A navigation tweak is coming!

Talia, thank you for having an open mind. A drop down would be great.

Thank you for listening to our concerns.

daylily_ohio, No problem! Hopefully we will have a solution soon.

Talia - it seems to have stopped for now, thank goodness.

Will do.

I just suggested some duct tape on the monitor to someone. How about THAT for an idea?

Talia Rose - glad to see what appears to be the beginning of a voice of reason.

Terry wrote

I agree with what Shoe said.

Thank you.

Loretta

Thank you for considering all the suggestions here! Much appreciated;o)

Talia - I wanted to see what the PF entries, etc. looked like with ads turned on, so I changed my preferences. Now that I have ads, the navigation box on the left is once again spreading out across the page for a few seconds before taking me to the page I've asked for. Thought you'd like to know.

I looked around in PF just to see what the pages looked like with the ads turned on. IMHO the pages looked BETTER with the ads turned on because there wasn't so much white space. Now that's funny!

This message was edited Jun 21, 2011 2:52 PM

eweed said: "It Just plain sucks peanut butter through a kinked straw." Oh, my heck! I am sooo going to use this saying! Thanks eweed! ^_^

mcash70 said: "Hate the change!"
Therein lies the problem. No one likes change (including me). Human nature I guess. But now I'm afraid to try the change based on everyone's comments thus far.

TaliaRose said: "Hi all, a heads up that we are making this switch permanently now!"
And it looks like I'm not going to have to worry for too long because I won't have a choice anyway. Please oh please tell me I'm wrong and you didn't say this just to be spiteful cuz no one wants the change. If I'm wrong I sincerely apologize.

Heather

Hi gr8cayte (Heather), you're not wrong, and I feel badly that it's causing you discomfort. We are looking into a solution... maybe a drop down menu on each section for the links, and/or a nice horizontal row at the top with the links.

"We'll also look into our personal homepages and making them look like other pages so the eye doesn't need to shift from page to page."

Thanks for considering what we have all been saying. On this particular point, though, I'm not sure exactly what you're planning, but having the home page look a little different is orienting for me, not disorienting. Not a big deal, but maybe you don't have to worry about this part.

LAS

I use the tabs at the top so I don't understand the need for the navigation box on the side anyway. I'd really like the option to customize and move the box, though.

I only use the Member List thingy any how. Jo

Hate the change! When something works, keep diddling with it until it annoys people enough so that they go away. I'm not sure how long I'll be a member here anymore.

Another person who has never used the navigation box. A drop-down would be awesome. This format is really awful. Thanks for your efforts to fix this.

I have a large 19" monitor at home, but it's not a wide-screen. I just peeked into DG from another location. The monitor here is wide-screen. It works much better on the wide screen. However, I do not LIKE wide-screen monitors and will never willingly have one at home and there are many, many people who do not have such monitors. You really need to take such things into account when you make major changes.

Ann

So many members don't like changes like this and I am one of them too. I have to move the screen to the right to be able to read all the posts, and I'm not in the market for a larger screen.

As I read through most of the posting, it is rather clear that this latest change is not what the PAID members like.

This set up throws off the ability to read the forums with ease, especially when you go back to the main page it is back on the right.

I was blessed with a paid subscription (due to lossing job and house and no money to renew) and in the last year so much has been changing (I can handle change) that I'm really start see this site going down hill.

I don't undestand taking over to then change everything... it worked fine before so please leave it alone. I'm with the others who have said if it ain't broke why are you trying to fix it????

Ok off my box and back to my hole

Jan

Jan, I'm in the same situation as you. These are tough times. Some nice person renewed me, but the "spirit" seems to have waned somewhat. I was hoping for a recovery (in many ways) but even without the changes it is still not the same.

I hated it right from the start & doubt I'll ever get used to it, but I figured I was an exception and that most of you wouldn't be bothered by it. Wow was I surprised to see that most of you hate it too.

It's so awkward that I find myself constantly trying to scroll the page to the left, but there's no way to scroll it.

I never use that list for navigating. I always go to the top of the page. I barely even noticed it until it moved to the left. Now I do notice it, but only because it's the "stuff-on-the-left" that makes the whole page feel "off".

