LibraryThing "2.0," First Pages

If you navigate over to the Zeitgeist or More tabs as well as the new series pages you will see changes. Here's what's going on.

Background. Chris H. (Conceptdawg), with help from Tim (timspalding) and Chris C. (ccatalfo), has been working on the new design for some time, with new versions of more pages than we're releasing today. But it's too monumental of a task to have every page moved to the new design before members could see any page. So instead of waiting, we're releasing part of the new design today. We're eager to hear your feedback!

The goal of the new design is to be:

1. Mobile ready. The new design works and looks great on smartphones. (Try it out!) This has been a serious problem with LibraryThing for some time.
2. More accessible. The new design is more "accessible" for screen readers and other assistive technology and will help us continue to improve in this area.
3. More modern, without being too different. New things are hard. We wanted to update the look without changing too much. The use of some serif faces is, we think, more "bookish." And the new design is more cohesive across pages. (But not, obviously, until it's on every page!) We hope members appreciate the move, and get used to it quickly.
4. Easier to Develop. The new design isn't just design, but a real rewrite. Better, newer code is going to help us develop and fix bugs faster.

You will also see content changes on the More tab and lots of new stats on the Zeitgeist pages. Redoing pages is a great time to rethink and improve the content. So as we roll out the new design on more pages, we'll also be rolling out better content and functionality.

Tell us what you think

First, we want your feedback!

1. What do you think of the new design?
2. What works for you and what doesn't?
3. Have you looked at it on your smartphone or tablet? What do you think? (If you want a peek, make your desktop browser window much narrower. The display will change as you resize.)
4. How do you think the new design will change the experience for new users?

If you'd like to report an actual bug, we've set up another topic for bug reports, on Talk here.

We're not done

This is not the complete new design, but a stepping stone into it. Over the next few weeks and probably months we're going to be moving to the new design page-by-page and section-by-section. Some pages, such as profile and work, will involve more changes than others. We'll want your feedback on those too!

We are still planning changes to the "top navigation," including some of the features discussed on the LT2 design drafts 2.0 topic. (These include a dedicated "Explore" section.) But we don't want to change the top navigation until we have most of the site transitioned to the new design. And we wanted more feedback.

That's it! Now Go take a look.

Lots of bugs at https://www.librarything.com/topic/324352 . But, hey, give ConceptDawg design feedback!

>2 timspalding: Your link goes to this thread.

On the Zeitgeist pages, the note about standard deviations and completism is repeated on every page, even when there isn't anything it applies to, and where it applies to something there's no indication to look for it. It would be more helpful if it were split into two notes, only included where relevant, and if there was an asterisk or something indicating there is a note.

Otherwise, I rather like the new look of Zeitgeist.

I still want the salmon back, though.

Ooookay. I'm here to say I dislike the new series page as viewed inside the LT app. Instead of an easy-to-see list of books, the screen is mostly white space. At the top, only a few book covers are available at one time. Less info is provided at a glance. Please tell us we can adjust the cover and text sizes of this "modern" design.

As aspirit notes, series has also been updated.

>5 aspirit: I'm here to say I dislike the new series page as viewed inside the LT app.

Sorry, what do you mean the app? Are you on your phone looking at the web page?

>6 timspalding: I tried to add to my post but had to first close out of the LT site to try again. Here's what I was going to modify.

I'm here to say I dislike the new series page as viewed inside the LT app on a mobile device.

When I'm working inside the LT app, I'll sometimes click on links, such as a series link, from the book edit page. But in the minutes following my initial WTF?! reaction, I pulled up the LT site directly in my internet browser to look at a series page. Either way, the mobile version does not look great. It looks frustrating. My browser allows me to switch to the desktop view, which I like. I don't like the new mobile view because it looks as if I'll be able to get much less done on librarything.com, as if I'll have to frequently go through the steps to select the desktop view while on my phone, used for most of my activity on this site.

I LOVE the posh old-school library vibe. Just add some comfy leather chairs and I'd be here all day. And serif fonts are always a good (and underutilized) choice. It manages to fit in well with the modern web aesthetic but also feel vintage and sophisticated. And it feels coherent, like there's a design plan as opposed to somebody's side project where stuff just got stuck wherever as things evolved over time.

Oh, and the More page is great. It's so easy to find what you want and the layout and spacing is perfect.

One thing to note is that the site now may give you a different "look" based on your device orientation. If you have a large phone, for instance, turning it to landscape mode may get you a more standard "desktop" view.

Of course, not all devices are big enough to use the desktop view in landscape mode.

>8 casvelyn:

Check's in the mail, casvelyn!

The new brown clashes with the old one. I prefer the old of course, the new is wishy washy. But one or the other is better than both. New designs don't actually need new colours. It's not a requirement, unless there's a particular UI reason for the change, eg a new awareness of visual issues? but I'd have thought bolder was better than faded. Don't like the thin font either.

TBH I hardly ever visit either of those pages, so I'm not sure I'd notice the difference.

I kind of like it. It will take time to get used to the new layout, but it looks much more organized. My only complaint is that I find it all uncomfortably large; it's like my screen is yelling at me. Zooming out to 90% gives me a much better feeling.

Overall, I think I like it. However, when viewing the series page on my desktop computer, the right-hand navigation (specifically the "Related Series" and "Helpers" sections) the main headings and sub-headings have the same size/weight, which makes it difficult for me to read. I'm not sure if it is because the sub-headings are in black while the main headings are in the new red-brown color, or if it is something else, but I find it hard to focus.

>7 aspirit: to better illustrate my perspective, I planned to create a side-to-side comparison of screenshots. The problem with that is for the series I first saw, Andrew Lang's Fairy Books, nine screenshots of the mobile design are needed to show the same series information in one screenshot of the desktop version. Creating the aggregate image would take more patience than I have at the moment.

All I'd wanted to do earlier was glance at the list for which books in the series I'm missing. That's considerably harder for a member to do when required to scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll,... while having to remember what's already passed.

(The series touchstone isn't working, btw.)

I know this isn't part of this specific update, but are the washed-out colors for the collections checkmarks here to stay? I find it very difficult to tell the difference between the blue, purple, and gray marks unless they are right next to each other.

>15 amanda4242: Wow, I hadn't even noticed...I had to look *very* closely to see the difference between green and...whichever color is used for "Read but unowned", and even then looking closely involves leaning in close to my computer screen. Not exactly an ideal situation.

The lighter blue for text links makes for another uncomfortably low contrast. In my opinion, the overall color scheme on the LT 2.0 pages appears washed out.

It's hard for me to say much in the current mixed state. The new pages look fine, once I do a couple zoom-outs to account for the massive increase in font size and whitespace, but then the old pages look teensy. With that caveat, though:

The low-contrast colors make the page look washed out on a full-size monitor. They look OK on my phone (where the font size works much better).

I like the fonts and colour scheme. The headings are very stylish. Not so keen on the smaller text size for the top menu bar - the current size is more comfortable to read.

I like the old one better. While I do appreciate that the larger font is better for those with impaired vision, it looks somehow childish. I'm not sure why.

The colors look very dim, too.

I don't use series very much, so I don't know if this differs from the old page, but I don't like having the cover view without the option of changing to title view.

Looking good! I'm scouting for bugs now.

Evolution rather than revolution. I like it, it’s a clean and modern feel for the most part. On the other hand, there is an awful lot of, well...brown isn’t there?
On the series page specifically there appear to be some kind of issue causing strange text wrapping which make the page longer than it needs to be. See the order sections on iron Druid Chronicles for example. This may be a mobile layout thing. Oh, did I mention the brown?

The colors are really washed-out on my desktop. I'm having difficulty reading some of the text.

>19 konallis: That's because the top menu bar is not the final design. It's still the LT1.0 design. The top navigation bar will likely be the last thing we transition over so that there isn't a visual jarring when you move back and forth between LT1 and LT2 page designs. Today's release is more like an LT1.5, with 90% of the hard work was to stuff that you can't see—infrastructure and how the page is build/displayed. THAT stuff is going to be a game-changer for us in the long run, allowing us to do much more work in shorter timeframes.

As for the "larger" font. I find that hilarious since we now use the default web font size that millions upon millions of sites use. Historically, we used 12px base fonts while the default font size for browsers is—and has been for about a decade—14px. We've just joined the 21st century there. Sorry.

>22 simon_carr: See my comments in >24 conceptDawg: above. This isn't the final design for the main navigation.

I find that hilarious since we now use the default web font size that millions upon millions of sites use.

Hoo, boy. I can hear my mom now. "Just because all your friends do it, doesn't mean you should."

Seriously, those other sites that use it? I don't like them, either. The size just eats up so much space on the page.

Oh. One other thing.
Some pages like the CK main page weren't changed at ALL for this release. The old page content was just dumped into the LT2 infrastructure.
Other pages, like Zeitgeist, were completely redesigned (obviously) to take advantage of new design ideas and layout.

So you'll be seeing some combination of these approaches as we release new sections into LT2. For instance, Talk is just about ready to go with only a few changes, while Groups has had just a few more changes to it, and author and work pages have gone through a massive rework. But that means that we'll probably circle back around and give the less-edited sections a bigger facelift as we finish the long rollout. It's all a process.

