With 1.6 million monthly readers, we though it was time to give the site a facelift.
The new look went up this morning.
Tell us if you like it.
(Among other things, it works much better than before on phones and tablets.)
From the general manager’s self-admiring Sunday sermon in…
The press service of the Mariinsky Theater has…
From the French magazine le canard enchainé, under…
The death has been announced, aged 94, of…
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Will take getting used to, but a facelift is always nice, and, seems navigation friendly.
Sorry I don’t! On a tablet or phone the type size is too small and the colour for replies is much too pale. Also, when you insert name and email, it does not have a proper email keyboard layout. You have to keep changing the keyboard setting to get dots, underscores and the @ sign. That is so annoying. Surely it is so easy to fix!
” Surely it is so easy to fix!”
Yes, in your phone’s preferences.
How come it works perfectly on both devices for all other sites requiring email input but it doesn’t on the new Slppedisc format?
And I wonder why as I type this reply the colour is pale red? Not a criticism – merely curious.
I’m sorry, now I know what you mean. I think it would be an easy fix for whoever wrote this comment plugin, not for the end user.
“And I wonder why as I type this reply the colour is pale red? Not a criticism – merely curious.”
Could be the default color. Wouldn’t mind a change, too.
Main quibble would be: HEADLINES ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS IMPEDE SCANNING
It has a slight Gavin Bryars feel to it. Not sure how I feel about it quite yet. Hopefully I can at least view it on my phone without getting spammed.
Reading comments now is like looking at poetry, only a couple words can fit on each line, yet there’s plenty of space for text. It’s pretty awful. Maybe try looking at it on an iOS device.
+100
So far I like it. I agree with Nick2’s comment about the color for replies: at first I thought replies were no longer possible; but eventually I noticed the word (and where it was).
I don’t use this site on my mobile as much but I can imagine the smaller font being an inconvenience — yes, you can enlarge the font, but then the whole thing wouldn’t fit on your screen, etc. etc.
Also, I have chosen the “save my name/email/website” option several times and it hasn’t worked yet. If it doesn’t work, it’s no more difficult than the old way, but in that case it shouldn’t be offered :-/
Ha! Now it’s working! Never mind 😛
But with repeated visits, I see that it only saves your info for that particular visit and you have to log in again when you come back. Still less of a PITA than before, though.
Mostly fine, some font too small, but I can still read it. It says though that it will remember mail and email address but doesn’t seem to.
Six out of ten I think.
The default typing font (on a laptop anyway) is grey-ish and fairly small.
This ought to be improved
Terrible. The logo doesn’t show on my iPad. The images and logos are fuzzy on computer. It looks unfinished.
New site seems fine, except:
1) Print is way too small. Print should be adjustable.
2) Would appreciate the feature to “up-vote” or “down-vote” individual reviews.
3) Would appreciate the ability to block annoying commenters or those who are consistently off topic.
Keep up the good work, Norman!
1) + (Some CMS’ offer an option for visitors to enlarge the font, too. Or offer to enlarge other things, if hacked. 😀 )
2) I don’t because it’s stupid. 🙂
3) Maybe hide the content. If you hide the whole post, it’s impossible to see who’s answering whom. If seen this madness. “But I meant him!” -” But you wrote…” – “I’d never write you sth. like that! I love you!” – “I love you, too!”
1) contained a keyboard shortcut that was obviously filtered for some reason. TEST
It’s ctrl and + to enlarge the font.
And you SO want to disable HTML for comments.
Hoping that this won’t show up in the comment.
I think that the ability to upvote or downvote comments is absolutely essential. There are so many trolling, off-topic, and ignorant comments on this blog that get just as much attention as the informed and insightful replies. A successful comment section (see Facebook or Disqus) should be self-policing, where ‘top comments’ appear first and the dreck is pushed to the bottom where it belongs.
The other thing I’d look for in a truly upgraded blog would be photos on the cover page that aren’t randomly cropped, and the ability to see them full size on the dedicated post.
“I think that the ability to upvote or downvote comments is absolutely essential”
Once there was a website that featured up- and downvoting. They also featured that if a certain number of downvotes is reached, the comment would be hidden. The people were happy, because trolls now could be downvoted and their comments would disappear and with the comments, so would they.
The problem with this system is: Trolls can do that, too, but more efficiently. It’s what they do.