Add my vote to make it either "gone", "somewhere else", or "optional".

Terry, melody, TaliaRose. . .I don't blame you guys. You're stuck with the job of listening to all the complaints & even if you hate it too you have to try to sell it to all of us.

We talked about the change today and we are working on a solution. Stay tuned :-)

Great....looking forward to all the white space being gone on the left hand side of the screen. It's very unbalanced.

Having the box on the left interrupts the natural left to right reading of the main body of text for most westerners. Not good. I spent a long time trying to fix the unexplained change to my blog page before I realized that this was intended. How about a heads up next time you willy-nilly move things around via a blast to us all. Patti

It really feels that management doesn't care one bit about what us subscribers think. They're going to do what they want, and we have to deal with it. I hope this can be resolved soon. In the meantime, I am not spending much time on DG, because of the annoying layout, and I find that I'm missing it less and less. I realize it's not family anymore, it's business, but do you guys have to make it so obvious?

*like momcat's last comments, a LOT LOT LOT*

I also agree... wouldn't be too tough to change it back until the tweaks are done .. to keep the paying people happy.. but it doesn't seem like anyone cares what we think

Terry, I meant to say that in your statement, listed below, you are absolutely right, but I don't "Live" on those sites, as I do DG. I just go to them for specific information, so having all the "index type stuff" the first thing on DG on the left is just unwanted clutter, albeit, occasionally, useful clutter. But I don't want to have to move through the navigation box to get to the main text for my "plant fix". Plus most of the navigation information within the box is just repeated in the main text, so it is most often redundant as voiced by others. I would love a drop down menu for the Navigation Box.

Terry and Melody...I know that ya'll are trying to keep us all happy...what a tight rope you have to walk....let's all give them the chance to get this worked out to everyones satisfaction....they just work here and have always been ONE OF US! Blessings, Jo

I agree with Roadrunner:

Yes, I am sure it will be corrected and used in a more reader friendly format.

Thank you, Terry.
Thank you, Talia.

Come on now. I just looked at a PICTURE in your new format. I have to scroll to the right to be able to read the text. Why couldn't you put that in the white space on the left underneath your (not so) valuable navigation box?

Just want to say I do not like the change at all!!

Not a fan but would love to have the drop down option instead--keep working on that:lol:

I have ads turned off but thought I had been logged out at first when the new page format popped up:lol: I don't use the stuff in the margins either, tend to navigate from the header.

Drop down menus are so neat and tidy---so please make that happen:lol:

There's got to be a way to keep both advertisers and DGers happy. Without members, there'd be no advertisers. I hope an "opt out" solution is found. I'm among those who really dislike this new layout. It really isn't user friendly, especially when you want to look at a photo on a thread and read the post at the same time. "Tweaking" usually means something has been improved...not so in this case. Sorry, Admin.

I'm a top navigator also, I only asking the new owners to please listen to those that pay a subscription fee, as when the majority aren't happy then even more folks will be lost from this sight.

The feel of this wonderful community has a change a lot since the new ownership. I don't usually say anything unless it really does mess with trying to get around and the sight.

I do appreciate that maybe they are listening and try to figure out a better way so it will be easier to view the pages without feeling like half the page is still hidden on the right.....

thanks

Jan

This wouldn't be a topic if they would just update the forum software to something relatively new. I like the people here, but every time I come here, I feel like I have entered a time warp. One pic at a time and the formatting are just a few things that screams 1997. The problem lies within the antiquated software. Otherwise it would have been fixed in a day.

I suspect that Subscribers and Users are all lumped into one group in the admin panel. If so, that would be a nightmare to work with. So I feel bad for the pressure the web admins are feeling. To upgrade the software(which should have been done years and years ago), more than likely would cause lost threads, lost subscriptions, plus many other problems. The software is so old that it would need a complete rebuild. Might have to start from scratch. They won't/can't risk that.

Only suggestion I have is to separate Subscribers and Users into different privilege groups(would be a helluva job to do it manually but it needs to be done). Then make no ads for subscribers by default(No sub wants to see ads). Then add a cell padding to the right to equal the left(equal white borders on each side). It would make the posts centered.