PS: the release of Talk will be a massive, massive change to LT because it will be the first time that Talk is actually usable from a phone without trying to use a microscope or zoom in/out constantly (we are painfully aware of our shortcomings there). I hope other people find the idea as exciting as I do.

>25 conceptDawg: Maybe I don't visit those sites? The font here looks out of proportion.

ETA: I've just looked at a few other sites and discovered that most of them do have the larger font. It's just the design here that makes it look freakishly large.

>28 conceptDawg: Talk is probably the area I read most, and I'm hoping that the changes made will not be too hard to pick up on. Frequently, changes are made, and I hardly notice them. Every once in a while, a change is made that causes me to want to stab you all in the heart. Luckily, I loathe traveling, and none of you are nearby. I get used to it, and before long, I forget that it was ever changed.

Here's hoping that the changes seem trivial to me. I only look at LT from Firefox, and a desktop, and am unlikely to ever use it with a phone...but you never know.

>29 amanda4242: Pretty much every design guideline tells us to use 16px body font sizes. Yep. 16px.
16-pixel text on a screen is about the same size as text printed in a book or magazine.
Most major sites are moving towards that number (or bigger). CNN's body font size for articles is 18px. Same for Fox News.

I'm sure you've used Google before. ALL of the various fonts on the results page are 14px or bigger (16px for the primary hit).

For bookish sites:
NYPL: They agree with us on 14px for body copy.
Boston PL: 15px.
San Francisco PL: 16px.
Google Books: hell, I can't even tell. Every damn part of the page is a different size. It's like a ransom note for the book.

We didn't want to make the jump to 16px because we all think that 16px is just too big in the context of a text-heavy site like LT. It was a bridge too far, but our chosen 14px is the Goldilocks number. We will still use some smaller fonts in note text or in the sidebars.

>31 conceptDawg:

Okay, but there are different sizes of fonts on the page.

So on the "More" page, the size of the text "LibraryThing is an ocean" doesn't bother me. But "More LibraryThing" and "LibraryThing Mobile Apps" seem unnecessarily big.

The more I look at it, though, I wonder if the large amount of blank space is part of the problem.

>31 conceptDawg: Okay, but that doesn't mean the larger font looks good with your design.

>10 timspalding: LOL! You might want to wait until you roll out the update to parts of the site I use more frequently, in case you like my opinions less then. :)

I am so happy that LT is getting a fresh look. Thanks for all of your hard work. As much as I enjoy LT, I always feel that the "scrappy" early 2000's look makes it feel like nobody cared enough to give the site a facelift. I'm glad it's finally getting that facelift.

ETA: Also, thanks for the larger font size. I have healthy eyes but have a hard time reading a lot of websites with small text. I am tired of having to command + on every website to get things bigger.

On color, I think we'll have disagreements here that involve both aesthetics AND different environments. The colors aren't washed out on my laptop--they're perfect. But when I plug my laptop into my monitor, they're washed out. I suspect this is because my monitor's a little older, and as it's aged I've pushed the brightness up. They're another color again on my phone. So keep the input coming on color. It's good to get a feel for what people are thinking overall, but also remember we're literally seeing different colors.

I like the new font on the series page, but the new layout looks a bit "playskool" or childish. Huge pictures and white space. I come here for words, not pictures. I agree with >5 aspirit: and >12 amanda4242:.

I'll get used to it.

>36 timspalding: 7" screen: looks good (and the font doesn't look ginormous)
11.5" screen: a little lighter, but still good
15.5" screen: looking a bit washed out
22" screen: difficult to read

ETA: I tend to keep the brightness lower on my screens, but adjusting it up or down doesn't do much to change the washed out look.

ETA: an illustration of the color difference I see between the smallest and largest of my screens

>38 amanda4242: Computer color rendering and colorspace issues isn't something we're going to solve. Most new computers and screens are going to be pretty color-accurate (within their designed colorspace, which is a whole other conversation) but anything older than 5 years is likely going to be significantly degraded. And that's even using the more costly brands. Cheaper monitors can lose color accuracy within 1 to 2 years.

And that's not taking into consideration that nearly zero people adjust their screen or working environment to give the best colors.

And that's not taking into consideration many people see colors differently.

We just have to understand that everybody is going to see different colors and do our best to find a happy medium. I've got three monitors of differing qualities and ages and all of them display colors differently (that's a bonus for me for just this reason, and why I haven't replaced them).

Design: you can make none of the people happy all the time, or all of the people happy none of the time, your choice. ;)

>38 amanda4242: All I get from that is that your smallest screen is one of the Partridge Family while your large screen is a Kardashian. :)

>39 conceptDawg: you can make none of the people happy all the time, or all of the people happy none of the time, your choice. ;)

:)

Tim asked for feedback, so I was just sharing my experience that the quality decreases as the size of my screens increase.

>40 conceptDawg: I *meant* the color difference, not the...curves. ;)

>41 amanda4242: Yep. I'm just being snarky but it doesn't play well over Talk.

>39 conceptDawg: we're not really talking about colors as about contrast. I'd be surprised if the lighter blue meets assessibility standards, as text in that color is more difficult to read.

Though (and here's where I might sound angry), from what the series pages look like on mobile devices, I'm guessing readability managed to dropped considerably lower as priority of LT.

I'm bouncing off the series pages hard now. The move away from usability is seriously worrying me that us mobile-dominant users are expected to stop being "librarytharians" or whatever the word's been.

ETA: Typing the above helped me calm down a bit. Stumbling into the change without warning, so not knowing how to do what previously took seconds to do, was frustrating for 7.5 hours. But, okay, the site has had problems with functionality for as long as I've been a member. We have workarounds. The new design will require new extra steps. But other book cataloguing sites continue to be worse for different reasons. I'll adjust to LT 2.0, even if it means interacting less with some areas. I should spend less time on book data anyway. (And maybe someone who joins in the near future will make up for it!)

>45 aspirit:

We are looking at a "desktop view." But in general, I resist the idea that accessibility requires LibraryThing pages look like tiny, shrunked desktop page, utterly unreadable without zooming in on a portion. Mobile phones require a different layout, and that's a feature, not a bug.

>43 conceptDawg: Tone is even more difficult than color. :)

>23 amanda4242: I have to agree--text colors look washed out/muted to me, too. I can barely tell the difference between the purple check and the grey check. I'm viewing now on my tablet; afraid to think how it might appear on my much larger desktop monitor.

I also prefer the old larger font for the headers (Home/Your books etc...).

I do like the new designs of the screens and the larger fonts. I would imagine that given we're all readers, many of us struggle with diminishing vision. We can use all the help we can get. And it's easier to find stuff.

In fact the larger fonts of the main content on the new pages make the smaller headers appear even tinier than they are and therefore out of proportion.

Also the minimal stuff across the bottom is good, too--less cluttered.

For me (the Electronic Luddite) these new looks are OK but other than the Zeitgeist and Export, I don't use any of them as listed. I want to see the meat and potatoes screens:

Add a book
Change a book
Library Search for adds
Manual Add (same as Add I guess)
Modification of screen view types
Sort of data

Any ETA on these?

I think we'll see talk and groups go next, and more small pages, like the store. After that, work and author. Editing is part of work, so that will touch your list above.

I too find the checkmarks on the series page hard to tell apart now, and FWIW I've have the brightness turned way down.

On my phone, the new series page weirdly stacks a lot of info vertically (making forcing you to scroll a lot for longer series) while leaving a lot of whitespace on the right (except where titles or author names are very long).

Oh, and the topnav has wildly different font sizes on different pages on the laptop. That's presumably not meant to happen?

For me I find it odd that you have a serif font for head text and a sans-serif for body text. But it is something I will get used to.

I like the responsiveness on the Zeitgeist page - fully zoomed to normal I get all 7 columns horizontally. As I zoom in, it reflows well.

On the Zeitgeist page for helpers - using "Show more" and then "Show less" - is it possible to scroll back to an element in the section you were looking at rather than leaving you looking at something further down the page? This is also the case for the other Zeitgeist pages if you zoom in a lot but it is much easier to show in helpers. I wouldn't really class it as a bug more an annoyance.

In checking the "helpers" lists in the "zeitgeist", it appears that many long-time helpers' contributions are missing. Examples: there are a lot of people with hundreds, actually thousands, of contributions to categories like "author combiners", "distinct author", "Author Picture Contributors", "Work Combiners", etc.

>53 jburlinson: Are you looking at the Last Seven Days or All Time? There is a (show more) link at the end of most of the lists.

My first impression is I like it. The font is very beautiful. As other mentioned, the pages look a bit "pale", maybe a tiny bit harder to read. I like the side menus with the text highlighting when the mouse hovers (honestly these are not pages I visit often, so I don't know if that's new).

On a phone, in portrait (vertical) orientation, is there any way to see all the covers of a series on the main page? I tried tapping, expanding - only turning seems to get more, but only 7. That seems to be the max.

Oh never mind. I see the button now.

conceptDawg (#39):

Most new computers and screens are going to be pretty color-accurate (within their designed colorspace, which is a whole other conversation) but anything older than 5 years is likely going to be significantly degraded.

