Don’t worry readers, I’m trying an experiment. WUWT has looked the same for about 3 years, so I’m giving it a makeover. I’ve activated a newly designed theme for WUWT. This one has advantages over the old one in that it does a better job of supporting newer hi-res monitors such as the 20-24″ LCD/HDTV models that are becoming popular.
It also provides for larger text and images, better visibility of links, plus a few other features including a custom background which I’ll get to later.
In the meantime, let me know what you think in the poll below.
Sadly, no I still can’t offer an edit feature. wordpress.com hosting doesn’t support it.
UPDATE: Some readers say they can’t see links on the right side. They are there, try the horizontal scrollbar or set your monitor to a higher resolution. Also, wordpress during the upgrade nuked all my widgets on the right hand side, working to restore them -A
UPDATE: all the sidebar widgets are now restored. -A
UPDATE from CTM: Firefox users should install the CA assistant and greasemonkey.
http://climateaudit.org/ca-assistant/
This gives you full previews and some preview and formatting buttons.
Make sure to set your installation settings to not hide old comments or much will disappear.
Comment Tab:
- “Old” and “New” comments are defined by age in hours.
- You can hide all old comments (default: 48 hours). Hiding older comments is a great way to simplify your view of more intense discussions. (On Lucia and RomanM’s sites, the content of old contents disappears, but Author/Date remain. Nice!)
Much better, larger text a definite bonus.
Nothing basically wrong with the new theme but I would prefer a format that is a little more dense, more words packed into a smaller space? I found the old format font size and column width to be a little more readable. I mainly read on laptops so perhaps I just need some new monitors.
Cleaner, crisper … way cool. So far, so good.
I’m missing the links down the side
REPLY: They are there, try the horizontal scrollbar or set your monitor to a higher resolution -A
Hope the links on the right side of the page get put back. I think the new format is easier on the eyes. Nice!
REPLY: They are there, try the horizontal scrollbar or set your monitor to a higher resolution -A
I really do like the new look. Very crisp and clean.
Geez … and I had just submitted a post and got this strange-looking WUWT screen coming back at me – persistent after several refreshes even!!
.
.
I miss the quick links to recent stories, and the other related links that were usually located on the right hand side of the page.
It’s less crowded, which is good.
Hi Anthony,
There is no horizontal scroll bar, which I assume should appear at the bottom of the page. I like the inclusion of HTML information below the text box; this will tempt tech illiterates like me to try to improve our formatting.
REPLY: Running a Mac or an ancient PC or some off-brand browser or all the above? -A
A:
I see no links on the LHS except to the Archive. New look is OK.
B
Like the layout but miss the “home” blog summaries.
Like the look.
Will the usual quick links at the right hand side be available again, as they made checking things really quick.
Mark
They are there, try the horizontal scrollbar or set your monitor to a higher resolution -A
I still don’t see the links to the right side of the page, There is no horzontal scrollbar, just the vertical one, is it just me?
I am running Windows 7, using Google Chrome. My Win 7 settings are : DPI set to default “medium”, desktop resolution at 1920 x 1080. I don’t use the zoom feature of Google Chrome.
“supporting newer hi-res monitors such as the 20-24″ models”
Big Al will be very pleased I’m sure, the picture on his blog show him in front of 3 very big carbon footprinting monitors [rollseyes] – well, don’t do as I do, do as…
I am running a new PC, and I see no horizontal scrollbar and no links to the side either. And this is a desktop system with a good sized rectangular screen – very mainstream viewing platform.
Looks too much like realclimate across the top!
Hi Anthony,
I do use a two month-old Macbook Pro to look at your website. But I see that you’ve identified a problem. Thanks!
Don’t see a thing along the right side except the archive list. No scroll bars, bubkis. I’m using Safari on an iMac with OS X 10.5.8.
additional – this is an IBM compatible platorm, not a mac, using Explorer.
I do see a link to archives on the side, but nothing else. No links to any of the sites, that was such a useful feature of the old format.
Very Clean and the larger text is great but a bit to large. A majority of monitors are now landscape which could give you more space to play with.
where is the Arctic ice extension graph?
And the spotless sun?
🙁
Ironically RealClimate’s logo has an image of the Sun, which they deny is an actor in the climate, and yours does not. I like the look overall, but I am running Vista on a spanking new laptop with 16X9 screen.
it would be better with a lot less space between the main article heading and the article
Anthony,
I’m running the latest Firefox or the latest IE on Windows XP and I don’t see the links on the right hand side and I have no horizontal scroll. Thr rhs only has the archives, search box, and a login/register option.
Looks great. Maybe now I won’t have to CTRL+Scroll to enlarge the window to read the text on my 47″ HTPC.
I see no widgets on the RHS. Search archive, meta are there. Are you still in the process of adding the former?
I like the clean appearance, but there’s a heck of a lot of wasted real estate to the right of the comments.
The right side links are gone for me as well even though i use firefox 3.6.
No links down the side for me either (just the monthly archive list). IE8 fully patched. Just tried it on Firefox 3.6.3, same problem. No horizontal scroll bar. (my display is 1600×1200)
While the larger text is ok, the main page images seem to have shrunk a little.
The only links I see are the archive links. The blogroll and other info graphs are gone, and there is no horizontal scroll bar. I’m running Firefox on Windows Vista
I’m on win XP using firefox and no horizontal bar and no right side just archives.
Thanks Anthony.
I like the larger text. Now I don’t have to use NoSquint on this site. 😉 I saw one of those 24″ monitors at Costco. The price was good, but I’m on a budget these days so I’ll have to wait.
Too bright! All light/white themes are difficult to read, especially at night or in dark rooms.
Maybe tone down the background/border a bit.
Am running a new Mac book Pro and there is no horizontal scroll bar.Is this a remediable problem on a Mac?
I like the cleaner look; the right side was very cluttered before. My main criticism is the header photo; it’s not very sharp. Is that the same image as before? I can’t remember. Also, I suggest branding your name. Find a way to display it that makes it stand out.
I’m missing all the side links. Also, the font choice only seems like a good idea until you have to look at it for a year. I like the old site better & I’m using 1280×1024 widescreen format.
* Could do with a separator highlighting the start of an entry (or having the background of the Entry title a full width color – gray, perhaps).
* the blog caption and tag line could do with moving into the image – the blog, tagline and header image take up about 40% of the vertical space on a 1280×1024 monitor. Hate to think what it’s like on a newer widescreen laptop screen with only 800 pixels of vertical resolution.
* larger text is great. Although most browsers have the ability to resize the text for the reader quite readily. It looks good on a 1680×1050 monitor – with a lower res monitor I do have to shrink the text down a notch to make it a bit more presentable (caption spacing verses text size) but does make a few other things too small, then.
* If most people are running higher res/larger screens, I believe on the whole it’s a bit more readable. Older screens/lower res may not like it as much as the old screen.
I’ll probably read this on the widescreened computer rather than my dev machine, now, based on these changes.
Are the other sidebar things (beyond the Search, Archives, Meta) just missing for now? Like the picture of the (again) sunspot-adverse sun?
Anthony:
The only stuff I see on the right side of WUWT is the search box, the Archives list, and the two
item “Meta” list. Since I’ve used the “old” list of postings three times in two years, I can’t
say I miss it not being there.
You now take up 3/4ths of my screen, rather than the old 2/3rds.
Running IE 6, with http://wattsupwiththat.com/ listed as “permitted” and passing through the
“privacy” filter. I have all the current MS and Norton/Symantec updates installed.
My “NO! Flash” SW flash blocker is turned off.
No scroll bar can be seen.
The text is very readable, especially on my flat screen, which is sometimes a challenge given
my bifocals.
Good look overall.
I read the blog through RSS in Thunderbird 2.0.0.24. The posts display offset horizontally from the header so that the left edge of the text is aligned with the right edge of the header. I have to scroll to the right in order to see the post at all.
Don’t see anything wrong with it. Don’t see any real improvement either. Cleaner, yes, but kinda generic too. C-plus.
At a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 on a 20 inch monitor, I have a too-wide screen with no data below the pix on the left and have to scroll to the right side to pick up data there. Based on this, I would have to say that I hate it.
Sorry, I preferred the old theme. It was more compact, and appealing. It feels bigger and more spaced out (I have fixed this by using Ctrl -). The only links I see are archives.
Picture at the top looks pixelated.. reminds me of a 90’s webpage. Good to see the smiley is still there at the bottom! Content still 100% though 🙂
Anthony ,
I’m having the same problem as vigilantfish . The links to your archives are there , but nothing else .
REPLY: The problem was describing “links” in galactically broad terms. Which he meant to be specific, inlcuding images, widgets, ads, etc but I took as “everything”. All there now, and a lesson to be specific when describing problems. -A
Sorry, I preferred the old theme. It was more compact, and appealing. It feels bigger and more spaced out (I have fixed this by using Ctrl -).
Picture at the top looks pixelated.. reminds me of a 90’s webpage. Good to see the smiley is still there at the bottom! Content still 100% though 🙂
except for ‘Archives’ no right side links. Have very high screen resolution on very large screen.