“A successful comment section (see Facebook or Disqus) should be self-policing, where ‘top comments’ appear first and the dreck is pushed to the bottom where it belongs.”
That’s basically how Russian media works, congrats.
“The other thing I’d look for in a truly upgraded blog would be photos on the cover page that aren’t randomly cropped, and the ability to see them full size on the dedicated post.”
This I can support.
Also, the blurry logo and the edgy social media buttons need a brush up.
It is still cutting the heads off the top of pictures on the front page.
Yes, most CMS’s offer a way to align the centering of a photo on the homepage – i.e. center top, middle or bottom. Perhaps the default setting should be aligned to top, as this seems a persistent issue here.
HORROR: SLIPPEDISC IS NO MORE
That’s my NL style header. I hope you like it.
More constructively, the new look will take getting used to. I hate change, so naturally I am a little put off. I thought the site proper had been overtaken by those clickbait “stories” you get at the bottom of many pages (“You won’t believe what happened next…”). But I can imagine getting used to it over time. And then I can get back to mindlessly scanning the usual Slippedisc-style clickbait.
You might be interested to know, the SD logo isn’t coming up at the top of the page as I am viewing it on my laptop. Beyond the URL, there is nothing to identify the site.
“HORROR: SLIPPEDISC IS NO MORE”
That’s my feeling too. Sorry… Can’t imagine reading any Borstlap comments in these fonts, I’m afraid all the AntiBoulezbianism of it would get lost…
Thumbs up for the facelift. Thumbs down on: 1. Pages render badly on mobile browsers; 2. Article pages loading too slowly.
Too soon to tell.
Also, an upgrade I think a lot of your readers might appreciate would be the option to enlarge images by clicking upon them. I always found the inability to do so in the old format a puzzling limitation.
Looks nice but the previous look was more readable on my iMac. I now have to scroll more to read comments and some fonts look too faint for my aging eyes.
Confusing. No idea how one goes back over the last week. But … whatever … somehow we will just have to accommodate the boffin wot did this ! Page numbers 12345 etc. far too small and too close together. It’s rather slow for a Wi-Fi system operating here at 300 mb !!
But am too busy for all of this now ! Also isn’t this a far too dramatic a change and thus must say it appears to be an expensive case of …. “of if it ain’t broke ……, ?
No more rss feed?
It was discontinued months ago
“It was discontinued months ago”
I miss them, too.
Dan – if you use the feedspot interface (www.feedspot.com), you can generate an RSS-like feed just by inputting the URL of the website. Doesn’t really matter that the .rss file is discontinued as feeds can be generated in a variety of different ways.
No, it wasn’t – the last item in my feed reader is “Beijing Tonight: DG makes history in the forbidden city”. Granted it would only give me 10 items at a time, so it didn’t work entirely, but until Wednesday it was fine.
No it wasn’t! It was working for me up until yesterday. I am really sad to see the RSS feed gone. One of the anchors of the internet, poof.
I made a quick and dirty RSS feed here:
http://fetchrss.com/rss/5bc1f8ef8a93f8361c8b4567681976997.xml
Very small , pale font, Reply button is tiny and barely visible. Titles are very pale.
This is not on mobile, but on a PC with a large screen.
I think I prefer the previous look and format.
I completely agree. Maybe we should resurrect Rembrandt to repaint his Night Watch to suit modern tastes. Is his just NL feeling he has nothing better to do with his time?
“Maybe we should resurrect Rembrandt to repaint his Night Watch to suit modern tastes”
I completely agree. Furthermore, let’s write our comments on paper, send them to NL, he prints it and then sends it back to us with mounted messengers! That would be awesome!
The update needs more work. Photos on the home page are still cut off, e.g., the photo for “Musicians Hit Freud below the money belt” is cut off above his chin. Why??
And I agree with other commenters that responses/comments to the articles show only one or two words per line on a phone held in portrait view.
No Slipped Disk logo on my computer. Was it removed? Print is very small, and as I write this post it’s so light I have to really concentrate to see what I’m typing. Apparently posters can no longer comment on other posts which kind of eliminates a threaded dialogue. So no, I’m not a big fan. I wasn’t a big fan of the previous iteration either, but I think it operated in a more user-friendly way.
What nonsense. Beside each comment there is a word in red: REPLY.
