GRM site redesign coming--with a brief outage

I have signatures turned off, yet I still see them, also the opening links in another tab/window isn't working, as mentioned earlier.

> Also, when I hit "post" for the post above, it brought me to a 404 warning for "DEBUG=TRUE" on my Django settings, rather than back to the thread. I have no idea what that means.

If debug is still on, have the web guys turn it off immediately. Besides presenting a security risk, it will bring the site and the DB down with enough traffic. It should never be on in production.

Seriously.. Make this the #1 priority. Having a django site live with debug=True is Very Very Bad.

Never understood the "let's make it better" argument when there's nothing wrong with it to begin with. I'm a fan of the "if it's not broke, don't fix it" philosophy. Not a fan of the new layout, miss the buttons to jump to the other forums. Harder to read. Dang it.

Something I just noticed. The post count in the threads are off by 1. Threads show 3 posts only have 2.

HoserRacing wrote: Never understood the "let's make it better" argument when there's nothing wrong with it to begin with. I'm a fan of the "if it's not broke, don't fix it" philosophy. Not a fan of the new layout, miss the buttons to jump to the other forums. Harder to read. Dang it.

Well, there was a lot wrong with it. I made it, and I know how much was wrong with it. There's a lot of tweaking to be done still, but the fundamentals are in place. It'll get there.

And the prior look every one is lamenting was hated far more than this one when it was launched.

Edit: for the love of Jeebus, put the add post button by the text box. Please.

Well it was working pretty well this morning when I checked in. Slow, but the layout wasn't bad. Now, it's pretty much not working on chrome. I had to sneak in through the CM site. My GRM bookmark redirected me to the CM site. The spacing is all wacky as well. Stuff is overlapping stuff. It's pretty much a mess. The lack of the jump buttons at the top of the page is kind of annoying as well though I will probably get use to it. I'm assuming y'all are still working on it. Good luck! We appreciate all the work and resources you dump into a place for us to hang out.

On the positive side, the new site looks great on my Kindle Fire (silk browser)!

After reading dj06482's post I pulled out my laptop to see what the sight looked like. On Windows 7 and Firefox, it's perfect. I can live with this. On my Windows 8.1 notebook and Chrome it looks like crap. Not sure what the problem is.

Once it is sorted will the Search Button work again?

forum definately looks more modern, usually when sites update like this i'm then blocked at work too and that didn't happen yay

edit: hmm I can't tell what topics or posts are new or not....

I was worried that the site woukd not work on mobile devices. But I like it better so far than the old m. Site. Loged in at work andtit was fine. I like the layout of the box you type in being over the how it will post box.

Yay, speed is up to snuff on my laptop/Windows 7. No Latest Topic button (for each thread).

not a fan

Hmm, just checked out the new site on my android phone. Sort of want. First impression is it's a LOT cleaner than I thought it would be. Second thing I noticed was that I actually like how it looks, it's got a much more professional vibe to it if you know what I mean. Pages take a bit to load, though. I wonder if it is possible to turn off the preview function?

In regards to everything on the leftmost third of the screen, once I've given it a cursory glance, I'm done with it. I wish that I could expand the other two thirds for the remainder of the browsing session.

I'm on iPhone, will probably never see it on a desktop or a laptop. It works awesome!

Couple things mentioned:

No quick links at the bottom of page

No unread posts star (or anything) next to threads with unread posts

Internet links aren't wrapping when larger than the reading area.

I like it so far.

"...new skin on the same bones" is feeling a little like "if you like your health plan, you can keep it".

This is painful.

I think I'm gonna go away for a few weeks and give you guys some time to work on this.

I know you are working really hard, and I appreciate the effort. It's just that the browsing experience is really unpleasant right now, and I don't think I have much more constructive to offer.

I'm gonna give you some space. (no lack of love, but I'm gonna avoid putting smilies right now.)

Happy New Year, guys! See you soon!

Looks great

Firefox loads perfectly now. Plus 1.

Still no way to go to the newest post in a thread. Minus 10.

Miss the jump buttons at the bottom. Having to go back to the main index is annoying. Minus 2.

New categories are nice. Plus 5.

Like some others, I think attendance will be limited until it's running in full form. Just kind of frustrating to navigate at present.

Got my Win 8.1/Chrome problem fixed. I ended up clearing all my search history and cookies. It's now loading properly. Not bad looking over all. The only thing I would like to see is the jump buttons at the top of the post pages as well as the main forum page. It will take some getting used to after 5 years of the old look.

David, the newest post is still the arrow to the far right for me.

Good job so far, and once again thanks for putting up with us and giving us a place to hang out. It's appreciated even though we can be a bunch of whiny bastards.

wow this it not highlighting threads with updates is annoying

My 4 cents.

1) The margins and padding in the Started By column is forcing a large number of topics to go triple-line despite the title being double-line. Visually, this sucks. I recommend enforcing a hard line limit and either widening the Started By column or placing the Posted In content in a new column (one that you control the length of every string).

2) The alternating background on the rows is very very weak and actually causes me discomfort. I see it as blurs of yellow when looked at head on but only see them as shades of grey when I look from a sideways angle. If this happens on a reasonably calibrated Dell monitor, it's going to be worse for other readers. Either make the effect obvious by stepping up the grey/white alternation (my recommendation) or get rid of it (not recommended).

3) Why is the font different in the comment box? I appreciate that it's bigger (something which surprised me) but it's still should be the same as the actual post IMO. It's jarring since I don't see it anywhere else on the site.

4) Only one of those favicons is really distinctive and it's not GRM's. Miata.net does a bangup job of getting their logo across in a visually effective way. Tire Rack, while using a black box, is still very effective since they use the full space to convey a logo and not the text. GRM, on the other hand, tries to squish some tiny letters in, resulting in 2/3 of the box being wasted. I recommend making a logo that emphasises your racing flag graphic: say, the letters "GRM" in the magazine logotype with the waving flag immediately above in a different color. Personally, I'd dump the text entirely (imagine if Tire Rack's favicon was the letters TR in their logoscript set in the middle of a bland black box instead of their current option... then it'd look just like yours!).

Looks like the outrage has begun. Overall I think the site looks very good, some things will take a little adjustment.

In reply to kylini:

How did you get the picture in your 1 cent to look like that? My latest topics is a mess of thread titles with a billion lines of post preview under each one, which is... annoying.

The example in your picture looks perfect.

The HUGE font in the tiny text box is pretty awful, though.

That said, I like the site on my phone. The +1, reply, quote, and report buttoms are a bit large but everything is easy to navigate.

Swank Force One wrote: In reply to kylini: How did you get the picture in your 1 cent to look like that? My latest topics is a mess of thread titles with a billion lines of post preview under each one, which is... annoying. The example in your picture looks perfect. The HUGE font in the tiny text box is pretty awful, though. That said, I like the site on my phone. The +1, reply, quote, and report buttoms are a bit large but everything is easy to navigate.

I use Chrome for Mac and have a ~1100 px wide window. That was the output after clicking "Latest Posts" which is the only way I browse forums. I did not see any settings in my user profile that would drastically alter the display of forum content (took a minute to find that at the top; I was expecting it on the left).