Follow up: It looks like the right side needs to be slide to the left just under the earth pix. I also see a right side archive list on Firefox 2.0.0.20 (too many probs with the latest version) with XP but no links.
It’s OK. Personally (and I may be old fashioned and in a minority of 1) it’s the content that gets me to come back regularly – provided I can read it, almost anything would be OK!
2 year old PC, Vista, IE8, 19 inch screen, 1440×900, colours = highest (32 bit).
I think the statement “Commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts” is important and needs to be larger, a distinctive color and directly under the “Watts Up With That?”
Dear Sir,
Your present font seems to be two times bigger then the one used before. I had to used 80% scaling ratio on my Opera web browser to read equally fast as before.
Sometimes one look at the text decides if I should read it or not. Now I have to grab all the words from my screen to one place (to understands them). 😉
Best regards,
Przemysław Pawełczyk
I went with the “it’s ok” option as I can’t get too emotional over a website design, good or bad – but, if anything, I do prefer the new look. The main thing I love about this site though, is the content, so as long as this remains consistently gripping, I will take the format as it comes!
No links on Safari new MacBook Pro.
Old layout so familiar and reassuring.
I noticed that there is no link back to the home page. While I noticed that one can click on the “Watt’s Up With That?” title to go back to the home page, having a link titled “Home” in your link bar at the top would be nice.
Ultimately, a great upgrade to a good website. Thanks for all the work and research you do.
Also, how about a better font for the title?
Ubuntu 9.10 Linux with Chrome – Ok
That’s better, but still prefer original. That will not reduce my visits,however.
I like the new look. White space and larger fonts are a plus. I view on 24″ widescreen at work and home, and the new look is very readable.
Ask us again after everything is implemented and restored. I haven’t seen enough of the new features to say, one way or another.
After final set-up, if anyone has problems finding the links, etc.: Sometimes in Firefox, WordPress sites end up with the right column contents pushed all the way to the bottom. An hour or two on the internet will give you the solution. Or you could just go ahead and do View Zoom Reset.
I like the format, though the other was good, too.
The text ought to be darker., especially for the smaller notational text, but also for the posts. Is that a function of the font or did you select a gray scale color for it?
A suggestion. You save a lot of space in the right column for other things if you put the archives in a pull down menu.
Another suggestion. Add the feature for the left column auto-width. If bookmarks are open, the right column gets pushed off the screen.
Sidebar widgets not working in IE or Firefox.
Frankly, I liked the old layout/theme better. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Millions of visitors to the old theme should tell you something.
Or, if you want to get a makeover, I suggest a 3-column theme with one large column for content on the left and two righthand sidebars for widgets.
None of this addresses the meta issue of mass communication of cutting-edge science and policy. Anthony, please email me so that we can discuss some high level meta ideas and a proposal that you may find very interesting.
I appreciate the larger font but need a few moments to get used to it. It’s like moving the furniture in a blind man’s house—it will take some adjusting to find the links etc that I use every day.
I think you will get the sidebar links figured out as soon as you begin to believe that we can’t see them. Otherwise the whole effect is too washed out. Otherwise this site is the greatest.
The Widgets came back up the right side to the top, you must have fixed that.
The text is now a set size, unable to change it.
What a shock it was to see the new layout after hitting the Post Comment button.
Hey hey, the sidebar widgets just kicked in. Now working in IE and Firefox.
I gave it a try on my Amiga system using OWB and the links shows up fine there.
REPLY: Amiga? wow, well I draw the line at Timex Sinclair. -A
Yea! They’re back!
Is the “Your comment is awaiting moderation” feature gone? That was nice to see at least for knowing the comment didn’t get lost in the Internet.
Very good. Neat fonts that facilitates the reading process. Serifs are important in a running text to keep the word images together.
Yes, facilities like widgets and all will sure be back soon when it is done.
Love it! So much easier on my eyes it makes WUWT even more pleasurable to read.
A suggestion: Can you put back the Home page link on your top nav?
I’m not a designer, but I would prefer to see the title and the “Commentary…by..” actually inside of the header image, it would be more concise.
And the background looks nice being white, but a black background will be more energy efficient since those pixels won’t have to fire…using less energy :).
Other than that it looks great!
Rick
” Erik says:
April 27, 2010 at 9:13 am
Big Al will be very pleased I’m sure, the picture on his blog show him in front of 3 very big carbon footprinting monitors [rollseyes] – well, don’t do as I do, do as…”
I’m guessing He needs three monitors to display all of the latest science coming in daily which says it’s worse than we thought? Either that or he is a secret computer game junkie and plays flight simulators on a Matrox triplehead2go setup Tipper bought him for XMAS 😉
On topic- I’m too missing the widget/gadgets on the right side of the page (using firefox here). I really like the new text but overall I find the display a bit too light overall (puts extra strain on the eyes, especially at night). Minimal is good but perhaps this is just a little too minimal for my taste. Maybe if the background was a slightly darker grey?
Whatever works for you, Sir Anthony.
Looks good. But it would be better with non-serif fonts – always easier on the eyes.
I’m still thanking my dogs for destroying my old computer. Your site looks great on windows 7 and a 27″ screen.
The smaller text is much easier to read
Big improvement I think. I especially like the larger font. Much better for the 1600×1200 resolution I run here and 1920×1200 at home.
Also, the links and widgets are working fine for me in Firefox.
Theme selections can be a tough choice. I also think it is a ‘personal’ taste issue. I prefer a warmer environment such as my blog used to be. After a period I was able to adjust to a newer, fresher, higher-tech, look which I now use while still maintaining somewhat of a warm comfort feeling. http://www.leekington.com/climatebuzz/ But,… that is me.
I am presently slightly more limited in image size than this test theme you have. However, I opted to leave ample space for snippets and article titles. (I also have special accommodation for the WUWT titles).
Bottom line Anthony.. WUWT is your home. I will sit in any chair (theme) offered and be content with the offerings of a gracious host.
Sincere Regards,
Lee Kington
Text size is never an issue for me. Most of the time I run a high resolution and on some sites still zoom out or restyle them on locally.
The left hand blank column [to the left of the text column] serves no purpose and should go.
REPLY: There is no ” left hand blank column” that’s just background -A
I can live with it it.
Suggestions:
1. Old title at top, light text on dark background, looked better. Also, the yellow text of CA Assistant at top right is pretty well washed out on the white background. A dark block across the top would make everything look spiffy.
2. Sans serif font. Looks more “scientific-y” while this serif font looks more “literature-y.”
3. Needs separators between stories, things were “blurring together” a bit on the main page.
BTW, are you aware of how many additional thousands of megawatts all your millions of viewers will now consume worldwide from having to display so much more white? Better get some more LED lights to offset it. 😉
I like it.I can see all the links on the side,have to scroll across to see them.A wide margin on the left,but I guess that is for the bigger screen.I haven’t looked on the laptop yet,it will probably be better on that.
IMO too bright – the background washes-out the finer font. Perhaps text a little darker?
I’ve also acted by reducing text size to 90% of the re-set.
No problems with the right-hand stuff – all present
Certainly looks fresh tho :-]
Love it. Looks great on my i-Mac. all the links are there and they work. No H scroll bar at the bottom but do not need it, the window is open wide enough and then some.
AND, thank you for the HTML tags info just below this box. I’m always miss-placing (do not use them enough) my old cheat-sheet, now I don’t have to go searching. 🙂
Hey, I think your banner is my desktop image. It’s one of my favorite NASA images, taken from aboard the ISS. The whole image shows a crescent moon peeking through the atmosphere.
Sorry Anthony, but I too am having problems seeing anything on the right hand side of the screen and no scroll bar is visible. The font you are useing is less clear to read than before, appearing rather faint and spindly. I also get a list of HTML tag use info under the ‘Post Comment’ box, which is useful very, thanks.
If I run Firefox using the ‘no style’ option in the view menu, the links do appear as a long list at the very bottom or the screen when I scroll down. However, doing this screws up all the top header info and pictures, so is not a viable option!
I’m running XP Pro (SP2) on a 3yo Dell laptop with a 1024 x 768 display. Browser is Firefox 3.6, fully updated.
I like the larger font although it doesn’t make much difference to me as I had set Firefox to enlarge the old forum by default.
One thing – there seems to be a lot of wasted space around each post which requires more scrolling
The new banner also depicts “Nature’s Thermostat” in action!
Or you could accomodate different resolutions by using CSS that gracefully handles them, rather than assuming that you know what resolution is best.
REPLY: I’d rather have my eyes gouged out with hot pokers than try editing CSS, beyond Greek to me -A
Hey Anthony, It looks good to me.
I spend 10 hours a day in front of this high class calculator; and with my eyes I need all the help I can get. Even when it is doing the work for me, I need to see when it screws up, and redirect it; so it is nice to read comfortably while I am waiting for the machine to cough.