It’s showing up much more clearly now than it was a couple of hours ago (red vs. pale pink). I didn’t see it at first either.
It is in red now, but so is the reply. The word “reply” showed in light grey on my computer. Now it is red, but so is the text of my response
No Slipped Disc logo on my computer either. I thought it was because the site wasn’t working properly.
Frankly I cannot see what was wrong with the old format. The new one doesn’t seem to work properly anyway!
On my iPad….? Awful. Oh well. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” comes to mind….
I love the look of it. Very professional and modern! However, on my smartphone the comments do not format correctly and I have to scroll forever to read them.
Thank you. We’ll process these responses tomorrow.
I actually like the fact that the comments are difficult to read since, like almost all comment sections across the internet, they are usually so terrible and full of snarky gossip at best and hate speech at worst. I would prefer no comment section at all actually.
Oh, the irony.
I only come for the comments…where would we be without the ludicrous, rude, banal and just plain bonkers participants on this site and their gossipy lies and half-truths? I hope I fit in.
No. Don’t like it
How could you? Nomen est omen.
I think it has a very clean and elegant look. Several of the comments above do not apply to me as I use it on a laptop, and find it readable, navigable and generally problem-free. I also have not seen the benefit of ticking the “remember me on this browser” box but as another poster said it eventually worked for him I will wait and see. As he said, no different from the old one.
I share the general view of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” that people running websites seem morally bound to flout. It can be very irritating to go to a favourite or regular website and have to learn a whole new set of navigations and “features” before you can settle in to do what you wanted, read about whatever it is. But I did not feel that in this case. The transition has been, for me, seamless.
Oh, and I see my details below…perhaps the website waits for the third post before deciding that we are who we say we are! Thanks for saving me two clicks.
Logo doesn’t show in upper left on my iMac. Freud’s head is indeed chopped off. Would like to see a full screen list of “latest news” topics in right-hand column. Other than that, I’ll probably get used to this.
Myeh. I don’t hate it. I’d like a little bit less leading between the lines of text, but that’s because I tend to read through a small window so I can keep an eye on what’s going on with other stuff on my desktop. But that’s probably unique to me.
If the new setup brings improvements under the hood so it’s easy for Norman and his staff (??) to operate the site, I’m OK with it.
I *do* like the “remember your e-mail and name” function.
I miss the >> next page option at the bottom so that you could just go to the next page, and the next, and the next, and on and on. Now it only goes up to page 5 and then you have to go to the archive.
Also, I second the complaint about the reply comment threads getting thinner & thinner. It now looks on my computer the way it used to look only on my phone. Haven’t tried it on my phone yet, but I’m hoping for the best.
Now seeing it on my iPhone. The layout is not fitting the screen, so it is a tough read. Can this be remedied to read more across the width of a cell phone?
Precisely the problem. Otherwise I love the updated site.
Laptop user here, never have (probably never will) look at SD on a phone. With that in mind:
1) Light grey column at right is too wide. I’m OK that it accommodates more and bigger advertisements– food has to be put on the Lebrecht table– but it takes away too much space from the (left, off-white) content column. But since so much real estate is devoted to the grey column, why not list more postings under “Latest News”? That column could also include latest comments or postings by topic or something additional. Just don’t go the “Trending” or “Most Popular” route. That is pernicious stuff.
2) In the comments:
a) The leading is too great. This causes the reader to do too much scrolling which causes too-frequent taking one’s eye off of the words and necessitating refocusing of the eye. It’s just a little bit each time but doing it over and over and over leads to fatigue. It is much better to set the screen and read a lot of content than to keep changing the screen (scrolling) to read little bits of content.
b) Why the photo/icon/cartouche next to the commenter’s name? It serves no purpose. And it’s huge. I know it was present in the former design but it was small enough to ignore.
c) Get rid of the ‘h’ after the time stamp, as in 18:15h. Maybe that’s a British thing but to me it is superfluous. What else would 18:15 mean?
3) Other
a) The homepage is too sparse. It is better to see more posting thumbnail/tiles per screen than are being shown now. I suggest 3×3 (i.e. nine) per screen. Again, cut down on the scrolling. It is a real discouragement to site visiting.
b) The scroll wheel on my mouse seems extra twitchy on this site. I’m having to use the up/down arrows to scoll, otherwise I over shoot. Perhaps this in connected to (2)(a) above.
c) You can drop the Google+ icon. They shut that down.
d) Add an edit option/feature to one’s comments.
