Welcome to our latest design update, Ars 9.0!

More good stuff. Personalization, responsive design, and more...

See full article...

 

[stormcrash]

That's it. At first I thought it might mean any article I read, but "Interact With" seems to actually mean "Post in Discussion Thread."

Huh, strange that it's off now unless something else was covering the homepage widget before I guess

 

[Constant Variable]

Okay thanks, it's at they very least a Chrome issue so far.

I'm on Windows 10, Vivaldi 6.9.3447.51 (latest version as of today), 1440p. Same issue.

Window position before clicking on "page 33":

Window position after clicking on "page 33":

 

[auldg]

Look at the size of this for goodness sake. I'm not blind yet!!!

 

[Aurich]

Not sure when we'll be allowed to hate the change instead of being told to be patient, maybe someone will let us know.

That's easy, the answer is always tomorrow.

Seriously, please do be just a little patient. It's not just about you getting used to things, we really do take feedback into account. It won't fix everything for everyone, but that's never going to be possible.

I used to have a dropdown that let me see at a glance when there's been a new comment on comment threads I've replied to. That was very useful, and it's gone with no replacement. That information is now buried three or four clicks deep, depending on where I am on the site.

That feature worked on way on mobile, and another on desktop. Part of the weird codebase split. We'll work on a better unified option for people who miss that.

I don't like how in comment threads, sometimes there are up- or down-vote options present, other times all I can do is like a comment.

Front page story comments have voting. Normal forum posts don't. It's always been that way, nothing has changed.

 

[pyrahcaz]

First saw the redesign on mobile yesterday, and gotta say it looks great on iPhone, nicer fonts too. Just now is my first experience on desktop, and it's nowhere near as bad as people are saying - it needs tweaking, but we'll get used to it in due course, like we did with the other redesigns.

Yes, I agree, it does look great on a phone... but I barely use my phone to read the web. The way the page looks is just not for me anymore on the desktop.

 

[wastrel]

Little fireworks graphic on opening the comments section... cute. So...à propos.

 

[InfinityNow]

8.0 was wider and "better", and each article took up a "perfect" amount of vertical space. Not sure why we're being told it's the "same horizontal spacing" now as it was before. The main container, maybe, but everything inside that container has been neutered horizontally and enlarged vertically. Not a fan.

9? Nein!

 

[NomadUK]

Hmm, what browser are you using? I can't duplicate.

Well, now, neither can I. It did happen that one time; not sure what I did.

Safari Version 18.0 (20619.1.26.31.6), macOS 15.0 (24A335).

 

[Aurich]

I just tried manually swapping that to London and my date format was still US.

I have no idea about this then. We use US date formats everywhere that I'm aware of.

 

[Aurich]

Well, now, neither can I. It did happen that one time; not sure what I did.

Safari Version 18.0 (20619.1.26.31.6), macOS 15.0 (24A335).

I'm in Safari too. Let's chalk up to glitch for now.

 

[Aurich]

I'm using Brave. I can also confirm the issue occurs with Shields up or down (tested because Shields can block scripts occasionally and mess with site functionality).

As I noted in that thread we just deployed what we hope is a fix.

 

[bobburghart]

Glad to see the site now respects system light mode / dark mode. Why not respect the user’s selected system default font size? Does iOS not make the Dynamic Type default size available in Safari?

New home page options are a huge step backwards for usability. Grid mode (which is a single column on mobile displays) doesn’t have the article sub-headers shown? List mode (also a single column) has needlessly large header images. Why does the comment count need its own line? Can only see 1.5 article headlines at a time. Very disappointing information density.

Neutron Star has decent spacing but should link to the full article, not half the article in a preview. Who wants to read half an article??

 

[GreatLakeSailor]

Long time lurker, first post: How do you turn off dark mode and put it back to light mode?
I tried the drop down under the sun icon in the upper right but that does nothing.

 

[NomadUK]

I'm in Safari too. Let's chalk up to glitch for now.

Okay, so, this isn't exactly what I showed you, but it might be related, as the result is similar:-

• Refresh a very long comments page (shouldn't have any problem finding one of those) and scroll to the upper page selection controls, with the Staff Picks item above them.
• Click on the Jump to New button.
• Watch the comments scroll up under the Staff Picks frame. Once the scrolling stops, there's no way to scroll them back down again. Winds up looking like this:-

 

[sasenach]

And the march towards showing as little actual information as possible continues. In 5-10 years there will be no content at all, just white space.