I thought at first I was at the OpenMind website. Humpff…
Anthony,
Clean and crisp, great for hi-res, but miss the “Home” link that used to get me right back to the main page, now you’ve just got “About….Projects…..” etc…
Alea.
My 24″ monitor thanks you!
REPLY: yeah, that’s what I author on. -A
Looks good now, and I like it. Good update.
UPDATE: all the sidebar widgets are now restored. -A
Not on the first page
REPLY: that’s what the refresh button is for, unless you are running IE, which never seems to work right. -A
Love the larger text, but I preferred the black “header”. All that white looks a bit unfinished and empty, but perhaps I’m just being conservative.
Like the new format!
I’m nearsighted and now can read the larger type without needing to take off my glasses.
It looks good, although the masthead uses too much vertical real estate. Maybe you could make the image a background behind a light-colored blog title and description.
Why is it that every website in existence seems to find it necessary to reinvent itself every three years?
What happened to “If it ain’t broke, don’t mess with it?”
Leif Svalgaard says:
REPLY: There is no ” left hand blank column” that’s just background -A
I guess my screen is just too wide. When I narrow the window, the ‘background’ goes away.
Background tone is very nice now 🙂 Much easier on the eyes, much better balance visually.
I like it – a big improvement. More space, better layout, nicer fonts, a more professional feel, nicer to look at.
I agree with a previous poster that the top photo could be higher resolution. The Josh cartoon of AW should be a permanent feature somewhere.
I miss the HOME button.
Alea Jacta Est says:
April 27, 2010 at 10:15 am
(…)
Clean and crisp, great for hi-res, but miss the “Home” link that used to get me right back to the main page, now you’ve just got “About….Projects…..” etc…
(…)
The “Watts Up With That?” title on top will take you back to the home page.
———
Wow, new time format to get used to. And still no note that it’s Pacific (West Coast) time.
Why not just change the time to UTC? This site is seen worldwide, UTC would “share the pain” and ultimately make for a better experience.
I would prefer a smaller text font.
Like it Anthony. I no longer need to crank up the zoom.
I can also confirm I can see widgets in both IE8 and Opera 10.51
I like it, but PLEASE work on the iPhone version. When viewing with an iPhone, the font is way too small, and you have disabled the pinch-zoom! The font size button at the bottom does little or nothing to help. Thanks!
REPLY: I have no control over the iPhone version, that’s wordpress.com
It looks like I’m in the minority but I’m not a big fan. While I like the larger font I think things are too spreadout. Like someone earlier said, I’d like the pages to be more densely formatted. There is too much scrolling for the same amount of information as before.
I like the larger type, but I’m not so hot to trot on the greyish font color.
I agree with Anna that the all white looks kinda stark, but it’s definitely easier to read.
I don’t see a horizontal scroll bar on my old PowerBook G4 12″ running Safari, but that’s because everything fits on its little screen, looks just fine, and doesn’t need the scroll bar.
Also, the pic at the top needs to be higher res.
Other than that, I’m fine with it. I’m here for content, not glamor!
I love the bigger typeface. I now don’t have to peer at the copy and can sit up straight to see Watt’s Up.
David Holliday says:
April 27, 2010 at 10:36 am
While I like the larger font I think things are too spreadout. Like someone earlier said, I’d like the pages to be more densely formatted. There is too much scrolling for the same amount of information as before.
Use a modern browser that allows you to control the font and density. E.g. Google’s Chrome, where CTRL+ makes the font bigger, CTRL- makes it smaller.
Looks fine to me but if you want to play some more the world and this site is your oyster.
The lack of an edit facility – why do I spot the spelling errors only after sending, ensures I will have to check more thoroughly – means no change there then.
Looking forward to the next few months when every tornado and hurricane will no doubt be Al Gore’s proof of the “Tipping Point” once more as he gets more desperate to increase his carbon offset trading scams.
The format suits my Mac G5 – thanks Anthony and KUTGW with WUWT
all side links are pushed to the bottom of the page for me. They appeare below the last post.
Like the forces of nature, nothing, not even the WUWT website is constant and that is as it should be. While I see no apparent trends, calamitous or benign, I see the change and welcome it. To do otherwise would be to embrace stagnation.
Too much white blank space, The characters are grey. If you are going to use this much white space you should make the characters darker. My screen is 23 inches.
I liked the older format better.
I like it. It’s cleaner, and more articulate.
My previous post seems to have vanished so here it is again,
The larger font is useful although I had Firefox set to automatically enlarge it anyway.
Can the space around the posts be reduced as it makes for a lot of scrolling
So, a question:
Looks like wide tables will truncate right…
Anthony,
I went downstairs, unloaded & reloaded the dishwasher, started it, and
came back up.
All the links on the right hand side are now displaying beautifully.
…an obvious case of cause and effect.
Trying to read all the comments, I have to second the notion that it’s too bright. I’m going snow blind…
crossopter says:
April 27, 2010 at 10:05 am
IMO too bright – the background washes-out the finer font. Perhaps text a little darker?
I’ve also acted by reducing text size to 90% of the re-set.
No problems with the right-hand stuff – all present
Ditto! Maybe you could set the contrast to lighten and darken correlated to sunspot number ;~P
You can please all of the people some of the time. To each their own. :o) I reckon it’s okay. It’s not offensive – which is definitely a plus – and it’s far more readable now. It’s a much more basic visual than it was, and I don’t know if that’s a sign of progress or not. I rather liked the old theme, myself. I’d have liked to see some coding improvements, like a bbcode editor for comments or a few handy “share-this” buttons or some-such-like, but I’ve no idea about integration with wordpress so I don’t have a clue what control you have over the HTML side of things. On balance, I’m positive :o)
Except now the right hand stuff is at the bottom, below the post comment button. Something I can fix? Vista and Explorer.
REPLY: Vista and IE? Gawd help you. – A
Further feedback. The ads and new postings on the main page are harder to distinguish from each other (the ads particularly confuse things, and I know you have no control over them). Would it be possible to put lines between postings, or use some other means to demarcate them? While we may decry the blitherings of the lame stream media here, newspapers with excellent layout (a feature to which I became sensitive as a high-school newspaper editor in ancient times) use lines to separate articles for a reason – it’s easier to see where one feature stops and the next begins.
Improved readability, definitely. I’m not mad about it, but it’s decidedly better and less packed. Line spacing helps a lot.
Regarding the bar on the right side, people can zoom in and out using Control + mouse wheel.
Looks good on this 1920×1200 monitor. Not sure how it will look on my laptop @1368×768
Anthony:
UPDATE:
The right hand links are now displaying a line or two after the
“leave a Reply” and the box to check for “Notify me of follow up…”
This is happening on the home page following:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/21/second-mann-spoof-video-removed/
and on each of the article pages.
I went back, wipe the history and web sites tree from my Naviscope, clear all
the Temporary Internet files and offline content, wiped out the usual stored
temporary cookies, did a Disc cleanup and a file defragmentation.
Upon coming back, the right side links are still “down below”.
This is almost as interesting as eBay’s site changes and tweeking in their
second year of operations. Of course, their staff of 150+ programmers did
most of the changes after 1:00 AM EDT.
R.S.Brown says:
April 27, 2010 at 10:52 am
Anthony,
I went downstairs, unloaded & reloaded the dishwasher, started it, and
came back up.
All the links on the right hand side are now displaying beautifully.
…an obvious case of cause and effect.
———————————————————–
But does that agree with your robust model?
I like it so far. Let’s see how it look with a post with graphics as well as text.
Running on 30″ Mac monitors
Didn’t there used to be a link at the top to the home page? Can’t seem to find that. A handy way to get back to home & see all the posts.
I did check out a regular post with the new format & it looked great.
I like the new lay out. The white is awfully bright, I dimmed my brightness 70% to make it comfortable. I have an old HP pavilion 17″ on a dell dimension with XP and Firefox.
Crisp and clear, I think I’m going snow blind, where did I put my shades.
Where’s the ‘HOME’ button, i use it a lot?
[Click right on “Watts Up With That.” ~dbs]
I may change opinion – when I forget the difference – but I join the conservative readers who preferred the old theme. The new one has many advantages etc. but it looks too simple, structureless, in a way.
Also, I suppose that the new theme has many more characters per line. I actually find it unfortunate because it’s easier to read when you don’t have to move your eyes too much to the left – a possible error of re-reading the same line etc.
Tim Clark says:
April 27, 2010 at 10:59 am
Except now the right hand stuff is at the bottom, below the post comment button. Something I can fix? Vista and Explorer.
REPLY: Vista and IE? Gawd help you. – A
Yeah, Government issue and low bidder.
R.S.Brown says:
April 27, 2010 at 10:52 am
Anthony,
I went downstairs, unloaded & reloaded the dishwasher, started it, and
came back up.
All the links on the right hand side are now displaying beautifully.
…an obvious case of cause and effect.
———————————————————–
View from the Solent says:
April 27, 2010 at 11:18 am
But does that agree with your robust model?
I’m sure his wife agreed with R.S. doing the dishes!