Do people really update their monitors or laptops every few years, though? I sure don't. I'm sure it's a hard balance between "Make this look good on a tiny mobile screen, which is likely to be only a few years old at most" and "Make this look good on a big external monitor that's 5+ years old", but designing only for the newest screens isn't that balance.

timspalding (#46):

But in general, I resist the idea that accessibility requires LibraryThing pages look like tiny, shrunked desktop page, utterly unreadable without zooming in on a portion. Mobile phones require a different layout, and that's a feature, not a bug.


Absolutely. As it is now, though, it seems like the large-screen version is just a big version of the now-primary mobile one; big fonts, lots of whitespace, colors that may look good on a small screen and look awful on a big one. Part of this is that you're making many years' worth of changes at once, so it's a bigger jump than people are used to seeing, but the colors really are very low-contrast.

>57 lorax: The average age of laptops and desktops in the US seems to be four years. Hard to tell how many LibraryThing users that use computers that are older than five years, but probably a sizeable chunk.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/267474/average-life-of-pc-and-tablets/

I like the redesign in general, but I just want to add my agreement that the unfollowed link color makes it hard to read when there's a lot of it all together, though the larger font size partially offsets that. The series page in general is noticeably harder for me to read, and areas like the tags, with long areas of the lighter blue color, are even worse. For reference, this is on my laptop, which is what I nearly always use for LT.

I think a lot of it is that so much of the series page is links. The blue text isn't broken up by other colors nearly as much as on other sites, or even in other places in the LT redesign. The same blue on the More page is fine, partly I think because it's broken up by black text so I only have to read small amounts of the blue, and partly because the most important blue links are bold.

Link color
I've made the main link color a little more contrasty. (technical term)

Incredibly thin crossbars on the new header font. Children brought up on LibraryThing will learn a new alphabet: "Lambda, B, C, D, . . ."

>62 cpg: Yep. That's been mentioned, but it's not really that way on most monitors (I think it's a combination of resolution and colorspace). So I'm trying to see if there's a viable solution.

I agree with those who would like more color contrast on the checkmarks.
When they are all side by side, I can tell them apart. But alone, everything except the green looks like gray.

>59 anglemark:

The computer I'm typing this on is just over four years old, but the monitor is significantly older.

My first reaction: I like the little icons in Zeitgeist.

Favs so far: the White Whale-icorn ("One-Work Series"), and the Hashmark ("Completist Authors").

Okay, so that's minor in the vast configuration of things, but I'm starting in wide-eyed wonder mode.

I think that's a narwhal.

>67 jjwilson61:

Yeah, I concede the point, but a narwhal's so much less literary than a white whale-icorn. Or anyway, it is in my library.

>68 elenchus: And the whale-icorn is certainly the literary joke that was intended with the selection of that icon.

>64 eromsted:

Conceptdawg has not mentioned it here yet, but he told me he is committed to checkmarks with more and sharper color. So he's working on that.

I guess I'm the one missing the joke then.

Many series pages including the link in the first message come up blank for me. I see a title and author, but nothing else. Refreshing the page does not seem to help like it did for the blank work pages.

>72 al.vick:

Thanks. How about now? (I restarted the various webservers and it fixed the work problem.)

>28 conceptDawg: I'm extremely excited for updated Talk!

_________________________________________

I think the updated pages look great. On series pages, I wouldn't mind if the font were a little bigger in mobile-portrait mode (since there's a lot of scrolling up and down anyway). Mobile-landscape mode looks fantastic!

I don't know if this is related to LT2 or to just to new series, but I LOVE that I can (mobile) tap on a row on the series page and highlight it without clicking a hyperlink. Really handy.

I also think that the checkmark colors are too flat, I'm happy to see plans to sharpen them.

I found a little bug so now I'm headed to the other thread to report it.

>31 conceptDawg: For what it's worth, my eyes aren't great, and on my laptop screen (which is higher-res than some of the other machines I use), I set my minimum font size in Firefox to 16. This has only ever caused me problems on LT, where on various pages the text is crowded or overlaps stuff it shouldn't. It's usable, but in places, it kind of looks like crap. So I'm all in favor of increasing the font size. Even if you're not going all the way up to 16, maybe it'll make things look better for me. Certainly the new Zeitgeist and More pages linked above look fine to me, with the exception of the title bar, where the text runs right into the search box.

I know some people get annoyed at larger fonts, but it's good to think about accessibility issues here. It's good if people who want or need to set the font to a larger size can do so without breaking things too much.

(Also, for what it's worth, I do think the new pages look nice!)

>75 bragan: I know some people get annoyed at larger fonts

I don't mind the larger font, it's that the larger font looks out of proportion to the design unless I'm looking at a small screen.

>50 timspalding: Thanks for the update and potential time line on the screens

I like it. The old website design was bulky. Please go forward with this design, it's time to get LibraryThing streamlined and using newer design elements and fonts. No website needs to be the same for years and years, the internet is meant to evolve and that means website design needs to be changed. Do you really want an internet from 1998?

By the way, while as a very non-visual person (unfashionable as that is to admit to these days) I don't have strong opinions about much of the design changes, I want to voice my appreciation for all the invisible code updating and re-factoring that you allude to in the first post. Spending a great deal of effort on stuff that doesn't impact the end users directly can be a thankless task, so, thanks.

>79 lorax: I second lorax's comment. I know there's a whole lot of unseen work that gets done just to keep the site up and running, let alone conceptualizing, coding and rolling out a new design, and I certainly appreciate it!

Thanks for the comments.
And yes, there is a gargantuan amount of behind-the-scenes work that goes on at LT that isn't directly related to pushing pixels in front of your face on LT.com. I love my work so I wouldn't really put it in the "thankless" box, but an occasional "knowing nod" is appreciated nonetheless.

We really are doing some crazy work to get LT2 out and running without disturbing LT1 in any way. We have to change the routing of all web requests to new code. That new code can't in any way have any bad collisions with old code, but it has to be able to work with the old code because we continue to call old functions for lots of data (and, in fact, MOST display code). Then it has to be output to screen and the styling has to be overridden on nearly every element on the page (because the old code is still outputting markup in many cases), and that has to happen at different breakpoints for different devices, OS versions, and browser idiosyncrasies. THEN, we have to make sure that the Javascript that run in-browser actions is all updated to reference the new and old elements on screen. Oh, and did I mention that we're also changing over from the very old Prototype library to jQuery on a lot of pages, so there's a complete audit and rewrite of JS code on those pages.

(Aside: we've run jquery for years but some of our oldest pages still use Prototyope—particularly CK and Collections management UI. This is going to release us from that dependency and allow pages to load faster.)

Doing all of this without major pain is, quite honestly, a near miracle. We've been hitting the LT2 pages for a couple of weeks on the live server and when I pushed the code to start overriding LT1 for LT2 I did so with a huge "well, here goes nothin'" holding of my breath.

Tim compared it to changing the wing on an airplane in flight and that's a pretty good analogy. But I'd go further and say that we're also changing from propellers to jet engines in the process. Without any of the people on the flight having any clue that it's all going on around them.

But to give an insight into WHY the behind-the-scenes changes is going to speed up development I have to let you in on a terrible secret. All LT1 pages were stand-alone entities. Coded entirely from the ground up as stand-alone pages. Nothing about the design or markup of the page was, necessarily, the same. Sure, we'd copy and paste the header and nav information when we'd make a new page, and we had functions that made the main nav and subnavs, but every page was it's own thing.

That means that any time we want to change something that affects every page on LT there's only a few places where we can make that happen. And we have no control over pages at a global level. Every page handles its own resource loading too.

Now we have a more modern system that builds the pages from a central model. Every page is built exactly the same in LT2. It takes three whole lines of code to spit out a fully-working and interactive LT2 page.

That also means that it gives us better ability to limit the ransom-note look of LT pages so that every heading, text box, data table, and picture has matching margins, spacing, sizing, and styling on every page on the site (this is, frankly, a monumental task by itself). But it will make LT2 into a more cohesive whole and will make information easier to scan, easier to find on the page, and make LT generally easier to read. Plus we get the bonus of being more accessibility-friendly (though it's a process and we aren't going to be at the finish line when we release LT2). AND we get the added bonus of being mobile-friendly too.

>81 conceptDawg: I really enjoy these peeks behind the curtain even though I really don't understand most of it. It all sounds very complicated and impressive. Thanks for all your hard work.

>81 conceptDawg: >82 conceptDawg: I understand just enough of all that to have a clearer understanding of just how much work you're putting into these updates! Honestly, it's amazing that LT has run as well as it does given the now-antiquated way it was built. You and Tim must be salivating at the thought of all the things you'll be able to do so much more easily once the modernization process is complete. To be doing a re-design at the same time is breathtaking. The airplane analogies seem quite apt (though I confess my brain went straight to that episode of the old Twilight Zone series when William Shatner looks out the plane window and sees the gremlin on the wing).

>81 conceptDawg: Although I understood basically none of what you said, I do appreciate all of the work you and the rest of LT team do and want to add my thanks.

>84 rosalita: though I confess my brain went straight to that episode of the old Twilight Zone series when William Shatner looks out the plane window and sees the gremlin on the wing

That's exactly what I thought of, too!

>43 conceptDawg: It doesn't play well when you're answering design questions or feedback, honestly.

