New Theme for WUWT

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!)
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phlogiston
April 27, 2010 10:30 am

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.

kwik
April 27, 2010 10:30 am

I miss the HOME button.

kadaka (KD Knoebel)
April 27, 2010 10:32 am

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.

Magnus Olert
April 27, 2010 10:33 am

I would prefer a smaller text font.

AndrewWH
April 27, 2010 10:34 am

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

Steve W.
April 27, 2010 10:35 am

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

David Holliday
April 27, 2010 10:36 am

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.

Mike Fox
April 27, 2010 10:39 am

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!

Nib
April 27, 2010 10:40 am

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.

April 27, 2010 10:42 am

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.

Brian Johnson uk
April 27, 2010 10:43 am

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

Joseph Murphy
April 27, 2010 10:44 am

all side links are pushed to the bottom of the page for me. They appeare below the last post.

Robert M. Marshall
April 27, 2010 10:45 am

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.

Andy
April 27, 2010 10:47 am

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.

Jim Carson
April 27, 2010 10:48 am

I like it. It’s cleaner, and more articulate.

Oldjim
April 27, 2010 10:49 am

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

E.M.Smith
Editor
April 27, 2010 10:50 am

So, a question:

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?

Looks like wide tables will truncate right…

R.S.Brown
April 27, 2010 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.

E.M.Smith
Editor
April 27, 2010 10:54 am

Trying to read all the comments, I have to second the notion that it’s too bright. I’m going snow blind…

Tim Clark
April 27, 2010 10:55 am

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

April 27, 2010 10:55 am

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)

Tim Clark
April 27, 2010 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

vigilantfish
April 27, 2010 11:00 am

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.

April 27, 2010 11:04 am

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.

Jason Bair
April 27, 2010 11:10 am

Looks good on this 1920×1200 monitor. Not sure how it will look on my laptop @1368×768

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