I use Ubuntu 9.10 + Firefox 3.5.9 and it looks good here.
Re: View from the Solent (April 27, 2010 at 11:18 am):
I used to have a robust model, but she left me for a man in the motor trade.
Graphics test:
Looks good to me. I use IE8 in XP and a 1600 x 900 monitor, and can see all of the stuff. Usually go to 125% or 150% zoom for ease of reading, and get a bar at the bottom with 150% … new format looks clearer actually.
Thanks for all you do.
I think I preferred the old set up, but imo this one could be improved by:
1. Less white space – seems so empty and unappealing – lacks the old compulsion to read more than one already has.
2. The text for posts would be much better sans serif (always works better on a screen), and also, darker as I’m struggling to read it.
Now that you’ve fixed the right side problem , things are much better . I will have to agree with some that the screen seems a tad bright , but in general it is more readable . One little nit , though : I preferred the way you posted the date in the upper right corner of each comment . It made it easier to sort through the comments on older postings – I always hit “end” and scroll upwards , especially in the Tips and Notes section .
The large image at the top tends to keep much or all of the latest post’s title from appearing until the reader scrolls down. If you created a smaller version of the image, you would also save on bandwidth. Right now it’s 75KB.
I don’t think the font needs to be so large if you make it sufficiently dark.
View, Text Size does not work.
Let me adjust the text size again and I might like it.
As it is now….NO
I voted “Love It”… however, that vote is for everything but the added scroll-down time.
Anthony, I’m surprised you have the red-hot poker reflex to CSS! 😉
I have a nice ~8 yo XP box, usually running Ubuntu these days, but on XP at the moment. Back on Linux soon.
Since I was warned … my subjective impression that page-download took significantly longer, is of course suspect. I have DSL now, but it’s rock-bottom service with a guarantee of 256k MAX. It’s usually just under that: ‘sposed to increase as our infrastructure improves. I was dialup until last fall: only thing available, fairly unique situation (I surfed with images turned off).
I have an agreeable ProView 14″ diag LCD with 1024 x 768. The new format fit the width without a sign of trouble (your “fluid width” CSS is what it should be). This is the most important factor.
I’ve ran WordPress on my own remote-hosted server for several years and found the system very stable. One does get more flexibility, if he can at least mumble some pidgin-CSS. 😉
Congratulations on the nice new theme!
(2nd attempt – this time with Javascript enabled).
The image at the top is so large that it tends to keep the most or all of the latest post’s title from appearing until the reader scrolls down. If you were to create a smaller version of the image (i.e., don’t merely specify a smaller size in the html markup), then it would also use less bandwidth. Currently it’s 75KB.
The main text font wouldn’t need to be so large if you were to make it dark enough.
Just curious. Why don’t you have Skeptical Science listed in the side bar as a Pro AGW website?
REPLY: give me a reason to do so when the kid proprietor is openly hostile towards me. -A
Smokey says: April 27, 2010 at 11:40 am
Graphics test:
The graphic looks perfectly normal.
The subject doesn’t.
Which is, I guess, normal…
New theme is very cool. Works well on Explorer, Firefox and Chrome.
Love the new look on XP w/ Firefox 3.6.3. Looks like it’s all there and easier to read.
“And the background looks nice being white, but a black background will be more energy efficient since those pixels won’t have to fire…using less energy :).”
Oh, no. Never a black background. They always force me to use readability.
http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/
In effect this has changed my reading font from 10 to 30.
Not good.
Presentation’s fine and no glitches on my version of XP and Firefox. What I would suggest, though, is that the white background’s too bright. How about a nice, restful pale green (or an option for the user to change the background?
I basically hate change of all kinds, so my reaction is “eh” at best. But it’s your blog, you should do whatever makes you happy.
why is everybody shouting ? … I see lots of small caps being used …
On my Win7 computer in Firefox most text is displayed with “small-caps”. I.e. capital style letters, slightly shrunk. I find it alot harder to read. Are everybody shouting suddenly?
Perhaps I’m just not used to it, but I find an upper and lower case font more readable than Small Caps. That said, it looks very crisp and cool.
The text is very hard to read. Please change the font!
Much too sparse for me, I can only assume it is change for changes sake – rarely a good idea. In point of fact, your site does not comply with UK ‘rules’ on access for the partly-sighted. In practical terms, for example, changing the browser font size has no effect. You are also supposed to allow the colours of various text objects to be changed (colour blindness you know).
In neither case does anyone give a monkeys, because in reality the UK oversight on websites has no teeth at all, especially for overseas websites. Although once my local chamber of commerce gave me a tug about our website content – terms of supply etc etc, but that just illustrates how profoundly stupid government is in this country – at all levels.
The climate audit assistant http://climateaudit.org/ca-assistant/
worked here too for editing.
With the new format the “Reply with link” link has been lost, as well as the colored highlighting according to the choice of hours since the posting appeared.
Maybe the author should be contacted?
The “Preview” works
Looks great, Anthony! I’m using Mac OS 10.5.8 with the Safari browser, all links to the right-hand side are present and functional.
….wish I could say that for our government!! Rock on, Chuck the DrPH
cooling iphone burning scientists
Not too keen.
Why is it all in capitals? It’s hard to read and FEELS LIKE SHOUTING
I too have to put a smaller size on the fonts.
Previous posts now seem to be in Arial font.
This one has reverted to your previous font.
The serife types are better for reading ( New Times, s th l th), than without. It’s easier to follow the lines while reading
I don’t like the all upper case font.
Much better, keep it.
Layout is nice, but here are some suggestions:
* Use black text instead of gray. High contrast makes things more readable.
* Remove the 20px gray margin at the very top. (This is to get content as high up as possible)
* “Watts Up With That?” could be pushed into the top-left of the banner. That would save an additional 80 pixels.
Current layout:
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/9118/ss20100427211228.png
Sample of suggested layout (made using Firebug):
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/926/ss20100427211340.png
Shona:
I think it’s your browser. I don’t get all caps.
I like the larger text, but all of the blogroll/links/ads on the side are way down at the bottom of the page. If lots of people are having this issue, I would bet that you will see a decrease in your click-through rates for those ads.
The old format didn’t fill up a large monitor, but it was stylish and crisp. I would be happy if it returned.
Thanks Anthony, the right hand side is back!
Font is still a bit thin and pale, and the stark white background is hard on my poor old eyes. Any chance you could make it darker?
Works well for me. Before, when I did the zoom, the text would get hidden behind the right side bar. Now I do not have that issue, I can zoom in and see everything the same as it was, only bigger.
Cleaner, marginally easier-to-read fonts and everything works just like the old one did for me – I run a bog standard straight-out-of-the-box PC about 5 yrs old, with XP and IE6 on a cable broadband that gives good video streaming. The site was nice in its old guise but the new look is a tad easier on my eyes. The banner graphic is conservative and the pic you use is great.
It’s okay, I like the date/time stamp, better than the 3 numbers in the corner. Too American, though.
I strongly dislike the gray text. No book I have at home is printed with gray ink. Is that a gesture to Bill Livingston’s fading sunspots? (Just kidding, I realize its merely trendy, but trendy isn’t necessarily good.)
About time you include some HTML instructions! 🙂 What’s this <
all about:test of del. The last I tried, <cite> was useless, I’ll try it from home. Do you have control over the HTML blurb? It would be nice to have a good one.This may blow out my Python code that creates the summaries at http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/ – I’ll check that out from home too but won’t change it for a while.
Let me try an image of a thermometer log .
The little WordPress traffic count smiley face is still at the bottom. Yay. Now in the center instead of the lower left.
Change for changes sake?
JimB
Tom says:
April 27, 2010 at 11:59 am
I basically hate change of all kinds, so my reaction is “eh” at best. But it’s your blog, you should do whatever makes you happy.
And something that makes him happy is when the consumer is happy. As both a businessman and a TV/radio personality, he knows about giving the public what they want. And also knows when “what they want” is not what they need which they will be happier with instead. 😉
Has that bland/boring stock look to it while the previous theme was pretty exciting (relatively.) At least have a contest for your readers to create a replacement for that mind numbing banner at the top of the front page.
Love the clean look. In Firefox 3.5.9 everything is well visible, font looks like Times Roman.
What’s this <del> all about:
test of del.Oops – my typo on <del>. So, it’s an
<strike> with a date stamp? At least the timestamp shows up in the HTML source.Just how old are you? Even at close to 50 this font size is ridiculous. I have to hit ” ctrl – ” in firefox just to get things to fit. Are you trying a late April fool’s joke?
I can read this from across the room. Too funny. Must be a slow news day for the A man. Other than the font it’s okay 😉
Still looks like “Commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts,” so it’s a winner! 🙂
Look at all those tags.
I agree with Tenuc – the stark white has always been a torture to my old eyes. I never complained before but, since you are changing things around at this time, perhaps you could consider those who suffer from dry-eye (symptoms are the opposite) and other age related visual impairments.
That apart, the changes are very much for the better and I love them!!!!!!