>49 ulmannc: Yeah, I rarely if never use any of these. I spend most of my LT time on Add books, Your books, and occasionally check into Talk/Bug tracking.

I don't use LT on my phone, so I expect these comments won't be that welcome. What's more, I have an old Dell laptop. Most people I know don't upgrade their phones/devices/laptops very frequently, anyway. I'm using the latest version of Opera with default settings on a 14" screen. Here's a screenshot of how it looks for me: https://ibb.co/312BYc8

Looking at the "More" page:

The new menu bar (I assume this is the new one) is way, way too small. The font is too small and given the amount of space in the menu bar, the right-hand "Share / Sign out / Help" configuration looks very crowded. The search site should also have its own space, not be jammed up against them.

Unlike everyone else, I find the font way too *small,* the sans-serif design is hard to read, and it's not dark enough. There's way too much white space and wasted space. Accesibility-wise, the font shapes and the font/background colours are pretty poor. The bold links also don't help. I know the iThing type design is minimal text and lots of graphics, but the words are too small and the graphics look overpowering. It looks bright and washed-out and for people prone to eyestrain that leads to headaches, like me, it's not welcoming.

I love LibraryThing, I've been a member for a very long time, and I know a lot of overhaul is desperately needed, and LT wants to connect to new users, but I'm not particularly happy with where this redesign appears to be going.

Typos and infelicites:

"the site and the community offer" should probably be "the site and the community have to offer."

"recently-released books" No hyphen.

"Instagram for booklovers" - "Book lovers" is two words. (This is correct in the State of the Thing description.)

"Libraries include Marilyn Monroe, Emily Dickinson" ....Yes, this makes it sound like the libraries include those particular people.

"can be posted on LiveJournal, MySpace" - You probably want some other websites as examples. Those two are very dated.

>81 conceptDawg: and >82 conceptDawg:

Having worked with these silly machines since 1971 (read RCA Spectra 70/ IBM 1130, 360/20, 370/158, 5081 cards, WYSE terminals, DEC stuff,. . . and seeing our company decide that online stuff is probably best bought especially with all the FDA, DEA, GMP, GLP and HIPA big Pharma was getting (in some cases forced) into, I got out in 2008, never looked back and was pleased as punch to find LT so I could get rid of my home grown Access product.

All of you at LT have the patience of Job! Thank you all. Thank you >81 conceptDawg: for taking the time to help the vast majority of LTers get a taste of what happens "under the covers" especially when the alarms go off at 2 AM.

A long winded way of saying "Thanks!"

>88 the_red_shoes:

Thanks for the comments and typo-fixes. Some replies:

I'm honestly confused by some of what you write. You write this:

The new menu bar (I assume this is the new one) is way, way too small. The font is too small and given the amount of space in the menu bar, the right-hand "Share / Sign out / Help" configuration looks very crowded. The search site should also have its own space, not be jammed up against them.

The top stuff is not intended to have changed at all. Most pages--everything ouside of More, Zeitgeist and Series now--have the old nav. Can I ask you to check:
1. Look at the top stuff from new and old pages, such as Groups (old) and Zeitgeist (new).
2. Are you seeing differences?
3. If you are, can you tell us more about your system and browser?
Similar question about this:

Unlike everyone else, I find the font way too *small,* the sans-serif design is hard to read, and it's not dark enough.

When you compare new and old pages, do you find the new pages are smaller? That is, are you complaining generally about our font size, or do you feel the font size has gotten smaller? If the latter, I'm puzzled, and would appreciate more info on your system and browser.

Typos and infelicites:

"the site and the community offer" — I think I disagree, but it's not a big deal.

"recently-released books" Thanks!

"Instagram for booklovers" I think I agree.

"Libraries include Marilyn Monroe, Emily Dickinson" — I feel like people get it.

"can be posted on LiveJournal, MySpace" — Thanks. There were some references to them for other widget types, but I missed this one.

>88 the_red_shoes::
>24 conceptDawg: explains that the top menu bar is not the final design; the fact that it looks too small on the new pages (and it does!) won't be fixed until later, I think.

>88 the_red_shoes:
>91 reconditereader: Main navigation bar look
Correct. The main navigation bar is simply a "copy" of the old navigation bar at this point. The new navigation are is styled to match the rest of the "new" content.

This interim step: new-style content with an old-style navigation bar is to ease transition so that the site's look stays cohesive during the transition—not jumping from LT1 to LT2 from page to page. Once we have all (or most?) of the content transitioned over then we'll flip the switch on the navigation bar to complete the process.

>92 conceptDawg:

Okay, but RedShoes was complaining about the new design being worse than the old, and in particular the top nav being smaller. So I'm a little confused.

>93 timspalding: the top nav *IS* smaller. It was my understanding that that is a known "bug" (not actually a bug).

Looks great!!

I appreciate the work being done and I'm happy for you all getting things organized to make updates thereafter easier.

>94 reconditereader:

So, overall, it shouldn't be. But it can be because the new nav shrinks if your screen is narrow--shrinking all the way to a very different nav, with all the tabs turned into a menu, when narrowed to mobile width.

I'm guessing that contextual shrinking is what's going on here. That shrinking should not happen unless it "has" to, however, so clearly something is wrong.

Can you tell us your system and browser? We might also need to post a page to help you tell us your screen width.

the_red_shoes (#86):

Pictures of blue jeans don't come across as "design questions or feedback" to me.

>93 timspalding: The main nav gets small at certain sizes, which might be what people are noticing. But no matter what size it is it still doesn't quite fit with new content below it (because it was never designed to do so). That's what I was describing.

>96 timspalding: I'm using the full width of my browser on my laptop, fullscreen.

Windows 10, Firefox most recent update.
I've put screenshots in my junk drawer.

>97 lorax: Tim asked for feedback on color; I posted two pictures to illustrate the difference in the way I experience the difference I see between looking at the site on a small screen versus a large one, which I explained when I posted the pictures.

>99 reconditereader:

Thanks. Yes, it's doing what conceptDawg described.

conceptDawg, can you look at making it less sensitive?

Exact same height (51px) but the new text seems much smaller:

Yes. It's not about the height here.
The text compacts and gets slightly smaller to account for width concerns. That trigger point could be a little more to the left, so I'll change that and the text won't get smaller until the search box hits up against the tabs.

My thought as I read all of conceptDawg's comments ran along the lines of "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, for I am the great and powerful Oz!"

But I like to look behind the curtain, and I think Oz was more impressive working all the levers and gizmos than if he just waved a magic wand. So, I am massively impressed with your work with the gizmos, even though I understand very little!!

So far, it looks good on my phone.

On series pages: my eye is drawn to the "Order: 1" beneath each title, rather than the book itself. Because it's black and "order" is in bold, it stands out more than the coloured links for title and author.
Can the font for this be lighter or smaller?

>81 conceptDawg: You're changing the wing in flight? *shudders*

But 'yay' that it'll all be linked (and also for future changes being faster). Adding my thanks, too.

I prefer to do any work on my catalogue on my Mac desktop because it was too fiddly to edit 'Your Books' (especially) on my iPad although I'll use Talk on my iPad or (occasionally) phone.

I was quite interested in the 'Link your LibraryThing and Litsy accounts' but ...

>73 timspalding: I think it is good. I haven't see the problem today!

I'm generally happy with it. There's 2 items that I don't like on mobile:

bottom links
On a narrow mobile screen the new pages look fine, except that it scrolls sideways because the bottom links (what's that part of a page called?) "home - about - contact - privacy - wikithing - help" are wider than my screen.
This feels weird when everything else is nicely resized. Either make those smaller or put them on 2 rows.

no pinching
Even when the page has initially adjusted its width I'd still like to option to pinch to zoom. I can't do that now.

>108 igorken: I get two rows of the bottom-nav (the "Home | About | Contact" etc..) on my iPhone 8. I can also pinch to zoom.

What device are you using, what version?

>109 kristilabrie: On my Android phone I get two rows at the bottom but pinch to zoom doesn't work. I'll see if I can find the Android version.

ETA version 6.0.1

>109 kristilabrie: I'm also on an Android phone. In the new pages that are the (mobile-unfriendly) default, the bottom menu wraps, but pinch-to-zoom doesn't work. In the desktop view that I can select in my browser settings, the pinching to zoom in and out does work.

>111 aspirit: You can't pinch to zoom in OR out?
The new mobile version won't zoom out but you should still be able to zoom in.
What phone are you on? Browser? (assuming chrome browser on android)

>112 conceptDawg: Yes, Chrome 85.0.4183.101. Android 6.0.1 on a Huawei Honor phone. Pinch does not work.

And pinch to zoom does work on the old pages, like Talk.

>112 conceptDawg: correct; pinch to zoom in doesn't work. (I don't know why zooming in would be more helpful than out with how large and widely spaced everything is *grumble grumble* but definitely, pinching does nothing.)

I am using a Chrome-based browser on my Android OS.

conceptDawg (#112):

(Pixel 2, Android 10, latest Chrome).

On a "new-style" page (Zeitgeist), I can zoom in, but not out, which is what you say should happen.

The same is actually true of an "old-style" page as well, but since it starts out very small I doubt many people would try to zoom out from there.

