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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DCC
April 27, 2010 11:56 am

“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/

Al Cooper
April 27, 2010 11:56 am

In effect this has changed my reading font from 10 to 30.
Not good.

Ian P
April 27, 2010 11:58 am

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?

Tom
April 27, 2010 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.

Emil
April 27, 2010 12:04 pm

why is everybody shouting ? … I see lots of small caps being used …

Pom
April 27, 2010 12:05 pm

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?

April 27, 2010 12:06 pm

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.

Dr. Axel F.
April 27, 2010 12:07 pm

The text is very hard to read. Please change the font!

David Hall
April 27, 2010 12:07 pm

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.

anna v
April 27, 2010 12:09 pm

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

CRS, Dr.P.H.
April 27, 2010 12:10 pm

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

April 27, 2010 12:10 pm

cooling iphone burning scientists

Shona
April 27, 2010 12:11 pm

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.

Tom in Texas
April 27, 2010 12:12 pm

Previous posts now seem to be in Arial font.
This one has reverted to your previous font.

Krishna Gans
April 27, 2010 12:13 pm

The serife types are better for reading ( New Times, s th l th), than without. It’s easier to follow the lines while reading

April 27, 2010 12:15 pm

I don’t like the all upper case font.

Hoi Polloi
April 27, 2010 12:16 pm

Much better, keep it.

ecph
April 27, 2010 12:16 pm

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

April 27, 2010 12:17 pm

Shona:
I think it’s your browser. I don’t get all caps.

Dillon
April 27, 2010 12:23 pm

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.

April 27, 2010 12:23 pm

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?

April 27, 2010 12:26 pm

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.

April 27, 2010 12:26 pm

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.

Editor
April 27, 2010 12:27 pm

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.

JimB
April 27, 2010 12:28 pm

Change for changes sake?
JimB

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