Seriously though, these margins are absurd.

The bezels are too big!

(1.4K comments so someone has probably ninja’d this days ago!)

 

[Cowicide]

Ok, how do I change the font size? In my account preferences, I can make my font size small, but that just changes it in the forum. On the main site everything is still huge.

I hated the waste of space, so I did this quick n' dirty Userscript. Got rid of the comment div to save space because I typically read the articles before I read comments. Responsively shrinks the thumbnail images vertically as needed depending upon browser width. And shrinks the massive font sizes.

I'm using Android Firefox w/Tampermonkey extension to run my Userscript. It's for List mode with Dark mode enabled on mobile and works quite well with the responsive layout IMO.

I took out my choice of base64 background image from the code and commented it out, but you can of course uncomment it and add your choice of background image (you convert to base64) as you please within that url.

// ==UserScript==
// @name         ArsTechnica Stylesheet CSS Android Mobile
// @namespace    http://tampermonkey.net/
// @version      0.1
// @description  quick n' dirty ARS edit
// @author       Cowicide
// @match        https://meincmagazine.com/*
// @grant        none
// ==/UserScript==

function removeBackground(){
    document.getElementById("body").style.background= "none";
}

(function() {
    'use strict';

    var stylesheet = `

     body {
/*      background: url('') no-repeat center center fixed !important;
        -webkit-background-size: cover !important;
        -moz-background-size: cover !important;
        -o-background-size: cover !important;
        background-size: cover !important;
*/

}

.relative.block.aspect-video { /* remove or resize thumbnail pic div */

/* display: none !important; */

  height: 65px;

}

* { font-size: 14px !important; }  /* quick n' dirty font shrinkage */

.text-center {   /* remove comment div */

  display: none !important;
}

`;

    var styleElem = document.createElement('style');
    styleElem.textContent = stylesheet;
    document.head.appendChild(styleElem);
})();

 

[UnicornsRule]

This is god awful, put the old site back. The Fisher Price giant fonts are bad but the chaotic grid that makes it hard to focus on anything is 200x worse. Who approved this? What testing was done?

 

[Steve-D]

Did something happen with "multiquote"?

Win10, Chrome, List View...

If I highlight part of someone's comment and click <quote> at the prompt the quote is inserted into the Comments form.
I If I do it again it is added as another quoted comment (so far so good).
BUT...
if I highlight a comment , click <multiquote> then move to another comment to do the same, then navigate to the comment's text input and click <insert quotes> I see something like this:

...and I can't insert anything into my comment until I mouse-click somewhere on the page within the comments section.

 

[TheNewShiny]

Funny, I just noticed a 'toggle width' button on the forum. Was that there since the forum revamp? Lower left corner, looks like a full-screen double arrow, which expands the forum to full-window width. Margin haters rejoice! (until you realize it only applies to the forum)

Side note: ouch, my OCD. Just about everything about that lower left corner is misaligned. The > are too high, the 'Dark theme' is too low, the toggle is too high.

 

[MiggityMikeB]

Long time lurker, first post: How do you turn off dark mode and put it back to light mode?
I tried the drop down under the sun icon in the upper right but that does nothing

You have to use alternate views like List View or Neutron Star. The default "Grid View" is a forced dark mode on the main page. Unfortunately, the big headers on every article are a forced dark mode even in light mode. Hopefully it is fixed soon, but the alternate views will get around it in the meantime.

 

[ckm8kng2]

I wonder who was clamoring for a redesign?? Maybe give readers the option to continue with the design they've been using for years and years.
Ugh

 

[Who Me?]

Moar density!
With that out of the way, it seems when I read an article's comments on one device and then open them on another, I'm not taken to the right spot...anyone else seeing that? I noticed it going from Firefox Android to Firefox Windows.

Edit - it doesn't work on the same device either , so probably another symptom of the bug already mentioned.

 

[kb_]

The big gap over the header looks weird

 

[Aurich]

Okay, so, this isn't exactly what I showed you, but it might be related, as the result is similar:-

• Refresh a very long comments page (shouldn't have any problem finding one of those) and scroll to the upper page selection controls, with the Staff Picks item above them.
• Click on the Jump to New button.
• Watch the comments scroll up under the Staff Picks frame. Once the scrolling stops, there's no way to scroll them back down again. Winds up looking like this:-

View attachment 91971

Ah ok, edge case stuff, so won't prioritize, but I'll make a note of it. Thanks!