^ I like the idea of being able to go back and fix a spelling error, but on the other hand it would allow some of our integrity-challenged posters to alter what they claim to have said when called out on errors. To me it’s worth having to post a separate comment correcting my own mistakes if it holds me and others to our original words.
“t would allow some of our integrity-challenged posters to alter what they claim to have said”
Yep.
Laptop reader here.
It was so much more clear and easier to read and navigate before.
I really dislike it.
Looks great on iPhone/iPad & Macbook. ( New Glasses needed…)
Looks great on my laptop
All texts seem somehow a lot smaller…..
The triumph of form over substance? Might be,
I just commented.
Very much like the new look and feel of the site, Appreciate the work that you put into it. Change is good and this is good change. The number fo negative comments does not surprise me from this lot…
100% better
I am so pleased you have got rid of the text that jumped up on hover over; that was a real tribulation for someone with visual/coordination issues.
I think you could close up the space in the comments zone
I like. New and clean. I like the Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down idea for comments.
This is the first time in months that I’ve received anything from Slippeddisc. Hmm?
The post a comment on my iPad 4 is microscopic
Looks good.
My Only comment is that I think the site would look more coherent from a large title on the home page that says “SlippedDisk”.
Not owning a smartphone I couldn’t comment on its suitability for that kind of gadget, but beware of too many facelifts or you’ll end up looking like Jocelyn Wildenstein. I’d still like to plead for the return of the ‘Most recently commented’ column, though.
This may have been said earlier but I liked it when the items were all in a row on the right side of the screen. That way I could read just the items I wanted to. Now I have to sign in again if I don’t want to read the Next item or just keep hitting Next until something pops up that I want to read. Very minor complaint. Everything else about the new format is fine.
Disregard earlier post. I just found the Home button.
At the bottom of each page, please add a big “Next Page” link to the right of the page number links. Less urgently, you might put a big “First Page” link to the left of them, although of course that can be reached by clicking the “HOME” link at the top. I flip through the site about once a week, and today when I got to page 5, the only way I could get to the next page was to edit the URL. So, another change is that the page number links should change dynamically based on which page is displayed.
I like that I can associate a URL with my name but a YouTube link seems to cause the whole comment to be discarded as spam.
I did not notice it and later-on I thought the change had occurred after my PA had fiddled around with my computer.
Sorry, but it looks quite amateurish.
I think the look and feel is OK (I use a laptop), but the “Archive” feature shows only 5 pages per selected month. Dozens, if not hundreds, of articles are thus lost.
I hope this can be remedied.
Good work on the overall appearance, though.
P.S. I also do not see your logo.
Cheers….
I got tired of my eyes. I wanted to know the total number of comments ( I felt like I was falling down a cliff to arrive here ).
It’s a total mess on iPhone ! 2 words per line in comments , so don’t read comments anymore… ah perhaps something good then!
psq
Dreadful! Every time I clicked “Read more”, a pop up window about privacy opened.. Can one not do this once and only once per session?
Looks good. Much improved.
My opinion is that it looks more hip but too much margin, font too small, line spacing too wide so just a bit impractical at the moment. I’m sure it’s tweakable!
Oh the play button didn’t work on the Ivry-Martha video… not sure why.
Someone wrote it looks great on the iPhone. Another that it looks terrible on the iPhone 4. I can only assume the first comment came from someone with a screen considerably larger than the series 4. I need a phone I can slip easily into my pocket and so I have the iPhone 5. The typesize of new layout is smallish but, as another poster mentioned, the leading between lines is just too large. Why waste all that space?
On the phone and pad, I cannot get the top line with ‘Home’. Also on both devices I can only access pages 1 to 5.. It’s not possible to read older posts – or have these not yet been loaded on the new layout?
How do I go back more than two days?
I am not fond of the update. Have to keep going back to the main page to click on the next story. Before I could just click once and the other articles were listed on the side. Much more efficient. Looks good on my Ipad. Guess we’ll have to get use to it!
The previous articles are still listed on the side
Previous articles are not listed on the side of my iPad.
Font size of comments is too small, suggest you use the same size font as the Mailonline, much easier to read.
Hate the headlines in capitals.
Too much white space between comments.