>109 kristilabrie:
I get these issues when using Firefox 80.1.3 on a Galaxy A5 (2017) with Android 8.0.0.

I've now also tried on an iphone 7 using Firefox 28.1 or safari and there I can indeed zoom out (not in) and I have 2 rows.

Hi,
in the page http:/www.librarything.it/more the link http://www.librarything.it/more/haiku doesn't work.

While you're tweaking things, could I put in a request for a change of colour for already clicked links? On the Pelican Hunt page, I can't easily see the link to the 'Talk' thread which I keep using but the other links (eg 'Badge') which I haven't used stand out. The maroon of clicked links is too close to black.

>118 cipeciop: Noted, thanks!

The drop-down menus on the new pages worked last week. Those menus no longer open.

I take a few months' break from LT and come back and everything is beautiful! Thank you for all the work.

I'm glad you're looking into the checkmark colors, but while you're at it, can you consider making them accessible for people who can't see the color at all? Semantic color isn't great for accessible design in general. I'm not colorblind but I do use some pretty drastic nighttime blue-light filters to make myself go to sleep that mean no amount of color-tweaks will help me, and AFAIK there's not any alt text/mouseover text for them either. Changing the shape in the circle, giving them a level of luminance contrast that will show even in B&W, or adding a text alternative would all help.

I love the changes so far as I mostly use an iPad and occasionally my iPhone to use LT. I particularly like the fact I can now find Early Reviewers page easily without having a meltdown and nervous breakdown! Now at long last I know where to look! Thankyou so much. Also the series pages are great and indeed everything you’ve changed so far is much more readable and easy on the eye. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the site updated. Yours ecstatically Lyn

Overall I really like the look of the new series pages. I do have to chime in on the washing out issue, though.



There's definitely a big difference there. The old ones are quite effective at differentiating at many different sizes on many different monitors. The new ones range from "acceptable" to "terrible" depending on those factors. As has been stated, the purple is the most difficult to distinguish from the gray.

They also just make the page seem a bit more drab.

Also, the series cover list don't have any kind of horizontal scrolling elements. If my browser (Chrome, Windows 10) isn't wide enough to fit them all, it neither reflows them onto the next line or allows me to scroll over to see them all.

Finally, and this isn't necessarily a series thing but more of how a work calculates a cover, but this tiny cover being chose makes the series list look suboptimal: Hyperion Cantos

brightcopy (#124):

Haven't seen you in a while!

>125 lorax:

I'm an expert lurker. Like the checkmarks, I faded into the background.

>124 brightcopy:

I agree completely.

>124 brightcopy:

No, I agree too. I think, however, this may be an oversight on conceptdawg's part. Do you find the checkmarks on the COVER mode also washed out?

>102 saltmanz: seeing the two one on top of the other points out what I was seeing but not able to articulate.

I can read the top sample - the bottom sample is fuzzy and unreadable - kind of like the eye chart when having eyes tested, they keep going smaller and smaller till you can't read it. You have managed to accomplish that here. (And even enlarging the print doesn't help - still a blur).

>122 melannen: I agree with the idea of giving the different marks differing shapes. I think that would help in multiple contexts. I'll look into that.

>124 brightcopy: This was, indeed, an oversight. I pumped up the variation for the bigger checks but forgot to change the smaller images. I'll get those fixed too.

Why is the edit series below tags? Since I work on a laptop I am receiving the mobile version and I thought it difficult to find.

edit series bar should be above tags, directly below series list.

The new design is not optimized for netbooks either. It might be a small screen, but I have plenty of space for left and right columns, yet I have to scroll and scroll to come to what should be right side menus

>131 Bettesbooks: This layout is a bit temporary. For now, everything in the right bar is getting thrown to the bottom of the content when there's not enough space for the right bar. Eventually it will be smarter about that and put the "action area" at the top while moving the right bar content to the bottom—because it's usually extra content. I'm still working out the hows and whys of this while we're building out some of the base pages.

>132 SandraArdnas: It's optimized based on screensize, not device. If there is space (and the browser is standards-compliant) then it will use the space correctly. What browser/version are you using?

On the More page, please don't bury Import/Export under "Useful and Fun" where it is hard to find and potentially could move around. It is quite different from all the other items on that page, and is the only More item I ever use (to export new books to Excel to mailmerge into Word and print spine and card labels).

>134 oceanview:

Thanks. The main place is on the Add Books page. But I've moved it to the front of its section.

Useful and Fun seems an odd section name. First of all, I think you probably mean useful or fun since the intersection of things that are both useful and fun is rather limited. Secondly, why would you lump both of those things in one section? What wouldn't belong in that section?

HATE the new Talk page! The font is so HUGE that I can see very few subject lines and posts on a page. I had to zoom out three times to get it to a reasonable size, and even then saw much fewer topics than usual on the main Talk page. Everything is taking up a lot more space.

Also, for whatever reason, in Firefox, it's barely noticeable when I highlight something to copy.

>137 lilithcat: I wouldn't go that far, but your eyes may be better than mine. It's kinda buggy though. Broken icons, ignored topics awol, confusing clickability issues...

Ugh. The new Talk page seems to be gray font on gray background which I find more difficult to read. Everything looks dreary and washed out. Starred groups used to be marked with a yellow star which was easy to find. Why is it now an open square on the left?

>139 Taphophile13: Talk post coming soon. The square issue is a font-loading problem.

Interesting. Will take some getting used to but not bad.

Ditto on hating the new talk page. Am I doing something wrong, or can't we sort on column headers anymore to see the subject lines differently?

Sometimes I like sorting my starred threads by last message, sometimes by # of unread messages.

>138 mart1n: The ignored topics missing was an oversight. It will be added back when I roll out some fixes later today.

I've had to head over to my laptop to comment here - my android phone didn't seem to recognise commenting as an option with the new format. Really not a fan of the red - just feels like a colour I use for errors.

>143 conceptDawg:

Nice job, conceptDawg.

double, sorry

The new talk page looks terrible on my phone (Android). It's almost nothing but white space. The link to a single thread is spread out over eight lines and takes up pretty much the whole screen. I've fiddled with it, and I can't make it better. (The talk page looked much the same on my desktop, but I could fix that with "ctrl -". I'm not sure I love it, but I could do an easy fix to make it all perfectly functional.) Don't see how to do that on my phone.

Its something new to get used to. I don't hate it. Right now its just different.

I definitely would like to see the sort options come back. My starred threads is my "landing page" and I like having it sorted by Topic name, so all my friends threads are generally in the same place all the time. And I do sometimes resort by unread, like Karen does.

One tip I did notice that gives you more real estate on the list page, is that you can hide the group column, I like that feature

I'm trying to fix the problem on Android/iPhones. It didn't manifest until we pushed to the live server, so there's a disconnect somewhere. Working on it.

you can hide the group column, I like that feature

Yeah, that's cool.

About the red scrolling bar--I'm feeling it's a little... too much? Do we really need it?

>149 conceptDawg: Cool. Thanks.

Come talk at https://www.librarything.com/topic/325384

Testing a post from my iPhone.

I don't like it, the same way I don't like what Facebook has done to its look. I feel like I accidentally took a large print book from the library. I understand needing to make the site useable on phones, but I'm still a PC girl, and I don't like feeling shuffled off, if you know what I mean. Highlighting something to cut or copy doesn't work well....it's so faint as to be nearly invisible.

>154 laytonwoman3rd:

Can you repeat that over on https://www.librarything.com/topic/325384 ? I want to make sure everyone sees everyone's comments.

>155 timspalding: Sure...but I feel I was directed here to comment.

The "Why Does This Page Look So Different?" Talk notice links to this topic, not to the new one.

I can post here (and edit!) but can't so much as type anything in the message box in the new topic for Talk 2.0. (Update: I figured out a workaround. Now I need I already need a break from threads. I'll try posting about other technical problems when the headache is gone.)

I'm also having trouble reading these new pages, so, help me out... where's the Bugs page for the new Talk?

>158 aspirit: There is a new thread for Talk 2 here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/325384
Though it should be mentioned that it's something we know about if you're on Android. Working on it.

>159 conceptDawg: please read >158 aspirit: because it doesn't do any good to direct a member to where they can't post.

>159 conceptDawg: also, I don't see a link to Bugs in the new thread/topic. Is it actually there?

>159 conceptDawg: You actually ASKED for the page for new Talk. We don't currently have a bugs page for it...but if we did, would it be any different? :)

Currently it's just a single thread for new Talk. Throw any bugs in there.

And I DID mention in my post that we're working on it.

>157 aspirit: That is correct. The "Why this page looks different" is a site-wide standard popup. Every page links to this thread. Arguably, not perfect.

I've not the time to scroll through the entire thread, so apologies if I'm repeating comments others have made, but:

A) I'm not nuts about the new design in general, though I am sympathetic to the goal of a more app-friendly design if such is needed. Generally speaking I start out not liking new designs and gradually getting used to them. Except that . . .

. . . B) Due to my red-green color blindness, I guess, I can no longer easily see the difference between posts on conversation threads that I've already seen and those I haven't. I think I saw someone refer to that original "unread posts" heading color as salmon. At any rate, more contrast between shades, please. Or do I have a way of changing that setting myself that I'm not aware of?