 

[HoorayForEverything]

[Stories I commented on recently] worked one way on mobile, and another on desktop. Part of the weird codebase split. We'll work on a better unified option for people who miss that.

FWIW I vastly preferred the way mobile did it, so when you do put it back, I vote for taking design lessons from that way of doing it.

And yes, I came here to say "hey! Where's that gone?" because it's the way I was using every single time I was making a casual visit when on the train or whatever.

Otherwise though, love the update! And it has accidentally fixed whatever weird CSS edge case made comments text unusably tiny on Silk, so hoorah for that too.

 

[Aurich]

Funny, I just noticed a 'toggle width' button on the forum. Was that there since the forum revamp?

Yes, it's been there the whole time. I keep mine toggled to fixed width because readability is terrible with full width.

If people prefer it for the forum it's there! But it's not something we'd ever do for the front page. Even if we adjusted widths or margins we'd keep a fixed width, going just full "wide as your browser" isn't good for reading.

 

[Aurich]

FWIW I vastly preferred the way mobile did it, so when you do put it back, I vote for taking design lessons from that way of doing it.

And yes, I came here to say "hey! Where's that gone?" because it's the way I was using every single time I was making a casual visit when on the train or whatever.

Otherwise though, love the update! And it has accidentally fixed whatever weird CSS edge case made comments text unusably tiny on Silk, so hoorah for that too.

What did you prefer about the mobile way? Because it's pretty much what we have right now, it listed actual replies. What you get with the number on your avatar in the nav.

 

[mdrejhon]

I see sign in at the upper right corner sometimes when it thinks I should sign in.
When I click,
Sometimes my sign-in mysteriously looks like this:

Then the next screen is me actually signed in, as if it was automatic (i.e. suddenly realized I had the session cookie after all).

Perhaps it's a cached sign-in front page? If so, maybe make the Sign In popup "already signed in" aware, and display "You're already signed in", in the event that the sign in link is loaded while already signed in?

 

[HoorayForEverything]

What did you prefer about the mobile way? Because it's pretty much what we have right now, it listed actual replies. What you get with the number on your avatar in the nav.

Aha! Thanks for the reply and that does help, so what I just learned is:

"Show all" doesn't go back past today. Now you have replied to me I can see the reply in the list. (Possibly the lack of history because of the switchover? Possibly I could have thought of that myself before posting?) Because there was no history I saw a big blank box where I expected a list and I assumed the whole feature had walked.

Secondly, I had to go into "Preferences" and turn on various autowatches. So I don't know if maybe the update also nerfed those defaults.

ETA: And I've just discovered you can add me to the "can't sign in on Chrome mobile" gang - I get a popup with "Sign In" but no link or fields or anything.

 

[Aurich]

Aha! Thanks for the reply and that does help, so what I just learned is:

"Show all" doesn't go back past today. Now you have replied to me I can see the reply in the list. (Possibly the lack of history because of the switchover? Possibly I could have thought of that myself before posting?) Because there was no history I saw a big blank box where I expected a list and I assumed the whole feature had walked.

Secondly, I had to go into "Preferences" and turn on various autowatches. So I don't know if maybe the update also nerfed those defaults.

Ah, it could be it didn't populate with stuff from before. I'm not actually certain. The problem is my notifications, even with reactions turned off, blow up within an hour, let alone overnight, so I'm a bad test case for checking. And uh, nobody replies to my forum test accounts so I don't have any history with them to check.

I think we can still improve that feature, but we have a whole round of comment improvements planned, so some of it was put off until then.

 

[DanNeely]

Husband has two horizontal 16*9 on top of each other with two vertical 9*16 on the sides.

Logs and docs is the reason for the vertical ones. Central is for code and apps. I rarely see him use the upper central. For what it's worth I like the redesign. Good job.

Except for dashboards showing something big that only needs a glance stacked monitors run into the problem that they overfill your field of view and cause neckstrain from having to tilt your head up/down a lot.

 

[TechieMcD]

Over the past decade, more and more site designers are using sparse formats that can serve both large-screen computer browsers and little mobile devices. It seems to me that Ars has joined the parade to optimize for small screens. This is done at the expense of a usable, enjoyable, efficient UI for the large-screen consumers. I do not appreciate having a lower information density on my large screen. I do not appreciate having to scroll more. Please give us controls for font size, leading, and graphic scaling.

Please add a NONE filter for the Most Read list that wastes space. Let us turn it off.

