New comments format

since I'm up

and I saw the fading read messages in other posts. like that feature too.

and to all a good night.

And it seems to look pretty good too! I appreciate the buttons to post pictures, links and block quotes. I wasn't sure at first what the blockquote one was, I guess I was expecting it to say blockquote when I hovered over it. The links and pictures ones are pretty obvious. Just something I thought of.

I also like the subjects being smaller and the elimination of the gray boxes around comments. I thought at first it would be difficult to tell the difference between comments with the gray gone, but it looks really good in here.

I can't wait to see the yellow "new" comments stuff in action on game threads and such, that's cool that they become not yellow as you read them.

1.2,3,4 and 8 were bugging me a lot; looks much better now. Thanks.

It's much easier to read. I know it's been said a thousand times, but it's great that you're all taking the time to hear feedback and making changes.

you guys have been right on top of things, and are quickly gaining the trust of those who have expressed their concerns.

keep it up.

I noticed the new format on another thread where I was still catching up, so I got to try out the new "c" there. #8 is definitely a good improvement. I'm not sold on #7. I was bouncing through new comments quickly and I wanted to back up, but I got confused because they weren't yellow anymore. Maybe I'll get used to it, but it seems to me there's value in keeping them yellow until I voluntarily refresh the page. (Oh yeah, I turned off auto-refresh; I don't like it.) What was the logic for making them unyellow? I thought it was fine before.

I definitely /don't/ like the way the color slowly fades. Is this a generational thing? Do young folks thing this is a cool effect? Me, I can't stand having the page change while I'm trying to read it. Seriously, this pisses me off so much that when I arrive at a comment I'll pause for a second to wait for it to stop fading before I read it.

The avatars on the right are a /huge/ improvement! I never would have guessed it would make such a difference, but it does. They really irritated me on the left, but now I like them.

for the blockquote feature! I have used it a lot on the old AN so I appreciate getting it back.

I don't like the way you have the new comments feature now. When I used it to look at new comments they were only yellow for a second and then faded. Before I could take my time reading the new comments now they get lost. Not good. Or is this just a problem on my comp?

Much, much, much better.

Even though the comments look a little more serious now.

Earlier this evening I realized why the text in new AN feels "small" to me even though I know it isn't actually smaller. It's because you're using Arial/Helvetica now. Verdana is far more readable for text on screen, at any size. (It's what it was designed for, after all.) Helvetica has all those skinny i's, l's, t's and f's, which turn into eyestrain even at a medium size. (Not to mention the slashes and exclamation points, which practically disappear when next to another thin character.)

The result is that you get less readability per inch, and those of us who don't like eyestrain have to bump up the font size that much more.

I know this is a major design element, so I doubt you'll even consider it, but count me as wanting Verdana back for the main text. (Heads and most display type is fine as is.)

It's a major problem having the comments fade so fast. I just looked at the minor league thread...it had 20 new comments for me...and the yellow faded so fast that I could only read one comment before I had no idea which comments were new and which were old.

If you've got text in the comment-writing box and you try to refresh the page, you get a warning saying you'll lose the comment if you do. That is good.

If you've got text in the comment-writing box and you leave the page by going back to the previous page, you don't get the same warning. I made that mistake once and lost my half-written comment. That could be annoying.

(I'm on Safari v3.0.4, if that makes a difference.)

blank comments are no longer allowed??

It is a lot easier the follow the thread now. Thank you for all of your hard work. It is great knowing that our suggestions are being taken seriously, and that you are so willing to work on improvements.

thanks for making those changes so quickly too.

When I go to a fanpost, none of the new comments are in yellow now. If I am reading the post, and someone makes a new comment, it shows up in yellow, but whatever is new at the time I open it appears clear.

Am I just somehow color-challenged?

And again, thanks to all of the team for the work you are putting into this. I have seen many many "new" versions of stuff that took away much loved features and had a group of designers who couldn't care less what the users want. The responsiveness has been fantastic.

I actually prefer the Avatar to be where it was, or at least right next to the Username.

I say this because many times on boards, I tend to glance at the avatar to tell who is making the post. Its a much easier, faster and casual way to sift through a ton of comments. But with the Avatar on the right out of the way, it doesn't help.

Thanks for the responsiveness.

These comments are so much easier on the eyes.

I see you've slowed down the fade, presumably because someone else complained that it fades too fast.

For me, it just makes it worse. I hate the fade, and now I just have to wait that much longer until I can read the comment. I simply will not read text while the background is changing around it. Drives me freakin' crazy.

Good changes, though ... not sure about the value of #7

... you guys have done an amazing job in reading, responding to, collating, analyzing, and implementing feedback.

... and there needs to be a time limit of how long a FanPost can stay there (just like the old one).

The Home Page needs some work - IMO.

Thanks for being responsive.

in new fanposts that already have comments, all the comments count as new, because it's easier to tab through with the "c" than scroll down.

everything looks way, way better in my opinion. I am officially off the ledge. The window is still open, but I'm off the ledge.

Thank you for being so responsive!

Still hating that damn slow fade. As far as I'm concerned this has ruined the usefulness of the "c" keystroke. Like Zonis I expect to abandon "c" soon, unless it changes back to the original behavior, which I liked.

The yellow color looks different now. Not sure if the team has changed it, or if it's just different at work (IE here, Safari at home). The yellow comments are a sort of golden yellow at first, but when I hit C to select one it becomes a bright lemony yellow before fading to white.

Man! The subjects are requred now :-(

but I'll put it out there again.

The siglines were better as italic. Without something to make them stand out more, it's easy to get confused, especially on a comment that has a subject line but no message text.

Under AN 2.0, the most-recommended flog quickly got bumped to the top of the list, and the number of total recommended flogs being displayed hovered between two and five. Now, the order in which the recommended flogs are posted is totally arbitrary, and the number of recommended flogs displayed is now apparently almost a dozen and still growing. This makes it hard to find the most-current DLD, which on this site is always the most-recommended diary and which under the old format always got bumped to the top of the recommended list. Whatever the code was for the way this particular feature used to be, I'd recommend bringing that back.

Great job editing the way the comments look, by the way. Like batgirl, I too am now off the ledge.

i had to see what it looked like

One feature I really miss is seeing if you had replys to comments. It was in the profile page, then the comments section, of the old AN. It was incredibly easy to go to past comments you made and see replys you may have missed. Particularly older comments. Sometimes I wouldn't be on here for weeks at a stretch, but I could still get a reply to a question I might have had.

I know the comments are saved to the profile page, but it couldn't be that terribly difficult to keep a running tab of replies to the comments. This may have been brought up before, so sorry if I'm being repetitive. I also don't know if this made any sense at all. I'm a late riser, so my brain isn't particularly functional right now.

are significant improvements IMO - well done. My biggest concern right now is one I'll share publicly just to see if others feel the same way, or if maybe it's just me...I like to know who's talking to me as soon/easily as possible, so I find the user name a bit small. The green is good, but the font/type is smaller than I'd like. I'd sooner switch sizes between the subject line and the user name.

I'd also LOVE to have the option of not seeing the avatar - I avoid Facebook and other teeny-icony-Cindi-y sites for a reason!

kind of just testing...