>162 conceptDawg: wait. Reality check. A thread specifically for bugs was set up for the first 2.0 pages. See >1 timspalding:. We were given no reason to believe bug reports should go into the newest general Talk thread instead of a Bugs thread until I posted.

But I guess now members know.

(Ouuuch. F these pages.)

I think I just need to get used to it. It's not bad.

Like >12 amanda4242: mentions, the font seems quite large. But, again, probably just need to get used to it.

The other thing I noticed right away was the light blue for unread vs the light brown/grey-ish for what's already read just doesn't seem like enough of a contrast for me. But, maybe (again), I just need to get used to it.

ETA: I see others are also having trouble with some of the "faded" colours. Thought I'd also add that 95% (or more) of the time I'm on a PC. The other 5%, a tablet.

ETA (again): Just found this thread today, so I am commenting on the Talk pages.

On my desktop the colours are so faded that it's hard to read, and hard to tell the difference between read and unread posts.

...as I continue to read through some of the other comments...

Could the larger size of font on most sites also be because they use a lot of photos? Whereas here, there aren't that many, so the smaller font is less noticeable as being smaller?

Just a thought.

>137 lilithcat: Also, for whatever reason, in Firefox, it's barely noticeable when I highlight something to copy.

Just tried this when mentioned. I have to agree on this.

Good god. What's happened to the Talk front page? Is this what the chocolate version looks like? It's awful. Please give me back the salmon version.

I don't like this. Period. First wordpress changes to the block editor, that bastardized chunk of excrement. Then blogger faffs off with their new editor.
NOW librarything is changing.

I knew this was coming but I don't like it and I don't have to like it.

I like the color changes but I don't like the font change because it's hard on my eyes. For someone with bad eyes, there are too many curly ques in this font. The bold on this font doesn't seem to stand out as well.

Could we get a little bit more color maybe - brighter ?

>171 cyderry: I'll second this. The font is too light and too small. It is much harder to read than the previous font. I'm also not a big fan of having screen space taken up by navigation panels on both sides - but now I can't tell you if that's different than it was yesterday, or not. There's definitely less space for the group thread text in posts than before, which is not a good thing.

>170 BookstoogeLT: C'mon, you know you love change!

The 'less space' is definitely psychological, not actual. The old format had the left and right navigation scroll off if you scrolled down far enough - but the space was still not being used. Now, it stays there no matter how far you scroll, so it just LOOKS like there is less space. Just a trick of the eye, but still different. Also, the 'preview' button isn't working for me at all.

>171 cyderry: Third, here. When I saw the change, one of my first thoughts was that I should start browsing LT on 110% zoom.

>172 Karlstar: >170 BookstoogeLT:: C'mon, you know you love change!
Hahaha!!

I'm on my iPad. I miss the tabs at the top.

>173 Karlstar: I'm not seeing the left and right nagivations stay visible. They scroll off for me.

Rarely like change. Main worry is the increase in line spacing - social distancing in the time of Covid???. Too much blank space on the desk top, although I think it doesn't look bad on my iPad.

Just noticed the post and preview buttons - why are they unchanged? A bit untidy.

>178 abbottthomas: There is a strange thing going on with the Post and Preview buttons on some browsers (I think). I'm tracking that down.

>179 conceptDawg:
My 'preview' link does nothing. The 'post message' does.

Windows 10, latest FF.

Italics
Bold
Strikethru

This is a block quote section. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog

This is a spoiler

Running Windows 10, Chrome (Version 86.0.4240.75 (Official Build) (64-bit))

Preview is working for me, italic and bold tags are working, but not the spoiler.

ETA - added a few more of the tags I use frequently. All but spoiler work

Just noticed that the block quote tag works a little different now. I like it, its more distinctive.

>182 mahsdad:

The intent and line are good; the size is not.

While I applaud the idea of making LT more mobile friendly, it would be nice to have a "desktop" option to use when accessing the site from home computer or laptop that would allow the user to switch to the "old" (i.e. current) format. One reason that I suggest this is that the current format shows the user a lot more information on a single page. This is a problem when viewing on a small screen like a phone or even perhaps on a tablet but it is a plus on a laptop or desktop computer.

>20 lilithcat: I like the old one better. While I do appreciate that the larger font is better for those with impaired vision, it looks somehow childish. I'm not sure why.

I completely agree. I don't like the new Talk pages, which is what I mainly look at. I also mainly look at it on my laptop so what it looks like on a mobile phone is not very important for me. On the odd occasions when I did look at it on my mobile I had no problem with the old one.

>184 leslie.98: the current {old} format shows the user a lot more information on a single page... it is a plus on a laptop or desktop computer.

Again, I completely agree.

>82 conceptDawg: Ouch! Individual pages for every page on LT? Yeah, framework and generated pages should make things _much_ easier for maintaining.

I have a bunch of comments; I'll try to find the thread you want them in, though it's a little confusing.

I agree about the colors being faded and I do sympathize with people who are red/green colorblind. They will have a difficult time. I suppose everything else I will get used to — except for the TalkTalk :-)

Glad I found this page as I thought something had gone wrong with my screen.

I do not like this new design at all, it is far too pale and I have to lean forward to read it (I very rarely consult LT on my phone but when I did, I had no problems with readability).

On my home page, the section Topics from your Groups has become very ugly, with the first column (group name) unnecessarily squashed up into three lines in a narrow column, leaving the actual topics spaced out and in a small typeface.

Please let me switch back to the old format, which I was very comfortable with.

Just want to agree with those who point out that when you highlight text in Talk it is such a pale brown that it is almost invisible.

Not happy with all the open spaces on the new Home page.

I'd rather have a larger font for my old eyes.

The recently added books have gaps as well (top right side):



Addendum: preview not working

>190 fuzzi: You know the Home page didn't change, right?? It was just Talk, Zeitgeist

Topics from your Groups on my home page has changed. Smaller font, for a start.

>191 ScarletBea: The Talk widget on my home page has definitely changed. Besides the Group Name column being too narrow, (as described in >188 overthemoon:), the biggest grievance I have with it is that new posts are no longer shown in bold. Hoping that gets fixed at some point. That being said, it's probably a lot more important to fix the Preview and Spoiler tag issues first... ;)

I've only experienced the talk aspect on my laptop and phone. I (being aged 57) love the clarity and ease of reading on both the laptop and phone.

Do address the spoiler issue though if it hasn't been resolved. :)

>191 ScarletBea: the "recently added" didn't have a gap before, not that I recall.

Perhaps it's just a coincidence?

>192 overthemoon: yep. Perhaps that's just a coincidence, too?

>193 ScoLgo: good point, I'd not scrolled down that far.

Oh, and as I said in my post, preview is not working while posting in Talk.

I do like how "Favorited Messages" is now in the main column, and I don't have to scroll down to access the link anymore.

Now all the starred threads I've read are mixed in with the ones that I haven't got to yet. I knew I was behind but now it makes me feel like I want to give up!

Ah, I think it depended on whether you had Talk in your home page, of course, sorry - I keep forgetting that's possible, I just access Talk from the top menu.

I don't like this new format!

>199 JulieLill: Could you be a little more specific about what you don't like, so we can look at it?

So a question - we can collapse the group column on the far left and push that info into the topic section, but when the group column is displayed, what is it for if it can't be sorted?

I will leave it collapsed since it basically doesn't do anything. If it could sort by group that would be useful.

Other than that, still figuring things out.

I hate is that there are two side bars. I feel like the info could be consolidated into one leaving more space for the talk column itself.

>201 Bookmarque:

The thing is, there were two sidebars before. Do they feel somehow more intrusive now?

Yeah, they do somehow. I can't put my finger on why. Maybe it's the font size change. I had to be at 125% or so to make it readable across all pages. Now this page has bigger font(s), I reduce it and it seems weird. Of course now all the other pages are harder to read until they get revamped, too. Maybe if the info scrolled down with the talk posts it would feel less weird.

>204 magicians_nephew: Where are you seeing the thread name getting cut off? Can you provide a screenshot? Never mind.

I liked Talk where it had "Started by You" and "Starred by you"

is "Favorited" really a word? I had no idea you could "Favorite" a message.

I guess we can get used to this but its big and blocky and i don't see anything so far as an improvement.

>191 ScarletBea: "You know the Home page didn't change, right?? It was just Talk, Zeitgeist."

Well, "just Talk" means a lot to me, as that's the predominant section of my Home Page and the one that I reference most often. My Talk section to see "Topics you've posted to." Changes to that that I don't care for are:

1) There is now a separate column on the left identifying the group the post is from. Was that there before? At any rate, that Group column is so narrow that the group name is often broken into two or even three lines.

2) The Group column has the heading "Group." OK, but the next column, identifying specific threads, has the heading "Group > TopicTopic" (not a typo, the word "Topic" appears twice.)

3) The text font in "Talk" is significantly smaller. I can still read the text, but I don't care for the smaller size.

I have written previously about my inability to see the difference between previously read and not read yet posts on individual threads due to the heading color changes. What was the point of that and do the web designers not understand that red-green colorblindness is an actual thing?

I tried using LT on my Android phone in Firefox. I rarely used it before because it was too tiny to read.