 

[DanNeely]

dear god

CLASSIC MODE IS A LIE!!! WTF?!?!

Classic mode is the same thing it has been for the last 20-ish years and a very early site redesign. It actually goes back to the original blog style page layout, not any of the 5 or 10 designs between that and today.

 

[Aurich]

Classic mode is the same thing it has been for the last 20-ish years and a very early site redesign. It actually goes back to the original blog style page layout, not any of the 5 or 10 designs between that and today.

Yeah, non-subs don't realize that Classic Mode has been a thing since 2016 because it used to only appear as an option for logged-in subscribers.

Now we let you see how it works so you can decide if it's worth subbing for, which is a better model imo.

But it does create the impression that it's new, so that's confusing people.

 

[dansoton]

Yes, it's been there the whole time. I keep mine toggled to fixed width because readability is terrible with full width.

If people prefer it for the forum it's there! But it's not something we'd ever do for the front page. Even if we adjusted widths or margins we'd keep a fixed width, going just full "wide as your browser" isn't good for reading.

I agree with this for the main site, with the caveat that it would be nice to customize a particular view style with a 'density/width' option similar to how Gmail supports different viewing densities.

I do get that we have Classic, Grid, List, and Neutron, but for Grid for example, I think there's value in supporting a 3 column top layout, as you get to view a lot more of the recent articles whilst still maintaining a magazine type format below that. But I also understand others may not value a 3-column layout as it may be subjective, so making it configurable could be an option (power option for subscribers?).

Here's a crude example of what I meant (I also moved the headline article to the left as I read left to right so want to see the main article first (subjective I'm sure) and also slightly reduce the size of the 2nd and 3rd columns as I think it scans better):

I didn't focus on the card section below that, but there's an argument for making that a 4 column layout on this style of view.

(Edit: Mockup from screenshot on 5K montor so fonts aren't as small as when viewing this image on a smaller monitor).

 

[A harmless pie]

Yes, it's been there the whole time. I keep mine toggled to fixed width because readability is terrible with full width.

If people prefer it for the forum it's there! But it's not something we'd ever do for the front page. Even if we adjusted widths or margins we'd keep a fixed width, going just full "wide as your browser" isn't good for reading.

Even if a representative poll of humanity suggested that most people agreed with me about what is and isn't "good for reading", that wouldn't give me the certainty to say anything more than "most people seem to like it this way". Could such a toggle exist for those of us who do like a wider experience? Why would it be locked to the forum?

 

[blookoolaid]

Clicking the next button in the comments used to take you to the first comment on the next page. Now it takes me to the bottom of the comments on the next page. Also the article isn't collapsed when reading comments so as I scroll to the top, I overshoot the top of the comments and wind up back in the article.

I think Ars would do well to crowdsource a redesign. I'm a professional web developer and there are likely hundreds like me who'd be happy to contribute to an open source project to build a beautiful and usable Ars site.

It's tough to see a site I read every day make so many basic errors with their design and roll out. Us Arsians are a competent and friendly lot. I think a collaboration with the community would enable Ars to provide an amazing experience and free up their small team to focus on running the business while the community helps with site maintenance.

 

[Don Reba]

Neutron Star has decent spacing but should link to the full article, not half the article in a preview. Who wants to read half an article??

News articles are usually structured to give the essential information in the first few paragraphs. People reading for enjoyment savour whole articles, but those reading for information often stop early.

 

[TechTickTock]

I just wanted to say that this update is horrible and makes me not want to visit, you took a readable site and made it garbage.

 

[TheNewShiny]

New issue (for me). Edit: nvm, it's related to the login issue. Read on if interested.
_______________

I keep getting presented with the grid view (probably because the login cookie somehow not being processed right, Firefox, uBlock, Privacy Badger, Win11).

The problem: to get to the classic mode I hit the 'classic' button, but it brings me to https://meincmagazine.com/classic-preview, which is a three-article page in classic view with an explanatory banner about the view mode. The banner stays, and I can't scroll to see new articles. Clicking on the other views and going back to classic it says "preference saved" or so, and it's the actual classic view, not the preview.

If that's a bug, maybe it's worth doing a search for "classic-preview" in the site code to make sure that's not hard-coded anywhere. Or do I have a stuck cache/cookie issue?

Edit: got it, it's indeed because I'm not yet logged in: non-subscribers only get the preview enticement. Once the login issue is fixed I shouldn't be seeing this anymore.