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!)
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Test superscript
Test subscript
Reply: Very interesting, not all formatting works for non admins. I will report this to John A, but I don’t think there will be much he can do about it. I think it’s a security feature.~ ctm
The new top world photo is nice, an improvement. Plus glad you lost the retro-seventies neon purple top text (“commentary on puzzling things…”).
I dont mind it but are monitors still gonna do the odd bit of vasectomy.
he he, I know……………………………………….. snip.
Re: logged out ctm on April 28, 2010 at 12:30 am
Yup, I found that out long ago when I reported my “discovery” of CA-A working on WUWT in Tips & Notes, and while doing so found out that formatting which looks good in the Preview will only come through on posting if that particular site allows it. Thus sub- and superscript look very pretty on Preview at WUWT, however….
And I have just accepted I have no overriding reason to not be asleep right now. Good night!
CTM, thanks for the info but preview and such should be integrated into WordPress, Blogger has had it for ages, no excuse from WordPress IMO.
Love it!
Very clean and readable. A huge improvement.
8/10. As a graphic designer, retain the nice 1.5 paragraph line spacing – but replace the serif typeface with an easier to read font. I’m sure that well over 50% of all those posted comments from our ‘science’ audience will appreciate the text change.
Suggest Futura, Myriad, Optane or Phinster – all cleaner, crisper and very easy to read. I can e.mail you the font files if you need them.
Hope this helps. PS. Like many, WUWT is now my home page, not just a ‘favourite’ anymore.
New format doesn’t work with pre-Windows XP operating systems running Firefox. This might not trouble most people but will cause difficulties for those who are not so well-heeled, the elderly, and those in the third world who are still nursing their PCs and haven’t the expertise or the wherewithal to upgrade their hardware and software.
seems to load a bit slower than previous format. But ok for me
Anthony : we sm to have become a bit more political in the last few months, lets get back to the sciences, havnt had much on solar of late, or on ARGO results, etcetc.
RE: Sadly, no I still can’t offer an edit feature. wordpress.com hosting doesn’t support it.
I note elsewhere, (in Policy) there is a mention that defective posts can be refreshed if they are brand new — is this really possible?
Test Linux, Firefox, Greasemonkey.
Looks cool.
Test2 Linux, Firefox, Greasemonkey.
BTW so WordPress does not allow plugins with their hosting? I am just surprised that they do not.
REPLY: They deem it a security risk.
The first two tests were for direct graphic image. It doesn’t work and I think this is a good thing. It would be wide open to abuse. This is just a test of embedded link which should be ok and preview works fine. A nice improvement and thank you for the work you do, Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
Link
Anthony
With the new theme, might a new focus be on new topics as well?
In reviewing the past Icelandic volcano eruption situation, it seemed to me that with the entire past world focus was on manmade greenhouse gases only and we seemed to have taken our eye off other natural planetary cycles and potential risks which are far more consequential and immediate. [black swans?]
Some new major subtopics could be:
VULCANISM [all locations and not just Iceland],
EARTHQUAKES,
UPCOMING GLOBAL COOLING,
POSSIBLE IMPACT OF EARTH PASSING THROUGH A TAIL OF A COMET ,
INLAND MAJOR STORMS.[as opposed to hurricanes ]
Major risks in these areas are far more likely than global warming
I feel that the Kamchtka Peninsula and Kurile Island area especially poses a real risk in the future as major eruptions are long overdue here.
Mr Watts,
They say – “seeing is believing”. Look at the screenshots below. Half of them are in 100% size, the other half of them in 80% (which I prefer and MUST use for ___fast reading___). The latter resemble what I have been seeing watching your former WWW layout.
http://pp.blast.pl/wuwt/new.www/ssw_04.png – 100%
http://pp.blast.pl/wuwt/new.www/ssw_01.png – 80%
http://pp.blast.pl/wuwt/new.www/ssw_03.png – 100%
http://pp.blast.pl/wuwt/new.www/ssw_02.png – 80%
http://pp.blast.pl/wuwt/new.www/ssw_05.png – 100%
http://pp.blast.pl/wuwt/new.www/ssw_06.png – 80%
The present layout looks like computer monitor screen being under magnifying glass.