It is easier to read than before, but I don't like how I can't get back to where I was without extra steps.

For example, I'm in Starred Topics, I click on a thread, read it, and want to go back to the starred topics list.

In the old version (and on my desktop computer) I just click on the Talk tab and I'm back in the Starred Topics list. Now I have to click on the up arrow, then on the little tab icon, and choose Starred Topics from the list below. It's another couple steps. Why no tabs?

P.S. As in the desktop version (Windows 10 and Firefox) Preview is not working.

For example, I'm in Starred Topics, I click on a thread, read it, and want to go back to the starred topics list.

I hear you, but there are so many options, we can't present them all or the Topic wouldn't even start "above the fold." Wouldn't your problem be solved by using your mobile phone's back button? We could, perhaps, create a "breadcrumb trail" instead.

>208 fuzzi: Agreed. I really dislike the extra steps. I'm struggling enough with being social on LT. This update, like FBs, makes me want to stay far away.

Where are the links to the left where I can go between posts I made and posts started by me? Where are the tabs so I can go to Zeitgeist or Groups? Where is the last message column? Where's the link to my profile? How am I supposed to tell when I have a personal comment?

It all used to be on one page. It was EASY. Now it's harder. Adding clicks may not seem like much to some people. But right now my life needs to be as simple and stress free as possible. And this ain't that!

And I went into a post. Double Ugh. Way too much white space and the font is too small, making the lines too long and hard to scan.

I don't like it AT ALL. There's been a lot of changes to LT since I joined and I've managed to grow used to them all, but this is really changing my enjoyment of the site. I understand the problem making the site work for mobile users, but it is becoming less and less like LT and more and more like everything else out there. I'll continue to use the site to catalog my books and keep track of my reading, but I am less and less interested in doing anything else on the site.
So many people don't like the changes, but it seems they will happen anyway.

>209 timspalding: "I hear you, but there are so many options ..."

You and the rest of the LT team seem to hear and be responding to some of the individual comments, but seem to be studiously ignoring the general howls of dismay. I'l let just three speak for me:

#170:
I don't like this. Period. First wordpress changes to the block editor, that bastardized chunk of excrement. Then blogger faffs off with their new editor. NOW librarything is changing. I knew this was coming but I don't like it and I don't have to like it.

#184:
While I applaud the idea of making LT more mobile friendly, it would be nice to have a "desktop" option to use when accessing the site from home computer or laptop that would allow the user to switch to the "old" (i.e. current) format.

I'm 100% with Mysterymax (#212):
I don't like it AT ALL. There's been a lot of changes to LT since I joined and I've managed to grow used to them all, but this is really changing my enjoyment of the site. I understand the problem making the site work for mobile users, but it is becoming less and less like LT and more and more like everything else out there. I'll continue to use the site to catalog my books and keep track of my reading, but I am less and less interested in doing anything else on the site.

210>
Where are the links to the left where I can go between posts?
The left-side menu is now at the top, as a drop down menu, on mobile devices.
It's the menu with "Talk > (document icon)" in it (that label is a bug, btw).

>214 conceptDawg:

To quote >210 Morphidae:, "I really dislike the extra steps."

Also, do I need to repost those in the Talk chat?

>213 Cynfelyn: You and the rest of the LT team seem to hear and be responding to some of the individual comments, but seem to be studiously ignoring the general howls of dismay.

We massively pulled back the new design on the main Talk page in response to criticism of it. There's now a lot less white space, the lines are closer, the colors are gone and the sorting is back. I'm seeing a lot of change on our part. We are working though other issues.

>216 timspalding: I have seen no change in the spacing and font. I have logged out and logged in. I have closed Chrome and reopened it. Do I need to blow cookies away... As I said, no change. Windows 10 Pro, Large monitor, Latest version of Google Chrome.

>217 ulmannc: I think the tradeoff to making the site look "better" on mobile is that it now looks bad on big screens. Ugh.

>218 reconditereader: What are you complaints about the main Talk page now?

While I applaud the idea of making LT more mobile friendly, it would be nice to have a "desktop" option to use when accessing the site from home computer or laptop that would allow the user to switch to the "old" (i.e. current) format.

We have a desktop view coming soon.

I feel like it's still not as information-dense as the original, although it is better today than it was yesterday.

I am not aware of any other site that is so attentive to its actual users' response to a new design. Thank you so much, timspalding, conceptDawg, and the LT team.

It is indeed slightly looser. So, for example, on my screen at 100%, 36 topics were visible. Now, I never looked at it at that size, because they were tiny and I'm 49 years old. But that was the 100% option. That was reduced to 22 (61%). I moved it back and now it's 26 (72%). So indeed if you were looking at it at 100% and still are, you're seeing 28% fewer topics without scrolling. I'm comfortable with the change, given reactions to it, but I understand it's a change.

The groups/topic thing is, I think, a clear win. We were going to go live without a flipper, but some staff found it distracting--too much eye-flicking between group and topic. I don't think new users will feel that as acutely.

As for the star color, I have to say if the presence of a red rather than yellow star on the topic lines sends someone into orbit, I don't feel that any design change will ever be acceptable. We have to update the design from time to time. I know members don't like change, but the most common complaint against LibraryThing is that it looks like it was designed a decade ago. Because it was.

As for mobile, Chris is currently working on getting tablets into an in-between view. But the overall effect on mobile is better, and while some members don't like it, the overall effect has been positive. Once he work on the tablet size, and provides a desktop view, I think most complaints will be addressed—at least for the main talk page. We have some work to do on the topic pages.

>209 timspalding: yes, the back arrow/button works. I wouldn't say it's solved, but it's a work-around.

>222 timspalding: As for the star color, I have to say if the presence of a red rather than yellow star on the topic lines sends someone into orbit, I don't feel that any design change will ever be acceptable

It's not that it "sends me into orbit" as much as the red doesn't register with me the same way yellow does. I admit I don't like the color, but I dislike it mostly because I find myself scrolling past topics I've starred because the stars no longer stand out to me.

>221 NinieB: Agreed! I think they do a good job with feedback and adjusting things. They can't make everyone happy, though.

Wanted to say thank you for fixing the highlighting colour!

>222 timspalding: & >224 amanda4242: "As for the star color, I have to say if the presence of a red rather than yellow star on the topic lines sends someone into orbit, I don't feel that any design change will ever be acceptable."

"It's not that it "sends me into orbit" as much as the red doesn't register with me the same way yellow does. . . . I find myself scrolling past topics I've starred because the stars no longer stand out to me."

Yes, this. Why design a website with a color likely to be a problem for folks with colorblindness issues?

"In the United States, about 7 percent of the male population—or about 10.5 million men—and 0.4 percent of the female population either cannot distinguish red from green, or see red and green differently from how others do."
https://iristech.co/statistics/

Assuming your usership is split 50-50 between men and women, that's close to four out of every hundred users. 3.7% by my admittedly meager math skills. Not considered significant?

This is not a case of distinguishing between red and green though. It exists as red by itself and there is no need to distinguish. People with red/green colorblindness can still see red objects (my dad is red/green colorblind and he checked this out and said that it's not a problem for him, of course there are millions of variations of color perception among the population).

Mostly the new stars make better use of contrast instead of color. Dark red against white is much more contrasting than the old yellow against white. Making them more accessible.

>227 conceptDawg: Dark red against white is much more contrasting than the old yellow against white.

It does stand out more against the white, but when I'm scrolling through I don't really notice it next to the black font. I'm not any sort of colorblind, but the red stars next to the black font just don't stand out for me the same way the bright yellow did.

I think, for me, noticing the red is a case of getting used to it.

>202 timspalding: One thing about the sidebars - they used to a) have a white background (so blended in with the page) and b) the info in them scrolled up (so it was _just_ white). They were there, taking up the space, but visually far less...well, visible. I like that I don't have to scroll up to the top to get the info in them, but maybe a lighter background (or back to white, the same color as the background of the posts) would make them less obtrusive. It does feel a little boxed in now.

>191 ScarletBea:, >195 fuzzi: - The gap and other weird spacing issues with the Recently Added covers have been around for several months - the bug report is https://www.librarything.com/topic/320834 (from the end of May). At that time they were just squished over to the left; an interim fix spaced them out but left the gap in the middle. And no one's (including me) gone back to bump the thread and show the current problem since August (whoops).

>219 timspalding: Having a separate version for desktops (us "old school people" who need a big screen, keyboard and a mouse) in addition to the phone in the pocket makes a lot os sense to me.

The desktop view is now alive:

>232 timspalding: I still have the old bar at the top (Home, Your books, etc). How do I get the new bar at the top?
Updated. . . I saw the row at the bottom, clicked Desktop View at the bottom, it showed "mobile view" but nothing changed format wise.

I would have thought "Desktop View" wouldbe more useful on large screens? What am I missing?

Overall, reading Talk is currently much more pleasant on a tablet than a large screen. Posting from a tablet, though, is very annoying for this old Xennial. At least the red stars are now a pleasant wine color rather than dried blood.

>234 lorax:

What is making it unpleasant for you, reading-wise.

>232 timspalding: Clicking "desktop view" doesn't change anything about the view for me.

