DG Has a New Look (con't)

A continuation of our announcement thread for status updates on our progress.

We are aware of these issues and they are a high priority to fix ASAP:

1. Re-adding search boxes across the site - completed

2. Fixing the journal right-hand column - completed (but we are looking at the RID/photo columnn issue)

3. Restoring the old "Extras" tab links, such as the Address Exchange

As those items are being fixed, we will also deal with these issues:

- Investigate why some users are having to scroll back-and-forth and/or their right-hand side is cut off.

- Review the text colors and the contrast between text and background (this has been improved but additional tweaks and improvements may continue.)


A few FAQs:

I'm seeing some odd-looking links and overlapping menus,
You need to clear your browser's cache. Here is a link to some tips to help you do that:
http://earthnet.net/support/general/clear_cache.htm#.UcziZJxRCJQ

Can we go back to the old banner (for some or all)?
We cannot offer customized banners, and we aren't going to go back to the old banner. It served us well for many years, but it was time for a change, and a designer worked diligently to come up with a banner that honors our heritage with certain elements of old, such as the logo and green leaves. And if you hover over the images that appear in the right-hand side on some areas, you'll get a sneak preview of a future enhancement that also tips its hat to our old pictures :-).

Is there supposed to be white space on either side of the forums?
Yes. It takes some getting used to after years of having a very full screen, but it's pretty standard across most websites. It's easier on readers to not have to scroll back-and-forth.

Does this mean more advertisements in that space?
No.

Is the white space supposed to have speckles?
Yes. it adds some texture.

I've read through the above, and I still have a concern, issue, or question.
Use this thread to report any new and/or additional concerns or problems. As always, we welcome your constructive comments and suggestions.

Please also keep in mind that a lot of time and effort have gone into these improvements. You may have an initial negative reaction to the changes, but let's keep rude comments and non-specific complaints and grumblings to ourselves, please. There's no "they" and "we" here. Melody and I have been members longer than we have been admins, (and we've both been admins for a very long time.) And the techs and other IB support folks have this site's best interests at heart with everything they do, too.

Terry - thank you, I found the advanced search feature for the forums, as you directed me. However, when I got to that particular page, on the right where we're allowed to select which forum to search, there's no way to scroll through the list of forums on my screen - the vertical scroll feature is cut off.

This is just to give you a heads up on the problem - I know eventually y'all will fix it and appreciate all that you do.

Thank you for the new thread Terry. And thank you too for passing on the info about the journal thumbnails. I'm confident the tech team will find a solution and we'll get the thumbnails back. I'll be patient. :-)

Terry, I think if they get their cache's cleaned out they will love the new banner. It took me a bit and some help, actually, a lot of help, but I love it now. Please don't mess it up. Also are they updating their browsers? I discovered I was on Firefox 6 something and here updates were up to 22 something. I had been updating all along, but they weren't taking. If you aren't current, it may be a problem.

Yes, updating browsers can make a huge difference.

Terry, I really apologize in advance, but I don't know the proper place to post my question.

I just came across a very odd thread that I think you might want to look into. I personally think it has no business on DG and to me had the looks of a scam, but obviously, that should be your decision.

Since this isn't the correct place to post this, I'll wait to hear instructions from you about where to post the link and, again, please accept my apology for temporarily hijacking this thread.

edited to say: Wow...it appears to be in a bunch of forums!

edited again to say: I just found out the correct place to report this and sent a D-mail to Administration.


This message was edited Jul 5, 2013 9:17 AM

This message was edited Jul 5, 2013 9:41 AM

Use "Contact Us" (as I did) to report these kinds of rogue postings - it will go straight to the Admins. It also helps to supply a link to the threads so that Admins don't have to hunt high and low.

Thanks ViburnumValley! I actually just discovered that and sent them a D-mail with one of the links (there are many).

If that's the scam about the guy who has a family after his inheritance, I've sent a link to the Admin's and guess they'll delete the one who posted it and all of his posts.

Pirl, yes, that's the one and I, also, just sent one of the links to Administration. It's in a lot of forums so glad other members are reporting it as well.

OK we better get off this subject now before I get yelled at by Terry for abusing this thread!
Back to the Glitches.

The "Contact Us" at the bottom of each page of the site is always a safe bet to reach Melody or me with any site-related questions or issues.

Thanks, Terry!!

Terry, where's the birthday list?

Is the issue of the photos being submitted to PlantFiles being indiscriminately cropped being addressed?

