"

R C-R wrote:

 

ChitlinsCC wrote:

I'll just come right out and claim that NewSite has LESS white space than archived site - both vertically and horizontally*. The picture does not lie.

Actually, the picture does sort of lie. To make an accurate comparison, you need to set both pages to their actual (default) sizes when you take the screen shots. Zooming, unless done carefully to make sure both pages are zoomed to the same magnification, can lead to deceptive results. So with that in mind, in Safari's View menu, I set both pages to actual size (shortcut is command + zero), took screen shots of each & did some comparisons. This one, showing four, two line entries for each page side by side should, as you say, speak for itself:

It is easy to see that the new format uses more height per entry. Look carefully & you can also see that the font size is now slightly larger & the grey or white background bars are taller in the new format.

R C -R, you said:

Actually, the picture does sort of lie. To make an accurate comparison, you need to set both pages to their actual (default) sizes when you take the screen shots. Zooming, unless done carefully to make sure both pages are zoomed to the same magnification, can lead to deceptive results.

Agreed. But to coin an ol' Texas saying, "This ain't my first rodeo!" To quote John Prine, "Don't let the glasses fool ya, Stand next to me when you measure my size."

Meaning, just cuz I am a mere level 1 with 30 points, I do have curriculum vitae that qualifies me eminently to make the comparison accurately.

To wit... In [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9.2.28) Gecko/20120306 Firefox/3.6.28] here's the action items I undertook in for the illustration that follows:

    1.    CMD+click => (on your post's) "WayBack Machine" archived page to open it in a new tab

    2.    CMD+0(zero) = default view of page

    3.    CMD+0(zero) = default view of page (really - double sure)

    4.    return to your post in previous tab

    5.    CMD+click => "the current default " link to open it in a new tab

    6.    CMD+0(zero) = default view of page

    7.    CMD+0(zero) = default view of page (really - double sure)

    8.    CMD+"-" (minus) = zoom out out 1 level = ZoomLevel -1(one)

    9.    CMD+"-" (minus) = zoom out out 1 level = ZoomLevel -2(two)

    10.    return to the tab with your link " "WayBack Machine" archived page "

    11.    CMD+"-" (minus) = zoom out out 1 level = ZoomLevel -1(one)

    12.    CMD+"-" (minus) = zoom out out 1 level = ZoomLevel -2(two)

    13.    scroll window to where top of first line's letters are 6 pixels (±1pixel) from the bottom of the tab bar (using DigitalColor Meter's coordinates as reference) = really HARD to scroll a browser that accurately!

    14.    CMD+SHIFT+3 = Snapshot of Screen "Picture 1.png"

    15.    return to the tab with your link "the current default "

    16.    CMD+"-" (minus) = zoom out out 1 level = ZoomLevel -1(one)

    17.    CMD+"-" (minus) = zoom out out 1 level = ZoomLevel -2(two)

    18.    scroll window to where top of first line's letters are 6 pixels (±1pixel) from the bottom of the tab bar (using DigitalColor Meter's coordinates as reference) = really HARD to scroll a browser that accurately!

    19.    CMD+SHIFT+3 = Snapshot of Screen "Picture 2.png"

    20.    Switch to Finder

    21.    In Finder, select both "Picture 1.png" & "Picture 2.png"

    22.    Drag both to Adobe PhotoShop (already in Dock) which opens both in Adobe PhotoShop and brings Adobe PhotoShop to focus

    23.    With "Picture 2.png" window in focus, CMD+SHIFT+" ' " (single quote) invoking "Duplicate Layer" dialog

    24.    Choose "Picture 1.png" from the pull down menu

    25.    Click [OK] == "Picture 1.png" = Background Layer & "Picture 2.png" = Layer 1

    26.    With Layer 1 selected, CMD+" I " to Invert Image (a negative to photo buffs)

    27.    On the Layers "Window" (really a 'palette' for the PShop unwashed), choose 50% opacity from the Opacity pull-down

    28.    Save As PhotoShop native file "aASCthreadwWindow2.psd"

    29.    Save As JPEG file "aASCthreadwWindow2.jpg"

    30.    Mission accomplished

I am sure that I have satisfied your criteria for care in zooming to the same magnification

Result:

As you can see, there appears to be:

• Little or no difference in fontSize
• A pixel or two difference in line-spacing between the Thread Title and the statement of " n minutes/hours ago"
• Divergence of ±one line-space in the Title Lines per post resulting from the fact that each of the lists are really in a "Table" with different row heights - "WayBack Machine" archived page " table are defined visibly
• All in all, vertical "white space" don't amount to a hill-o-beans.
• Horizontally, yep, a big difference since the "the current default " no longer has an extra column on the right for "Top Participants in the Community" (talk about tooting a horn needlessly) -- methinks the said column in " archived page " became where we see the Poster info now.

