First of all I must say that I REALLY like the new design. Crisper and more-soothing colors…I am quite impressed. And the post editor is a dream come true for anyone concerned with making a better post. Thanks to everyone involved in creating the new, better SDMB.
I’d like to make two suggestions which would improve my personal viewing experience. Both relate to the “Straight Dope” logo at the top of the page and the row of buttons next to it.
As I look at it right now, the “user cp” button juts up right next to the logo. Could some sort of space be added between them?
Is it possible to turn that single row of buttons into two rows? I have a small monitor area and right now I have to scroll over to read the “search” and “home” buttons.
I’m also going to go crazy that one column of smilies is wider than the other two, but I realize that I’m already pressing my luck.
These are whiny, personal nitpicks I realize, but I’m going to mention them anyway.
Welcome back all.
-Myron
PS: I also notice that clicking on a smilie automatically inserts it at the end of your post rather than where the cursor is.
I intended no offense, and I apologize if I added to your frustration. Perhaps a smilie was in order at this sentence:
“I’d like to make two suggestions which would improve my personal viewing experience.”
which I intended mostly in jest. In my own defense I add that you posted a notice at the temp board that things were open for business and what with all the changes that have been made it is only natural for a guy to have questions and comments, even mundane, silly ones.
The first thing I thought of when I logged in was “Yay! SDMB is back!”
The second thing I thought of was along the lines of The Man Who’s recommendations here.
For those of us who like to look at a normal 800x600 resolution, please insert a linebreak after the Straight Dope logo so the vBulletin function buttons appear below it, not to the side of it.
That, of course, is because that first column contains the wally smiley, which is wider than all of the others. The only solution I know of to this would be to eliminate that smiley, and that is clearly not an option.
Yeah. I really like having the smiley menu right next to the editing box here. I’d never used smilies before intentionally but now the temptation is always gonna be there.
Actually now that I look at it again, it kinda looks like the Wally smiley is leading the smiley parade. That’s pretty appropriate I’d say.
psiekier mentioned resolution in passing, but it’s possible The Man Who hasn’t noticed that you can change the resolution on your desktop so that your browser windows are not limited by monitor size. Not all monitors can use all resolutions, but you should be able to see the whole SDMB page. Personally I have about an inch of extra horizontal space before I get the horizontal scroll bar, and that’s on a teeny-tiny laptop screen (less than 14" viewable).
I’d like to note that my contribution to this particular item is purely hypothetical, and that I do not advocate the mods having to do any more work than they really want to, especially on this issue. But I just can’t let a completely irrelevant and pointless discussion go without adding to it.
That said, if the wally were put into the rightmost of the three columns of smileys, his face could be aligned with the faces of the other smileys in his column, and there wouldn’t be any excess space between the three columns as there is now. The third column would still technically be wider, but the impact would be lessened as the extra space would be on the right side of the box as opposed to in between the columns themselves. If he were on the top right, he could be aligned both horizontally and vertically, and only his word bubble would jut out into space, making the smiley grid still more standard-looking.
Additionally, the smileys don’t seem to be sorted in any meaningful way. Perhaps they could be grouped by emotion, in some sort of spectrum from positive to negative, or by commonality of usage. Another option, unless people succeed in lobbying for the return of the colored smileys as they were pre-exile, would be to arrange them by color. I think this would make the smiley box much more aesthetically pleasing, instead of having the blue and yellow faces haphazardly thrown in with the beige ones.
Ok, I changed the header so that the buttons will tile if you insist on using a low res. I don’t want to put them below because it ads extra vert header space for people who run in higher res.
This was the first thing I noticed when I logged on today, and it’s beautiful. I actually spent at least 30 seconds stretching my window out and back just to see the little buttons politely stack themselves up. It sounds stupid but I swear I did it. It’s lovely. Gaudere, thank you.
Okay, on preview, I’m coming off way over the top and sounding like I’m being a sarcastic prick, but I’m really serious. Little things like this really get to me.
I don’t want to put them below because it ads extra vert header space for people who run in higher res.