Please tell me why the text size in the "content" size is so small? I have mine set to 16 and when I type it remains at 16....but when I print it look what happens. This just happened since noon today July 5th. The font size on some of the info on the Author Column is also reduced to very small. I had no problems at all and when I left and came back, now I can barely see the contents of the posts. It is extremely small. I have checked both the DG font setting and the Firefox font setting and nothing was changed on my computer. No one here to change it except the bird and the dog?????but I wanted to be sure it was not changed before I posted the problem. Please add that to the list of "to undo" for the tech team. Sorry to bother you but I can not begin to live with it that small. Jb Remember, I am typing and it is Size 16 font on DG.

If I use the Control + the entire page goes out of wack again. The contents is very pale print also. When I type it you see dark large type. It does not come out that way. :(

On my home page the author and the date and time are also changed to very small font and very pale. Same with the list of forums....all the things that change have become tiny print. The forum names are the accurate size.

Has something changed with the size of the text/page within the last few hours? I just got home and my home page now looks kind of "squished together". I notice the threads look similar as well, but it seems to be most pronounced on the home page where the list of Saved Threads and Favorite Forums look really, almost compressed, together. Also the text appears smaller on both the home page and threads, but (so far) not on the Forum page.

When writing a post if I click the Preview tab, the text of the lower message that I'm working on looks normal, but the finished message... where it says Content, has smaller text.

On the home page the lines of text look compressed together and also the first words are even closer to the vertical line on the left than they had been (I forgot what term you used to describe this in the last thread).

I don't want to increase the size of the font or do any correcting on my own until I know if this is permanent.
Sorry, but I still haven't figured out how to do a Screen Shot. None of the suggestions have worked.

Please take this as a question, not a complaint. You guys are dealing with too many complaints already. If it's permanent, I'll increase the size of the font on DG since this is smaller than I like.

JBerger, we cross-posted. My text has shrunk as well (see my last post).

I HATE what they have done with the font sizes. I didn't much like any of the new changes before although I accepted them, but now it's a nightmare.

Hi Terry

Same here...font size has reduced considerably since this morning and the pages all look compressed.

For me, I continued scrolling to see the entire banner when the original change was made. I much preferred that over zooming in and out every time I visited DG, since changing fonts on DG alone wasn't enough and zooming the page smaller made the entire internet smaller.
But with this newest change today, I still have to scroll, only now everything is smaller so what's the point?

To be honest, I was able to accomplish this "new smaller" text on my own, but because I didn't like the way it looked I left it larger and just scrolled.

I agree, it's too small.

Kell, yes. It's not the highest priority at the moment, but it is on our list.

Regarding font size. I know the techs are working on some solutions for those who have their browsers set to a very large size. You can adjust your DG font size independently of your browser, and currently my font is still displaying fine.

The "padding" (the white space surrounding blocks of text or photos, especially noticeable when text is in in a table format with lines that appear too close) is also on their list of fixes.

Thanks Terry....I know you are probably a recipient of groans each time you speak to Tech Support.

....I am sure it will take a week or more for things to begin to settle down. So often tweaking one thing makes another thing pout and act out.

My font size is set at 14 in my DG preferences and was just fine until today. Now it's very small. I made no changes.

My font size is the same as it was when I had no problems. I moved it up to 16 and still have no change. Changing my font size now is not a solution, believe me I have tried it all.

I haven't noticed a single issue today. Are these bugz still showing up just for IE & Firefox users?

My font changed this morning on the home page and on each forum thread page

don't know if you can tell from this screen shot


This message was edited Jul 5, 2013 5:40 PM

I just cleared my cache again and when I came back to here, the box holding my watched forums had increased in size by about and inch or so...still the same width but a little less compressed top to bottom.

I think besides the text size, the lack of "padding" around words, which Terry said the techs are working on, makes the lists that are in table format (example: watched threads) look very "busy" or cluttered.
That makes the smaller text appear even smaller.

I haven't been overly concerned with anything until this afternoon -- the compressed (and smaller!) text. Yikes!

Google Chrome here, too.

Didn't there used to be a search feature that permitted you to search only specific forums?
I can't find it anymore.
Adding OR, AND or NOT operators to the search would greatly improve its utility.

Using Firefox here. Have emptied the cache (again), and rebooted. No change in the compressed-looking text. My font size set for 16 pt.

Just attempted to do a plant search.

When clicking on the blank box to
enter the genus, it wont allow it.

Just jumps to the definitions list.

Uh oh! Either I need stronger specs or something untoward has happened!