Loss of vertical lines linking comments an improvement.
Overall getting there, but some tweaks required.
I may be weird but actually miss not seeing the number of comments in the feed (under headline for each story )!
Yes, I missed seeing the ‘number of comments’ number.
Also, on a laptop the scroll doesn’t work as well as it did before. You’re pushed down too far
Even as I type this, the tiny font is making it hard
Apart from the ‘vertical’ comments, it’s alright on my phone but on my tablet (Samsung android 4.4) it’s a disaster, posts don’t even open.
We have tested it on tablets. this is the first complaint.
Just a few (hopefully constructive) remarks. The first two, I think, are the two most important. The last two are more minor issues.
1. Red-on-grey is something many people find hard to read: the RNIB emphasis black-on-white for readability. (The font-size is quite small too.) This is for when writing comments.
2. Replies to replies start pushing the text too far to the left. Especially when it is nested several times (then there are only a few words on each line).
3. Losing the line used when replying to a previous message now makes it quite difficult to see which message is being responded to.
4. The vertical distance is quite large, even most of us can live with it. But there does seem to be quite a lot of wasted space.
5. I did like the option of moving to the next article with a link at the bottom of the page, after the comments. Rather than having to scroll back to the top before doing so.
Oh, I think it best not to up/down vote messages. It tends to cause lots of rancour.
There is an anomaly on “number of comments”, as on my iPad in portrait it does not appear, but if I switch to landscape then it shows 93 comments. Is this why some are not seeing “number of comments”?
Not quite sure what was wrong with it before all this frankly….it was way more compact and much easier to see the content. Change for the sake of change I figure.
Love the “previous… 12345… 1,830… next” setup at the bottom. I think I’m happy with it now 🙂
I see that the comments now ask for “Your full name”. Will that be enforced?
The thin red font while typing a comment is hard to read. Can’t it be black or dark blue?
The vertical scrolling is way over-sensitive. The slightest move of the mouse scroll wheel sends the page flying.
You have more than one name? Seriously, what will Cher, Beyonce, and Snuffleupagus have to do if they try to post?
“Your full name” is what the comment box has always asked for. Your full name can be anything you like. It asks for my “full name” and I give only my first name, and it lets me comment anyway. It’s fine.
As mentioned above by Helen Wynn, on the iPads the previous articles do not appear on the side. Also, now there is no way on the iPad to reply to comments directly below those comments. And there is no Home button but if you hit on SlippedDisc it acts as the Home button. On a computer everything works as advertised, I think.
No, I was wrong. The other articles are listed at the bottom of the IPad.
I was wrong about the Reply button too. It’s there. I need new glasses
Why has the GDPR confirmation started to appear agaIn every time I open a post or go back to the home. page? This was a problem a few weeks ago but you seemed to get it sorted. Can you please try to sort it again? Tks
I keep getting the “We value you privacy” notification on every page select or change of article!
Waste of time. Anyone else having this problem?
IMHO the columns with the comments are much too narrow on a smartphone and why do they ask me all the time my consent about cookies? Thank you.
One thing I DO NOT like is, when I’m typing a comment (like this one), the letters appear an a light red color which is hard to see and makes proofreading bety diggivult!
Hi Norman –
Referring to my earlier post, all the technical concerns (I guess they would be called that) I mentioned have been resolved.
Thank you, cheers, and good luck from me in San Francisco USA!
I’m sorry to say, I don’t like the new look very much. I find it difficult to focus on any one posting, despite the photo. The problem is the lack of any sort of separating line remarking posts. (Also, the use of the grey half-tone, as in the login fields under “Post a Comment” is difficult to read.)
Even after several days of looking, the new format still gives me a headache. I realise that ever website thinks it needsto refresh their look periodically, but I’m old enough to think (and with enough experience in media to know) that substance is more important than style. Given that your site has plenty of substance, revising your look was really not necessary. If the site needed a navigation update, fine. The rest is a wast of money and just pisses people off.
For what it’s worth.
I love the new look. I’ve been away for a few days, so I’m coming to it late. The name/email save function is handy, though I don’t see those fields auto-filling as I step backwards through previous posts. The thing that spooks me, though, is that I don’t see an option to opt in or out of notifications about replies to comments. If I get notified indiscriminately every time someone comments on a post that I commented on, I may never want to leave a comment again.