I like it. Easier to read, except for the type in the banner.
But its already clogged up with “deniers.”
Too much vertical white space. Looks like it could easily be cut by 50%. Otherwise it is good.
And it would be nice to have more voting options.
I can’t say that I “love” it but its better than just OK. Just to stay positive I will temporarily fall in love with it and vote accordingly.
I like the layout, and concur with the others that this is YOUR house and I’m just pleased to be able to come visit. But since you requested feedback, it would help me if the comments carried a sequential number in addition to the date/time stamp (see Jo Nova’s site for one example). Often one commenter will refer to another person’s input and though it is possible to use the date/time stamp to find my way from one comment to another, the number system makes this process much easier.
Smokey says:
April 27, 2010 at 11:40 am
> Graphics test:
No fair – it works for you, doesn’t work for me.
Hmm, let me copy what shows up in the source:
This page is doing an incremental scroll, the main page isn’t, is that a new tweak? Pain in the butt for scanning a page looking for a particular comment.
In general I like the layout and theme, but don’t care for the font. Also agree somewhat with making the background a little darker than #FFFFFF. Tightening up the whitespace vertically would be nice too. Overall a push.
I’m sure it’s nice, but since I use a netbook it was convenient for everything to be smaller. I guess I’m the minority but I liked the old setup.
Anthony, Ben U. thought you need to reduce the resolution of pic at top, don’t, it will only make the picture fuzzy, I checked, it is res sized and compressed correct. He also thought making font smaller, don’t, he must be a youngster, my font size is now at Largest setting and at 100% zoom and any smaller I could not read it. At these settings, Largest type size and 100% zoom the type appears to be about 10 point from a typographer’s aspect. (I will miss Lucida Sans though and the type is a bit too grey, maybe halfway between current grey and black!)
I agree with others, the logo is too close to realclimate and needs the SUN, don’t leave the sun out, but the clouds and vapor is great, that tells the whole story!
Anthony,
I like the re-design but this is a matter of personal preference. The most important thing about WUWT is the content. You could inscribe with goose-quill on parchment. scanned onto the server and people would still come to read what has become internationally recognised as the world’s leading climate/weather/what’s-it-doing-outside-today blog!
Keep up the good work!
Oh and on the old page, I could have 3 or 4 comments up on my screen at once.. where this is so big, I have to scroll down after each and every comment to read the next one. Call me lazy, but it’s annoying LOL
Initial impressions:
1) Probably a mistake to put the poll up so soon (‘first-impression’ ‘knee-jerk’ sample). Advised: Largely disregard polling results & re-poll later.
2) Home page loads much faster – welcomed.
3) Main thing is one never has to scroll left-right to read individual lines of text (or adjust magnification to compensate). Sites with that issue are absolutely infuriating. (No problem here so far.) The opposite problem is nearly as irritating – i.e. everything squeezed into a stupidly narrow column – (again: no problem here on that front – actually better now than before).
4) Like the grey text. Recommended to readers: Try locking your browser to Arial font.
5) Larger comment-entry-box: welcome.
6) Older date-stamp was preferable, but this is definitely NOT a dealbreaker.
7) Other changes have my full support so far (but it’s early days).
As several others have suggested, the look is fine, but the line-spacing (or perhaps line-height) is too large. No other problems.
/dr.bill
I’m a bit worried that the increased albedo will trigger an iceage and snow blindness.
Every website needs an update every couple of years. Great job! Some will not like it but if the design is sound and the look clean, and the features functional we all will be in great shape! Thanks!
It’s still mobile-friendly. That’s appreciated.
It still does not display properly on my computer running XP Professional and IE 6.0. The right hand column with links and widgets starts at the very bottom of the page where the left hand column ends. (Below the comments section.)
I would like the purple text in the masthead better if it were more crisp looking. Everything else looks sharp and clean.
REPLY: IE6 won’t display many websites properly. I recommend upgrading to Firefox. I say this from experience, having been hardwired to IE6 myself for years. Firefox does it better, faster, cleaner. And it will import all your settings. – Anthony
The new format looks good on my old Advent laptop.
Don’t ask its details I only type on it and give it the occassional bash.
Ok,it’s grey with a coffee ring stain in the right hand corner.
Seriously though.Thank you all at WUWT for doing a great job for us. from DaveUK.
Not to be confused with David UK who is innocent 🙂
I like it Anthony – and I have found the RHS data links!
Shock to the system.
I’m sure I’ll get use to it after a bit.
Anthony: I like it and as others said, if you like that is what is most important. I for one prefer other fonts on my laptop but on my 30″ Mac it all looks good.
Leif Svalgaard says:
April 27, 2010 at 10:42 am
“E.g. Google’s Chrome, where CTRL+ makes the font bigger, CTRL- makes it smaller.”
Thanks – I use Google Chrome and didnt know that.
Looks good. Now I can read the text without squinting.
I had my font-setting on large for WUWT for so long that I forgot about it! Now I’ve put it back to normal.
So I don’t think that the new font size is too large after all, but it definitely should be darker. #222222 would be dark enough and would still leave the instances of jet-black #000000 text standing out with a little oomph. The image at the top no longer seems so very huge, but ecph’s suggestions should still all be used. You also still might try creating a smaller and lower-KB version of the image – it just doesn’t seem worth it at 75KB. Then you could move the right column up.
I am getting black type on a black background. I can’ read it!!!
REPLY: You are the only one so far, probably your browser/OS settings
I liked the old style with no horizontal scroll bar. Otherwise it seems ok.
Anthony,
I like the wider text format – shows up nicely on my 10″ Dell netbook. At first I found I couldn’t see any of the sidebar, wiget etc, but then scrolled down past the comments and found them nicely on the right hand of my 1024 x 576 display. My big monitor at home shows everything o.k.
Bob Stepehens
No clear delineation of posts on home page — can’t see them at a glance but have to analyze and read the text to figure it all out.
Add some graphic elements to support the delineation visually, don’t just rely on white space and font changes.
Also Google advert on first page is too prominent.
Steven K says:
April 27, 2010 at 12:48 pm
I like the layout, and concur with the others that this is YOUR house and I’m just pleased to be able to come visit. But since you requested feedback, it would help me if the comments carried a sequential number in addition to the date/time stamp (see Jo Nova’s site for one example). Often one commenter will refer to another person’s input and though it is possible to use the date/time stamp to find my way from one comment to another, the number system makes this process much easier.
Note the following feature: The time/date stamp under the name actually is a link that goes to that particular comment, with a unique comment number. When I quoted you, I re-linked the link for your original comment to the time/date stamp. You can use those links to directly refer to a specific comment. Just put the pointer on one, right click, select “copy link location” to get the full URL for the comment.
finally my boss can read WUWT from his cubicle (from my monitor!)
It’s too spread out, and it’s hard to read, and perhaps the grey print is adding to this. I MUCH prefer the old layout. I hope you switch back, or do a compromise between old and new – this is difficult. Maybe black text?
(I have a graphics background.)
I see a drop-shadowed background has appeared. Nice :o)
CSS is neither evil nor wrong, but it is probably a steep learning curve for the novice. Nevertheless, well worth getting your teeth into for an evening to get an understanding of how it does the things it does.
Theme’s fine, but any chance we could get full feeds back via rss rather than their truncated versions?
I like the old one better. The new theme could benefit from at least 1 point smaller font size and less white space.
ecph says:
April 27, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Current layout:
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/9118/ss20100427211228.png
Sample of suggested layout (made using Firebug):
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/926/ss20100427211340.png”
Agree with this post, like the suggested header layout.
Did we lose the “Home” button at the top left?
It’s a convenient way to quickly get back to the top of the current day’s items.
Also, minor point, but the Photo at the top looks good, but the blue font with your info comes across looking a bit amateurish.
Overall, it’s a professional look. If you like it Anthony. Great.
Appreciate all the good content.
[Clicking on “Watts Up With That” at the top of any page will get you back to the home page. ~dbs, mod.]
prefer the new layout anthony…
27 April: UK Register: Global warming dirt-carbon peril models are wrong, say boffins
Greenhouse experiments show reduced greenhouse effect
The world may not be doomed after all, according to top American dirt scientists. Soil-dwelling microbes, expected in climate models to go into CO2-spewing “overdrive” as the world warms, refused to do so in experiments.
According to a statement released this week by the US National Science Foundation, which funded the research:
–Conventional scientific wisdom holds that even a few degrees of human-caused climate warming will shift fungi and bacteria that consume soil-based carbon into overdrive, and that their growth will accelerate the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.–
This conventional wisdom now appears to be wrong, as research conducted by University of California ecologist Steve Allison have shown that in fact the carbon-eating microbes’ planet-busting activities are reduced, not increased, by warmth….
Allison cautions that more research is needed, but seems confident that the microbe menace is not as severe as had been thought…
Allison and his colleagues’ research appears online this week in Nature Geoscience
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/27/soil_microbe_peril_no/
I’m neutral-and-moving-towards-positive about the new theme – but encourage the experimenting!