And there is a lot of wasted space on your WWW.
It is badly conceived project. It is against good practice in WWW layout development.
And last but not least. It is YOUR blog, but created for US, isn’t it?
Best regards
REPLY: This theme I’m using, called Twenty Ten, is now the defacto standard default theme for WordPress. You can read about it here: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/new-theme-twenty-ten/
I doubt seriously that given their manpower, millions of users, and mostly positive feedback that it could be called a “badly conceived project”.
Could it be better? Sure, like anything there’s always room for improvement and tweaking. Am I going to go back to the old theme given what the WordPress user feedback and my own poll shows? Not likely. I’ve tested this new theme at 1024×768 resolution and it works just fine. In your screencap http://pp.blast.pl/wuwt/new.www/ssw_04.png it would also be OK if you didn’t run a sidebar in Opera.
The www trend is to go to larger screen resolutions given that computer monitors and video cards now routinely support higher resolutions. The advent of HDTV is part of the reason for this. I’d be remiss by not moving forward to make the blog more readable at larger monitor resolutions. Many people had to magnify WUWT given their monitor resolution. Shall I ignore them in favor of older standards?
I don’t disagree with you that there is some wasted whitespace, and with the release of WordPress 3.0 in May I’m hoping for a better CSS editor than the lame-o version they have now which is user hostile. – Anthony
Ric Werme says:
April 27, 2010 at 10:52 pm
This may be one of those issues that’s an issue only because one person mentioned it. It could also be due to:
The wider white area and greater percentage of white space
The alternating background before – one comment with background #ffffff, the next with #f5f5f5, subtle, but noticable.
The gray text gives a bit of washed out feel.
I like the Times Roman serif font, but that could be an issue with lower resolution monitors.
I like the wide box for the website component of a comment since I can see the whole thing and sometimes change it meet the situation. Hmm, guess I better change it.
The smiley face is gone! WUWT? I loved that little bugger.
REPLY: It was linked to the old theme, some little inside humor from the developer of that theme that is not present in this one. But I may have a solution. Look carefully for it in the near future at the top/bottom of the page -A
There is too much white on the screen. The space between lines is too large, and the letters with this font seem too wide. The space between paragraphs and comments is too large. As I return to WUWT for more articles, my interest wanes and I stop reading. I find this new format to be unreadable.
REPLY: With the soon to be released version 3.0 of WordPress, I hope to have more control of the whitespace soon, which is now buried in a user hostile CSS system with a lame-o editor. I tried making some CSS tweaks yesterday with disastrous results. This current theme is the new default theme of wordpress, and is also the most feature rich.
http://2010dev.wordpress.com/
– Anthony
Ouch! Not good.
REPLY: No pain no gain.
charles the moderator says:
April 27, 2010 at 11:32 pm
I say:
The preview panel is here but the color coding and the “Reply with link” link has disappeared.
It is very useful. Can you contact the author of the script to get it back? It exists in CA and Lucia’s.
I am testing the formating 🙂 too.
In Firefox 2.0.0.20, did a “view” drop down then “page style” then “no style” (versus “basic page style”) and everything went to normal with a single page bright white background (versus previous 2 page with horizontal scroll bar/greyed text)and the regular size black small print (which I like). However the right sidebar is now at the bottom of the screen (which is okay).
Note that I only have to do this on this website so must be a small glitch in the style sheet.
I figured out the color change on the sidebar comment list. If I have read it (and of course that would include my own posts) it turns lilac! So I wasn’t lilacpinkflagged after all! Just snipped.
Anthony… I prefer the denser, info packed former version. Too much white space and scrolling and somehow the Article titles have less visual impact….maybe because they are spread out further across the page.
I am gonna keep reading even if you put it in six point type and I have to use a magnifying glass… this is a wonderful site and your work deserves some kind of medal! Nevertheless…you asked for honest feedback….
just lost a post while trying out the Preview buttons.Probably in junk.
for some reason the name and e-mail are not being retained in this format 🙁