New Look photo.net

[Andrew Garrard]

Just to add a word of positivity, Chrome on Linux (desktop) is appreciably better-behaved than the mobile view. Avatars/names are to the left rather than doubling the length of each post, most of the interface basically works (give or take tiny grey text on a white background, which isn't the most legible thing I've seen, and the "Write your reply" text that doesn't go away). Without JavaScript I can't log in (so much for my fifty tabs open in Firefox). In Chrome (with JavaScript), I don't seem to have a way to get rid of the paginated thread view, and I think I'm missing a way to sort threads by latest new thread (the old default) rather than latest post, but it's at least at the "niggles" stage rather than "unusable". I'd quite like my messages back, though...

[MTC Photography]

This new site is a total distaster.

 

I cannot even copy and paste image.

 

I can only copy the link

and photonet new site lost the former ability of

display INLINE photo,

instead showing a series of https links, one need to click on the link to see picture

 

Disaster, disaster.

 

Give me back the old site, which is 100 time better!!!!

[Andrew Garrard]

This new site is a total distaster.

 

Give me back the old site, which is 100 time better!!!!

 

Perhaps if Glenn et al. could share the goals of the redesign we might be more sympathetic? We're all going to notice things that have stopped working quite quickly (even if they're hopefully short-term bugs), but it's going to take us longer to notice improvements. It's much easier to put up with inconveniences if we know what we're getting in return. :-)

[Andrew Garrard]

Incidentally, I'd grumbled somewhere about not being able to sort forum threads by start date. I've realised that's what the "Start Date" header does; so good that the feature is still there, but it seems to be missing from the mobile view.

 

I'm beginning to think that forcing my phone into desktop site mode for photo.net would be advisable. I'll see whether that does any better.

[johne37179]

I like the fresh look and functionality, but still a lot of bugs to work out. It doesn't seem to frame well in Safari. It is a bit like landing on a new planet. I suspect there will be a pretty steep learning curve.

[richard_]

Well the new site does need to be tweaked allright - but overall it has a "cleaner" look. The best added feature is on your Portfolio page you have a blue background for your photos, and a optional Black background upon clicking the page. (However, I couldn't find the photo delete/remove icon).

[Member69643]

Why on Earth did you not keep the user's forum preferences? I still have no interest in Leica. That won't change. I had hidden that forum from the list of posts I see.

[g_richards]

Found a bug when uploading an image into a gallery. It shows that I am entering a name and description of the image but when I save it and the image appears in the gallery the title and description are not there. I tried several times to update it but it would do the same thing everything.

Also, a question? Can one only now join for one year at a time? I see no way to join for the three year option?

GR

[Robin Smith]

A main button should take us to the forums. I am not sure people will know to look in "Community" or "member posts" - and these navigation links are very small. Suggest you relabel it to "member posts/forums" or similar. Do we really need such a large image on the home page? On my monitor all the main entry links are reached only by scrolling down - surely not an ideal situation as you don't see them when you first get to the site.

 

I am also disappointed to see that the forum threads seem now to be sorted by when the latest reply arrived. This is done with most other sites, but I regard it as retrograde, as it encourages people to just post on popular threads, and it is also confusing as a post to an ancient thread will suddenly promote that thread to the top, encouraging more people to post on an ancient thread that could be many months or years old and no longer relevant to the original poster or to most of us.

[digitaldog]

Still not ready for prime time; roll back the old site. Sorry!

[Timo Hartikainen]

Hello, this is probably not so important thing, but I can't change the country in my profile settings, it says "saved" but when I go back there, there is still the USA.

[Andrew Garrard]

Hello, this is probably not so important thing, but I can't change the country in my profile settings, it says "saved" but when I go back there, there is still the USA.

 

I think it's a symptom of things like the screen name change not sticking. Nothing I change in personal settings seems to do much.

 

Incidentally, when I try to change my country, it's quite insistent that it wants an address. Given that I'm prone to posting "I'm on holiday" and "I own this list of expensive equipment" on this forum, I really don't want to give out that information...

[Andrew Garrard]

Still not ready for prime time; roll back the old site. Sorry!

 

Teensy bit harsh. Unless a lot changed since this morning, I don't think the mobile site is ready. The desktop site has glitches, but relatively small ones that I hope the development team is fixing.

 

Glenn et al: do you have an issue tracker that you could put somewhere? It would be great to know what issues have already been reported (to save duplicates), what you're working on (so we know when to check for things), and what things aren't likely to be fixed. I've no idea whether posts here are the preferred place.

[Andrew Garrard]

Btw, which page things appear on after you post seems to be a bit randomised...