The graphic at the top needs a few Category 5 hurricane whorls.
I don’t like change!
Reasonable grievances: the large, lighter colored text is more difficult to read than the old format. I also liked the narrow column of text.
I’m trying hard to enthuse but I’m afraid I favour content over presentation
Very nice – try using the same Sans font for your “REPLY”, its easier to read in bold caps or just drop the caps.
Text is a bit on the large size imo.
It possible to have an option to switch text size perhaps since this seems to be a point of conflicting opinions? Zooming out on firefox simply shrinks everything which isn’t particularly optimal.
Test
Anthony –
If you are reading comments this far down….
WIDGETS: I have a WordPress page, too, and I found out right away that different themes appear to wipe out widgets. Every theme seems to have a different mixture of what shows up. If you go back to the old theme, I believe you’ll find out the missing widgets show up again.
It’s more difficult to distinguish between articles now. I’d appreciate some sort of even/odd shading of articles. The white background is pretty hard on my eyes as well.
Oops! I meant to add this before posting:
Anthony, I think the paragraphs are too wide now for easy reading.
And the theme seems to present things as big blobs instead of the concise packets from before.
I voted “Hate It!” At least a 13 on a 1-10 scale.
GO TO A 3-COLUMN THEME!
THIS SUCKS.
REPLY: Of course it does, because you are running the old theme WUWT used to use on your blog…
Please go back.
If you leave it this way, I can read it across the room
and I don”t have a room to cross.
Fonts are difficult to read.
A –
That font is even more difficult to read. Too many words across each column and the vertical part of each letter is too thin.
LCD screens tend to be very bright — black text on a white background tends to be an “eyesore” (literally) for some. I turn my brightness down — but, that messes with photos and other wide gamut images.
I like sites that provide a non-bright-white background for text. Some go a dark background with light or white text.
If feasible, it might be worth a try to go to some less “in one’s face” background color. Although, even if you do, there are all those other “black on white” sites.
The black serif font on the cream background is easy to read and looks great.
For those who miss the smaller text size: press CTRL and use the scroll wheel in your mouse to reduce or increase the size. No big deal.
It will take three or four clicks backwards to get the desired size. Especially good for making your comments in the editing window. Clicking forward will increase the font size.
If you have not a scroll wheel in your mouse -well, get one soon!
The font used for text is sans serif – not so easy to read as a serifed font. According to something I read a long time ago when proportionally-spaced fonts on screens were the bee’s knees (or is it bees’ knees?), a serifed font makes it 5-10% easier to read.
This text contains H2O sub text.
This text contains mc2 sup text.
unordered list
Landfills accounted for approximately 22 percent of total U.S. anthropogenic methane (CH4) emissions in 2008.
wastewater treatment accounted for approximately 4 percent U.S. anthropogenic methane (CH4) emissions
In case noone has found them yet (I didn’t read through all the comments) The side bar links appear at the bottom of the comments section for non high def monitors (not wide screen format)
New improved picture is much better!
Now perhaps to tone this bright white down a little bit…
Huh? The font has just changed to serif!!! Either the moderator read my post and acted upon it immediately, or it’s my Windows XP SP3 that’s playing tricks on me (again).
2010 U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report
Superscript doesn’t appear to be working with the sup tag: MC2
REPLY: Never did AFAIK
Anthony. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
If no one has complained, why did you change it?
If you leave it like this, it will be hard for me to read.
Perhaps that is why whoever suggested this suggested this.
Your site is much too important to degrade.
PLEASE don’t change.
REPLY: Too late
More drivel from you know who hahaha
http://sc25.com/index.php?id=176
Always . Ah well let them have another guess, its pretty harmless anyway. Basically getting closer and closer the David Archibalds predictions all the time.
I prefer the old theme. The old font is easier to read. I have got a 24″ screen.
Not sure if the CA-assist plugin works anymore? (sorry if that has been covered already, I have not had time to read all the comments).
I don’t mind changing this, but I would prefer a more compact format. There is too much wasted space compared to earlier, IMHO.
In any case, please keep up the good work!
In the Firefox browser (and probably others)
Tools / Options / Content
you can choose your default font and background color
Wider view is better, in my opinion. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why they are using that constricted viewing window at CA. Question here is whether this is too wide. Screen has to tic from side to side for message writing.
Well, scrolling through large comment threads is going to take an awful lot more time. Was already unwieldy at times. It is kind of like reading the magnified text for people with bad eyesight. Or a children’s book. I can see the need for a change, but…
meh.
I don’t however wish to seem ungrateful or overly critical. I guess I will warm to it. I hope
Things to do:
-Add custom meta Description & Keywords for SEO
-The 2nd tittle on your header should be left as Html text for SEO
those for starters…contact me for help if you want.
Everything looks great, easier to read and esthetically pleasing, What would be really great and supremely useful would be a button that takes you to the actual comment box here and avoid the painful drudgery of scrolling through hundreds of comments.
Good job on the redo!
Excellent site. Prefer the new layout. Change the blue text (the banner line) to white so it’s easier to read.
Looks good to me on Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100402 Namoroka/3.6.3, clean simple and uncluttered, my monitor is 1680 X 1050. On the old theme I usually zoomed to get easily readable text, now I don’t have to.
Item#6 of Paul Vaughan April 27, 2010 at 12:54 pm reconsidered (regarding date-stamp):
Just realized the new date-stamps are hyperlinks. If people know how to use “href”, the new system is superior and may cut down on lengthy quotes that build in redundancy.
One more note:
8) The spaces between paragraphs are *good*. Years of experience running online courses tells me that short paragraphs are the way to minimize reader fatigue and evade reader “skiing” (“ski”mming & “ski”pping).
Cheers.
Like.
Mr. Pete’s CA-assistant no longer works within the comment section (Preview and comment tools still seem to work though).
REPLY: It was never intended to work here, I never offered support for it. -A
Eduardo Ferreyra says:
April 27, 2010 at 2:49 pm
For those who miss the smaller text size: press CTRL and use the scroll wheel in your mouse to reduce or increase the size. No big deal
Thank you Eduardo, very handy.
It’s all messed up! Almost unusable.
Oh hold it. I forgot I was using my cell phone browser.
Looks fine on my laptop!
Change we can believe in.
I like it.
I use a 1920×1200 display so a wider page is no problem but the default text size is at least one font size larger than it needs to be. The old size was fine. And yes, I can make it smaller but I don’t have to it for any other web pages.
I don’t visit the site for the format. I visit it for the info. Ultimately, this all about your aesthetic, Anthony. Knock yourself out. 🙂
Anthony,
I think this new theme may need a little adjustment. I find the line spacing too large, and the separation between stories seems poorly defined. While I can change the scale of the page on my screen with the control key and mouse wheel, this does not reduce the visual confusion. I notice that titles are sometimes closer on the screen to the preceding story than to the story they relate to. Also the font size used for titles seems too close to the standard font size when it is set to bold.
On a more subjective note, I prefer sans serif fonts for emission pages (monitors etc.) and serif fonts for reflection pages (books, newspapers.)
That said layout changes will not stop me visiting your fantastic site.
Hi,
From the WordPress support forum, try adding the following to the theme css to support superscript.
.sup{font-size:xx-small; vertical-align:top;}
REPLY: I already tried and rejected the mega-lame-o wp.com css editor (I hate CSS anyway but deserves special recognition for lameness). It breaks the new theme. -A
There’s a saying – “the better is a foe to the good”.
There where two groups before – a far too MANY happy people like me who didn’t have to touch anything to zoom in/out to read, and the “poor” readers not so lucky like the first ones and in minority.
Now, I belong to the UNhappy majority (?), and the few “richer” guys with 24″-27″ beasts are all smiles.
REPLY: I’ve personally tested it on Windows XP using Firefox 3.5 with a screen resolution of 1024×768 and it works just fine. IE6 on the other hand is a train wreck. – Anthony
The CHANGE’s in vogue? 🙂
Regards
P.S. According to research 1024×768 is _still_ the most used resolution.
Looks great.
Hmmm … I’m neutral on the actual change …
Now, the next question, how does it look on the iPod Touch; since I’m not on the Cisco corporate LAN anymore I’ll have to give that a try over at the city Library WLAN tomorrow.
Now, a quick HTML test (the commands used will be duped using ampersand-prefixed LT and GT text for ‘show’ purposes as well):
<blockquote> <i>
</i> </blockquote>
And back to normal text.
.
.
needs a little colour, preferably on the right side bar, and clear a dividing line between the posts
Agree with Chuck@ 4:23, looks like you are getting ready for an older readership 🙂
I would like a font that increases the contrast, this one has too much grey. Lack of contrast is the main problem in reading fatigue.
I hate change………
Mr Watts,
But the font layout! Too big gaps between lines, too big font, and too big lines! And that serif font! Awful!
To put shortly – all the graphic parts and layout are too big!
And that’s what some readers tried to impart to you.
Wider screens are not for applications to be stretched broadly but to have two application windows open side by side.