IMHO, the argument over Graphic Design is unnecessary and a WHOPPER of a Red Herring

The real issues are Functionality and Features which are also being hotly voiced here and in other threads

I must admit, that I have spent a lot of time trying to put the design issues to rest, but I fear my labors to be in vain.

This will be my last participation in any discussion of NewSite appearance.

Adios amigos y amigas

CCC

-- Corozon espinado

Your overlay approach is (at least for me) harder to interpret than side by side comparisons but in your screen shot I count 15 discussion entries for the archive page vs. 12 for the current layout. In fact, in the archived page 25 total entries are shown vs. 20 in the current iMac (Intel) community overview page. So the new layout uses 20 to 25% more vertical page space to display the same number of entries. For many of us that does amount to at least a modest sized "hill-o-beans" because that less compact layout means more scrolling to see the same number of entries.

Also, if I zoom in on the first entry in your screen shot where both of them have several capital letters it seems clear (at least to me) that the font size is larger in the current layout (compare for example the height of the "R" in "Re:" vs. the height of the "S" in "Superdrive):

This is more evident in the comparisons I did from actual size screen shots, possibly because zooming a browser view introduces other uncertainties like how fonts are displayed when scaled up to non-integer point sizes (like how 13 point text magnified by 50% becomes 19.5 points) or what font smoothing does for different point sizes.

Anyway, using actual size screen shots & zooming in on them afterwards in Photoshop to preserve pixel for pixel accuracy as best as I could, arranging & copying snippets of text for easier comparisons, & then taking a screen shots of that I get things like this:

The top line is from the current iMac (Intel) page. Below it is a sample taken from the archive. Below that are several characters I copied from each of those lines, with the current version size on the left. You can see that the archive uses a smaller point size & tighter kerning. Not shown in this example, leading is also proportionally smaller in the archive, further reducing the per entry height for discussion names that span more than one line. From what I can tell, on the average this accounts for about 15% of the increase in entry height in the current layout; the rest of it is because it uses a taller table cell height (more white space between entries).

Of course, as noted above this will change some with different browser zoom factors, screen display engines, & so on but I think it is clear that the new layout uses more screen space for the same number of entries. Whether that is a good thing or bad thing I leave to each user to decide for themselves.

Access to this place or content is restricted. If you think this is a mistake, please contact your administrator or the person who directed you here.

MacPcConsultant wrote:

 

Access to this place or content is restricted. If you think this is a mistake, please contact your administrator or the person who directed you here.

You get that when you click on the 'branched to new discussion' link because that 'branch' is where the moderators put posts that have been removed from public access.

And the reason for the removal ?    Is it because the truth was stated ?

MacPcConsultant wrote:

 

And the reason for the removal ?    Is it because the truth was stated ?

No, it would be that the posts broke the Terms Of Use that the poster had agreed to when joining these forums. Simple really.

Cheers

Pete

Noticed that most of the posts seem to be winding up under the wrong grouping.

New post screen does not have a drop down box to make it easy to pick a group.

Also noticed that sign in to communities screen will get an SSL error if I try to sign in before looking at detail - and the best way to get into the forum is to pick an email from it - select to go to into the discussion - then sign in from that discussion.

R notcloudy (all day)

The new post process seems a bit cludgey to me too. Seems a lot of OPs get sent here (iPad, iPhone, iTunes,iCloud, Photo Booth, iMessage, Terminal, App Store, SoftwareUpdate - just on the page of the ASC main list of posts) because of it and the OPer's understandable panic.

A more Wizard-like approach for inexperienced users might help, but a lot of the vets would not like that either.

I am sure the Active Search when entering a Question (Subject Line) is supposed to do something to route it properly... but one would have to craft the question well to begin with... three m also from page 1:

    how do i get my contacts back down from icloud <-- seems pretty succinct to me??

    Reply ? <-- Ditto

A couple of German Language posts were there a little while ago, but seemed to have found their way back to Deutchland.

Regarding the last statement, take a screenSnap next time.

CCC

-- Good, fast, or cheap - pick one. - Prime Principle of Negotiation

MacPcConsultant wrote:

 

And the reason for the removal ?    Is it because the truth was stated ?

It's anybody's guess. Only the Hosts and/or Moderators know for certain.

Bad language is often a reason.

Ronda Wilson wrote:

 

MacPcConsultant wrote:

 

And the reason for the removal ?    Is it because the truth was stated ?

 

 

It's anybody's guess. Only the Hosts and/or Moderators know for certain.

 

Bad language is often a reason.

As well it should be. For example, I presume that not using the subjunctive mood when it is clearly required is grounds for removal.