[biomed]

The new look is a step backwards. If you are going to change things they should be for the better. Don't see what the improvements are, if any. It used to be very easy to post an image in a forum but the new site makes it way more difficult (I still haven't figured out how yet).

[Andrew Garrard]

The new look is a step backwards. If you are going to change things they should be for the better. Don't see what the improvements are, if any. It used to be very easy to post an image in a forum but the new site makes it way more difficult (I still haven't figured out how yet).

 

If you click on "upload a file" you can point the browser at an image; once it's uploaded, you can choose whether to include the full image or a thumbnail in your post.

 

I'd like to distinguish "actually broken" from "not obvious to people used to the old way of doing things". Some documentation (which it would have been nice to have in advance, but hey) for the latter would certainly be welcome, and since I had essentially no objections about the old site (except possibly its searchability) most of the changes are negative for me - but there are enough teething troubles that we can help the dev team find that I think we can try to beat the site into shape without necessarily having to throw everything out - even if knowing what we're trying to gain would make me feel better about it.

 

My mobile experience aside, this attempt is much nearer to ready for the prime time than the last effort. I hope we can try to support the dev team without necessarily resorting to throwing out every attempt they make to redesign things. I assume they're doing it for a reason.

[ted_marcus1]

It's a bit of a shock to see the long-time look of photo.net replaced with a completely new look. It's certainly "fresher" and more "modern" than the old software, which I suppose is an extremely important consideration for the desirable young demographic that advertisers exclusively care about. I'll reserve judgment about whether the new photo.net is an improvement until I've spent some time with it.

 

The only complaint I have is the weird way the system displays user names. I'm "ted_marcus|1" which presumably means it's trying to distinguish me from another account I created something like 15 years ago but abandoned in favor of a new account, possibly because I forgot the password (I don't remember what happened). I was able to add a more human name through the user profile, but that displays under the weird generated name. It's really not for me to question the wisdom of designers who are far smarter than I am, but I don't think that's the best way to identify users in forums.

Edited February 8, 2017 by ted_marcus|1

[Matthew Brennan]

C,mon p.net - you can do way better.................

 

Another 24 hrs goes by and I'm still being logged off after a couple of minutes of no activity, I can't link my images to other places online as there is no right click functions and my hiddeen images are no longer accessible........

 

I'm sure hours in front of the screen and I'll get used to navigating the new site but the glitches are many and varied and not being repaired........yet..........

 

I really want to continue my nearly 10 year long subscription but I'm beginning to wonder...........

[Craig_Cooper11664875449]

There doesn't appear to be an option (or at least easily visible) for viewing unified threads from multiple forums. Can someone advise whether this is still an option?

[Alan Johnson]

The unified forum view was very useful. I don't have time to read through hundreds of recent posts to see if there is anything relevant to my work.

[Andrew Garrard]

Craig/Alan: There's a "new posts" link at the top of the main forum view, which appears to work cross-thread. Is this what you're after?

[gordonjb]

On first impression the look is mostly okay. There will be a learning curve sorting out the new layout and a lack of any tutorials, faqs page is a big hindrance. The font size for the photographer's name below the photo is the smallest font on the page? I would have thought the photographer would be a more important piece of text than the image title? Despite the clean new look, the functionality, at least at this point, has taken a big step backwards. Not only do I have to sign in every time I return but I am also signed out every few minutes while I am looking around? The site is slower than it was with page load times and upload times being longer. I think there is potential here, but clearly there is much work to be done. After the last train wreck of a launch, I would have thought the basics would have been sorted before a relaunch. Is there any way to replace the hideous blue and green bokeh image at the top of my pages with an image of my own? I looked around to see if there was such an option but came up empty.

[MarieH]

I miss seeing the photostream of those I follow. I think the rating system should be re-thunk and brought back in a better more neutral and more fair way. I am glad it is gone in the form that it used to be. I am sure there is a way to make it more useful and less reliant on popularity (the social butterflies ranking higher than the seldom posters). It was fun to go to the gallery and see the highest ranked photos in the past 24 hours, 3 days, 3 months etc... I do like that you can post larger image sizes but I find the site really slow and its not my connection as other sites are fast enough. Its pretty enough. Thanks.

[MarieH]

You can choose a pic, click on it to see the options, make top cover, but you can't resize to fit oddly.

[Andrew Garrard]

Not only do I have to sign in every time I return but I am also signed out every few minutes while I am looking around?

 

This really ought to be a quick fix - there are a load of cookies (although I can't say how many are from the old site) with short expiration periods. I assume at least some of them ought to be set never to expire. That should be a simple web server configuration change.