Best regards
I like WUWT so much that I wouldn’t complain whatever you do. However, you did ask.
I waited until I went home to comment on the issue which troubles so many, which is the disappearance or movement of the items on the right part of the blog. At home my laptop and wife’s desktop saw all of the widget items at the top of the page, just as they have always been.
At the office my older desktop saw the widgets moved towards the bottom of the page, and I have to scroll down almost to the bottom of the page to see them. If I don’t figure it out soon I will have to call on my daughter for help. That is, unless some of you kind commenters will take pity on those of us who were educated before Archimedes had a principle and offer detailed advice.
Anthony
It is much, much better for my huge 24 inch monitor.
It is excellent.
Thanks.
Great on mobile (Android).
Anthony
It does not have a link to HOME at the top left conrner of the menu bar.
[Click on “Watts Up With That” at the top of any page to get to the home page. ~ dbs, mod.]
Don’t like it… The serif font is MUCH more difficult to read. If you change your stylesheet to specify Trebuchet MS, I’ve found that one to be very easy on the eyes and very fast to read.
At work, where wordpress images are blocked, it is black text on a gray background, with blue text titles and links. Not fond of that either. If you eliminate the gray edges, that will also go away, I think.
I like the old lighter title text on a black background. The new theme looks less polished. It really is a step backwards.
I liked the old “freshy” theme better. But you could take the elements you like from the new one, and the old one, creating your own new hybrid. I think you can open the two wordpress .xml stylesheets, compare them, and make the old theme do what you want for larger monitors, or create your own. Mine is a 28″, 1920×1200 and I’ve never had an issue (but I zoom mine in so it fills the screen anyway, can you say LARGE TEXT).
If anyone out there hasn’t tried it, press ctrl & roll the wheel on the mouse up and down to zoom almost any application. Nice feature.
Thanks Anthony, no offense, but it could be better.
Add one more vote for a less North Pole at noon white for the background. The extra column width compromises readability for my old eyes. The width in the comments section is about the max that allows me to scan down the midline and grok the full line width without scanning.
Anthony notes: Sadly, no I still can’t offer an edit feature. wordpress.com hosting doesn’t support it.
But the Greasemonkey edit and preview (Firefox) continues to work in this new format for your site. This has all the features one could ask for.
Thanks, Anthony. I requested comment permalinks just a couple of days ago, and now here they are. You’re very responsive to your readers. 🙂
I agree with others that the text is overly large. I prefer for sites to leave the default text size, assuming that the reader has set their browser to behave the way they want.
Just a few notes:
Having the site header text (Watts Up With That?) separate from the site header picture and menu (the big earth picture) looks quite weird.
( Could be because I’m using Firefox 3.6.3?, but it looks broken in Chrome as well )
The line spacing in the articles and comments is huge, needs to be half of what it is.
There is no clear definition on the home page between separate articles.
(either the article headers need to be a more contrasted colour, or a line between articles would be nice)
The padding around the site content (gap between text and edge of white space) could be a lot less. (let the text use more area?)
Lastly, the text for the “leave a reply” area needs to be a darker grey, could get eye strain reading it lol.
I posted this on the wrong thread. Should be on this one. Is it possible to do a thread on the new photo at the top of the page? I am curious for many reasons. Please and thank you.
I have IE6 with a screen resolution of 1024×768 at work and it looks like crap – but it’s not like I can update my browser on a corporate system. At home I use Firefox 3.5 at 1280×1024 and it looks fantastic. I didn’t comment while at work because I had a feeling that I wasn’t seeing the true theme and I was right! The IE6 version doesn’t have the nice grey bars or shading down the side and the sidebar links are way down at the bottom beneath the posts. It looks downright amateurish, and yeah. A train wreck.
I say go with the change. People will eventually upgrade…
I like the wider columns.
Testing here for automatic line-spacing.
I agree. I wish
Fonts work fine now! looks great.
Nice new style.
The text of your by-line in your graphic heading is spaced to close making it harder to read.
I’d suggest not scrunching it in so much. Use more of the margin space or trim some verbiage or put it on two lines, and make the font larger. No point in people having to strain their vision reading fine point text. Maybe lose the bold depending on the other adjustments.
How do I embed videos or photos in the comments like some people are able to do? REPLY: You can’t without admin priviledges
I can’t afford to buy new everything right now. With the computer I have and the browsers I can run on it the new design isn’t coming out readable. It was great while it lasted. I guess this is one site I will have to write off.
REPLY: well you seem to be able to post comments. Try Google Chrome
I really like the new theme. I run 1900×1200 at home and it looks fantastic! However, like others have posted, I would like to see a divider between posts on the main page (e.g., a literal dividing line like in the comments section or a full block background color such as light grey for each post). Otherwise, it looks good!
As a blogger, like you Anthony, I believe the update is FANTASTIC!
I use Google’s Chrome and your site looks great. Thank you for the work you do and if only 13% (on the poll) aren’t happy with this update, SO BE IT! 🙂
Again, appreciate what you do and keep up the wonderful work.
Disaster at home. I’m running an old SUSE 10.1 and really ancient Firefox 2.0.0.5. I see the header image and a big white background taking up nearly the whole window. The scroll bar lets me pull in a second half, and that’s where the text. I had the same problem with mlb.com last year, but they changed something this year they’re okay again. I can’t upgrade Firefox without upgrading a slew of other stuff, and the SUSE update site went away ages ago.
This system has so much stuff going on (Apache, MySQL, Vantage Pro logging stuff) that about the only way I’m comfortable with upgrading Firefox is to build a new system, and I don’t have time for that any time soon. So I’ll spend time learning about CSS, maybe there’s a bug or something I can disable with http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/ or look at other browsers or use a PC, or something or other.
One bright point – the text area has a gray background, much easier on the eyes for the most part!
REPLY: Or just buy a used PC from Geeks.com with Linux/Windows preloaded. Firefox 2.0? Sheesh. Sorry I got no sympathy for not keeping upgraded. -A
I like the bullets in front of each “recent post” (shouldn’t that be “… thread”, BTW?). Now I can tell where one ends and the next begins.
PS: I wish the list of recent posts were right underneath the search box, so I could see what’s new instantly by going to the top of the thread.
How do I embed videos or photos in the comments like some people are able to do? REPLY: You can’t without admin priviledges
Is that a change with the new format, I’ve gotten YouTube videos into comments in the past?
REPLY: just put in the Youtube URL, but you cna only put links to images as a URL not embed it -A
I like the new look. It’s crisp, clean and professional.
Thank you Anthony! I am an early riser but my dry eyes don’t work so well at 5:00 AM. The enlarged font is a godsend. Especially since I think, apparently, I have been posting on a site called WASP. No wonder I have been getting inquiries as to exactly when I was a WASP. My focus on weather didn’t seem to be much different from all the other posts, since women pilots are as interested in weather as Anthony is. Who knew?!?!?!?!?
E.M.Smith says:
April 27, 2010 at 10:50 am
Let me try. First with <pre>:
And with <code>:
Does this theme still handle a preformatted table such that it puts a scroll bar on it and lets the lines be quite long but you can scroll over to see them, or does it truncate like some others?Anthony, any chance of a comment preview with comment formatting buttons?
REPLY: No, no, and no. As mentioned like zillion times here and in the article itself, wordpress.com does not support it. I’d have to move to a private server, and as we’ve seen with Climate Audit, when news breaks, so do single box servers. – A
Reply: I have installed greasemonkey and the CA assist plug in and I get comment previews and formatting buttons ~ ctm.
I like the design, but for the top banner I’d suggest removing the italics on the tagline, make the font white, and use a font that will make the tagline text as clear as the links below it.
Nice work refreshing the blog. My experience with redesigns is that in 1.5 weeks, everybody forgets how it used to look.
I didn’t vote, I still haven’t made up my mind on the layout. But the larger text, my eyes thank you.
Myron, you can now get an E-Machine netbook from BestBuy for $229
The ‘Commentary on puzzling things” lone up top looks kinda cheesy… the type itself, I mean. The earth photo looks good.
If this double posts, my apologies, but my first attempt was just spinning its wheels.
I didn’t vote because I haven’t made up my mind on the layout. Now, for the text, my eyes like.
increased page width is good.
new layout has too much white though – try to increase density by reducing line height, font size, spacings.
fs
Looks great. Easier to read. Looks much cleaner.
Sorry, it doesn’t work on my computer (iMac using Firefox 2.0020). Was a great site.. please fix!!! (The comments come out in the sidebar, so I was able to scroll down and post this comment, others with same problem may not perservere so you wouldn’t know) cheers Warren
REPLY: Firefox 2.0 is ancient, which is likely the problem, why not upgrade?-A
Finally you are fixing the included smiling face at the bottom of the old theme!
That is good.
OTOH, it is too bright, and the information density is too low.
The banner image at the top needs a rework. It looks like you rasterized a purple
font at 40 dpi on top of a higher resolution image. With the new drawing size,
the rasterization is wrong. The low-contrast smoothing effect now looks wrong
on the black background.
I like the larger fonts. I found it hard to read the older one. It would be nice to be able to select a comment and reply to it.
Wow. Don’t need these 3x reading glasses. Think I’ll drop back down to 250
A couple of things I don’t like with this new format, it’s not as easy to use:
— Your own comment is not shown after you press submit. This forces you to keep a seperate copy so you can refer to the information within your own recent comment if and when needed.
— There is nothing, color or underline, to differentiate between normal type and an embedded link when you go to the trouble to wrap one in an A tag without hovering over it. Someone would never know it is there unless you place words to point that out.
— And your name and email doesn’t seem to be persistent anymore. Have to type it in each comment, or am I missing something.
I don’t know; I’m skeptical.
Ric Werme: Thank you for also trying to use a version of SuSE Linux way past its use-by date. 🙂 I’m running 8.2 on a back-end server, but not my regular desktop system.
Have you tried downloading the latest Firefox (now 3.6) from http://www.mozilla.com and installing it, without that woefully-slow version of YaST in the way? Or get the latest Opera from http://www.opera.com for your libc version.
Change is always difficult to appreciate at first (unless it is really, really good). With that being said, I don’t think I like this. Seems to be too elementary (school, that is) and way too bright. Oh well, I need to start cutting down by internet time anyway.
REPLY: The “it is too bright” complaint is quite puzzling, since the body text background color is the same on both the old and new theme is identical RGB values of 255,255,255 i.e. pure white – A
I vote for the home page link to return. It was the quickest way to get back to the list of the latest summaries.
REPLY: I have no control over the theme contents on wordpress.com, but I have made the suggestion to the authors and I’m not the only one to have made that suggestion.
You can click on the words “Watts Up With That” and that takes you to the home page – A
As you said, we must like it or leave. So why have a poll? Don’t get too full of yourself there buddy. You will start going bald and end up looking like that Romm dude.
REPLY: Firefox 2.0 is ancient, which is likely the problem, why not upgrade?-A
I don’t like that attitude. My cell phone company told me that once, said I had to buy a new phone because mine was three years old. Just keep buying a new thing whether you want it or not or can afford it or not. I say piss on you all that believe that is the right way to do business. This is one of many of the attitudes that is driving the global warming hysteria.
Reply: Interesting logical leap to global warming hysteria, but seriously, legacy support is an issue about which every technology provider has to make judgment calls. Is it worth compromising the experience for 95% of your audience because of the intransigence of a few? It is always a judgment call when to pull the plug on a legacy support issue, not an “attitude”. ~ ctm
ErnieK says:
April 27, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Mr. Pete’s CA-assistant no longer works within the comment section (Preview and comment tools still seem to work though).
REPLY: It was never intended to work here, I never offered support for it. -A
It looks like someone else intended it to work here. Right-click the Greasemonkey logo, click on “Manage User Scripts,” and be introduced by CA-A to the “Open Science webring” where WUWT is an included site.
Which in no way changes that Mr. Watts has no responsibility concerning CA Assistant whatsoever, just be glad it works here at all. Functionally the only things lost are the optional age-based coloring of the names, which was of limited value, and the hiding of the oldest comments, which was likewise. The new system of links to specific comments with the time/date stamps actually seems more usable than the old “Reply with” function, which always worked buggy for me.
If Mr. Pete decides to, he may rework his CA-Assistant script to again fully work on WUWT. Although I would rather hope this inspires him to make something that works for a WordPress site in general, as opposed to how the current version is apparently expecting certain things with a certain theme to properly work.
WUWT has looked the same for about 3 years, so I’m giving it a makeover.
Wrong reason.
I’m with Gary 9:40. A severe case of scroller’s finger tells me that the new design is not an improvement, either. The extensive spacing is mannered, the ‘says’ after the commentor’s name precious and the verbose datestamp parochial.
It’s also disappointing that you haven’t chosen a design that allows the user to scale the font with the text size option.
REPLY: No reason to be disappointed. Simply use CTRL+ Mouse Wheel or or CTRL++/CTRL– to scale the font. Works great unless you are running an ancient browser that doesn’t support it. As for the others, I’m a veteran of TV news, and I run this blog much like a TV station. 3 years is a long time in TV to have the same graphics and layout, and I believe the same for a blog too. There’s other reasons for using this new theme too, which will become clearer with the WordPress 3.0 upgrade coming in May. -Anthony
I wasn’t asking for sympathy! (In earlier posts I did ask for a dimmer
background and a better hint list of HTML tags.)
I did figure out the key parts, not surprisingly they’re not practical for me to do unless I write some sort of filter, which I might do to highlight my favorite commenters.
At any rate, the two wide-column format seems due to this in style.css:
#main{overflow:hidden;padding:40px 0 0 0;}
I disabled it by changing main to mainxx and my decrepit Firefox
displays things as you intended. I’m not certain what the CSS code
means, so no promises may change will work elsewhere.
The too-bright background is due to
#wrapper{background:#fff;padding:0 20px;}
Changing #fff to #ccc (light gray) or #bcd (pastal blue) looks good to me.
The text is dark gray due to
#content textarea{color:#444;font-size:16px;line-height:24px;}
Using #222 (darker gray) or #000 (black) looks better to me.
REPLY: The “too light background” was exactly the same on the old blog theme: 255, 255, 255 or fff. -A
Some readers say they can’t see links on the right side. They are there, try the horizontal scrollbar or set your monitor to a higher resolution.
There is no more information on the page than there was before. Why do we now have to scroll sideways or adjust our resolution to view this website?
As it happens, I do have a wide hi-res monitor. In my work I need to have multiple windows open, so I am not very happy about WUWT now taking up two-thirds of the monitor. Bad.
REPLY:There’s another simple solution, no grouching needed. Use CTRL+ mousewheel or CTRL++/CTRL– to change the size of the blog and text – A
Son of a beast! There’s an auto-correct function working!
I just posted a comment where I used “Wordpress” (lower case p), and in the “awaiting moderation” view it was changed to the “official” “WordPress” with a capital P. I ctrl-a ctrl-c (copy to Notepad) my comments before posting, thus I am certain I used the lower-case as that’s what was copied. Yet that wasn’t good enough for WordPress so it got changed by WordPress. How rude!
Is there anything in the WordPress TOS that says to all users (mere commentators included) “Thou shalt properly capitalize the name of WordPress lest it shall be done for thee”?
Testing:
repeating lower-case p: WordPress
all lower-case: wordpress
w lower-case, p upper-case: wordPress
Is it worth compromising the experience for 95% of your audience because of the intransigence of a few? It is always a judgment call when to pull the plug on a legacy support issue, not an “attitude”. ~ ctm
The Warmers/Socialists think the same way Charles. The skeptics are the “intransigence of a few” to them. They know exactly what is right for you and for me. And if you don’t agree it is because you just don’t know what is right yet. Think about it.
Bernd Felsche says:
April 27, 2010 at 9:07 pm
I’m kind of warming up to the idea of a virtualized Linux system at home, but I have enough interconnected things (e.g. Python, my weather station software, and MySQL), that a piecemeal upgrade is as frustrating an idea as a fresh install.
It’s been over a year since I tried upgrading Firefox, I forget what it wanted upgraded, but it was clear that by the time I did those and all their dependencies that I should stick with what was working as long as it works. I got sufficiently burned once when I upgraded Python and most of RedHat’s printer utilities stopped working. YouTube now displays a nasty message about my Firefox too. Maybe in November I’ll have time….
Opera is a possibility, the Konqueror on the system seems to work, but there are a couple Firefox plugins that are nice (“It’s All Text” to kick editing to emacs and Flashblock are the two main ones).
I could also see setting up a new system as a test system that can be shutdown for days at a time or reinstalled with the distro du jour and leave the old system as a file and app server.
Thanks for your response, Anthony.
It’s probably just the shock of the new – my wife thinks the new theme is a great improvement, so this is the opinion I now hold…
BTW: I’m using IE8. Ctrl+mousewheel doesn’t scale the font, it zooms the page (often with horrible consequences). It is just a pity that popular blog software doesn’t pay more attention to accessibility issues.
REPLY: I just opened IE8 and found it worked quite well at scaling the blog with no consequences. Odd that it would be problematic for you. I have IE8 FF3.6, Safari, Opera, and Chrome all loaded on my system, and all seem to work well. Baffling -A
Preview test
Preview test
Preview test
Preview test
Ok guys, go install the CA assistant and greasemonkey.
http://climateaudit.org/ca-assistant/
This gives you full previews and formatting buttons.
Update Make that some preview and edit functions. Not all work ~ ctm
If it aint broke, why fix it? Some say easier on the eye, but not if you have low vision, e.g. Macular Degeneration
For me the new version is not printer-friendly………..
Re: charles the moderator on April 27, 2010 at 11:30 pm
Reloaded CA-A, still don’t get the age-based coloring…
And will the sub- and superscript finally work, for someone not signed in as an administrator?
S