>235 timspalding: I find the unpleasantness increases as my screen size increases. On my desktop, the blues look washed out, the font is faint with the serif font being almost unreadable, it's difficult for me to tell the difference between read and unread threads without looking at the New/Total column, and that bar on the left is really intrusive when trying to read a thread--I'd love to be able to collapse it.

If you are already viewing the site on a large screen the desktop view won't change anything. It's primarily for mobile/tablet users that want to use the site as it would look on a desktop.

Eventually, the link won't be there for large screens but I was using it to fix a problem on Android devices and need it to show at all screen resolutions, so it's showing all the time right now.

>224 amanda4242: It's not that it "sends me into orbit" as much as the red doesn't register with me the same way yellow does.

Funnily enough, I 'd like it switched back to yellow for the opposite reason - the red registers too much, and suggests a problem.

(If it's gonna stay red, change the shape to a heart? That should handle the "looks like a problem" thing.)

>239 AndreasJ:

Well a heart has other problems. The big one is that people will read it as 'Loved'. People star topics for other reasons. Also some people might complain that it says 'Starred Topics' but shows topics with hearts (but that is minor in comparison I think).

timspalding (#235):

What is making it unpleasant for you, reading-wise.


The jarring red of the stars on the main Talk page is an issue, but that's not a deal-breaker, it just discourages me from starring things. The density of topics there is much improved now, so that's no longer an issue - I no longer feel like I'm staring at something from 1995.

On an actual topic, it's largely the font, which is both very large and very thin. The balance is better on a smaller screen.

>227 conceptDawg: "People with red/green colorblindness can still see red objects."

Certainly, that's so. Red objects don't disappear to us, unless they're printed in a background of something that makes difficult to distinguish the object. Text can be particularly difficult. I host a weekly jazz radio show. Don't get me started on the color layouts of some CD liner notes! But I digress.

Another issue we have is a relatively frequent inability to recognize what color it is we're looking at, even if we can see the color. Hence, while I am fairly sure that the color bars over previously unread posts are blue, I can't tell you what color the bars over previously read posts are. Possibly pink (which, as a combination of red and blue, is often difficult for us to identify; purple presents a similar problem), or more likely some sort of green. All I know for sure (and all I really care about) is that, as I have mentioned a couple of times on this thread, I can barely discern the difference between those two colors, whereas in the past I could differentiate between them instantly. As I spend most of my time on LT among the discussion threads, I would very much appreciate a tweak, there.

rocketjk (#242):

Hence, while I am fairly sure that the color bars over previously unread posts are blue, I can't tell you what color the bars over previously read posts are. Possibly pink (which, as a combination of red and blue, is often difficult for us to identify; purple presents a similar problem), or more likely some sort of green.

As someone with normal color vision I can't really tell you what color the previously-read bars are, either. Sort of a greyish-pinkish-beige. Definitely not anything on the green end of the spectrum, but it's a tough color to nail down.

My reaction is pretty much as stated at >237 amanda4242:

For the past several days I kept thinking the website is broken. On the home page I go to as a default, the font is too small, this uber pale pastel color scheme doesn't help me distinguish things - it makes it harder, and the whole spread out thing I don't like. Altho I might check things on a mobile device sometimes, I use a desktop for cataloguing and interacting. I am not happy with the desktop changes. Please undo. My 2 cents.

>244 RBeffa:

The home page generally? Because the home page hasn't been changed. Do you mean the main Talk page? Or the talk section on (some) home pages?

>245 timspalding: The talk page section within my home page

Here's a screenshot from my desktop

>246 RBeffa:
Yes, the talk display on the home page is still a little buggy. We just haven't tackled it yet. But it's getting close to the top of the pile today.

I might be missing something - how do I change back from desktop view to mobile?

>248 mart1n: You should have a Mobile View button in the same place. It's a toggle.
If you aren't seeing that, let me know and I'll investigate. Also let me know about your device/browser in that case.

The font is too thin, making it difficult to read. It causes eyestrain and headache. Making it bigger doesn't help as then it's then tall and thin.

>246 RBeffa: & .250 Yes, this is what I was referring to here >207 rocketjk:.

Coming back to this after it's less jarringly new:

The red is still too red.

The density on the main Talk page is much improved, thank you.

The greyish color of the read message headers is washed-out but that's clearly a matter of personal preference. I preferred the old, warmer tone.

The font is still too large and too thin, but that is screen-dependent. I'd been using my big old external monitor (it's at least ten years old). On my laptop screen, which is smaller but newer and thus a Retina display, while the size is still too large it's no longer awkwardly thin, so I can zoom it out a notch or two without the font becoming unreadably thin. So as long as I choose my screen with care, everything looks fine. I'd say the overall design is nicer, the details of color and font less so for me.

>249 conceptDawg: It's there now! But definitely wasn't earlier. Samsung A90 FWIW.

>251 rocketjk: Yes you explained it just right Jerry.

I have discovered the "Your World" links on the left and appreciate their placement.

>252 lorax: The red is still too red.

The red highlight is gone. You mean the star?

Personally, I love the red stars. It goes with the theme, unlike the conflicting yellow.

Y'know, Tim, if you made the "Topic" text light blue and the stars more of a real red, the main Talk page would look like the Chicago flag.

Just sayin' . . .

Not a fan of the fact that blockquote text is now larger than normal text.

>259 TFleet:

Yeah, just noticed that. Very weird...

>259 TFleet: It's been mentioned - Tim says he's working on it. It's not intentional.

Just wanted to say I like the new colors and fonts. It definitely feels easier for me to read on my laptop. Thank you for all the work you put into improving LibraryThing.

My wishlist items would be to add buttons to do things like make words bold, mark spoilers, and to add pictures. I have to Google code every time.

ETA: I also like how you can hover your mouse over a touchstone to get a mini description!

I agree with >244 RBeffa: that the font now seems too small on the home page. If it hasn't changed, I don't know why this is the case. Also squeezing the group names into several lines makes them distracting, but perhaps I will get used to it. I understand that this is to make it easier for mobile device users. I am confused about this, if there is supposed to be a mobile view and a desktop view.
MacBookPro; 10.14.6

I do want to thank you for all your hard work!

>263 krazy4katz: The change was to the Talk tab but it appears to have affected the Talk module on the home tab too, although I'm not sure that was intended. In any case, they said they'll start fixing the bugs with the Home tab module soon.

>264 jjwilson61: OK, thank you! I must have missed that skimming through all of this.

Over all, liking the new formatting, but wondering why

things in blockquote appear in a larger font

than the rest of the text, which is quite distracting.

Just a question since people seem not to like the enlarged font with blockquote - is there a way to enlarge the font we intentionally wanted to?

>266 SassyLassy: I don't like the gray blockquote line on the left. 🤔

I don't like the double list of touchstones. I scroll to the bottom to see the last post. Now the last post is somewhere in the middle of a list of books That takes up more space than it should.

Thank you for the yellow stars! k4k

>232 timspalding: I still don't see the 'desktop option'. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong place? Where exactly is it supposed to be? Maybe it would be good to locate it on either the left or right side panels where it would be easily accessible no matter what page you are on.

Thanks for implementing this suggestion - I hope to be able to toggle between desktop and mobile soon :)

>271 leslie.98: It's in the footer at the bottom of the page.

Clicking desktop view changes NOTHING.

>273 mysterymax: do you have a desktop view selected in your browser settings?

That sounds as if it must be a LT bug if you don't. (Assuming you're on a mobile device.)

>273 mysterymax: It's only for mobile devices.

>274 aspirit: The 'button' is there for a desktop view, but when I click on it nothing happens.

I thought the whole idea of a desktop view was so that those of use who use LT on our desktop could have the old settings. Why should the mobile view be the default?

>277 mysterymax: I also thought it would be a view for desktop users, but it's just for mobile users who want a desktop view.

>277 mysterymax: What you see on your desktop is the desktop view. The mobile view is actually quite different. For one thing it doesn't have the left and right panels.

I hate the new thin font.

>279 jjwilson61: Thanks for the clarification.
>280 Carnophile: Me too. So far, there's actually nothing about the changes that I like.

So far I haven't noticed anything that's better with the new design. Not on the member side. I've only been grateful that the site isn't currently as unusable as some others that have undergone recent redesigns.

By the way, this thread is loading slowly. Should we wait for "Continue this topic" to get fixed or simply create a new topic from scratch?

>282 aspirit:

Should we wait for "Continue this topic" to get fixed or simply create a new topic from scratch?

Please wait. It gets very confusing otherwise.

>272 mart1n: Thanks for the info!

Unfortunately, I am among those for whom clicking on the desktop link does nothing. I was hoping that it would give users of desktop and laptop computers the ability to go back to the previous version which was more information dense.

Re blockquotes, the text in them is larger on my laptop (Windows, Firefox 82.0.2), but smaller on my tablet (Nexus 10, Firefox 79.0.5).

The desktop version is designed to be used when the page is in mobile mode. In such cases, it switches to a full "desktop" version of the page, which the mobile user can use as they used to use talk—by pinching scrolling around as if seeing a small window on a larger page. It should not even be visible at other times, but conceptdawg wrote that it had to be so while he tested things on Android devices.

I'm one of those that love the new thin font, and the general look of the posts inside each topic.
The improvements after that first attempt on the main Talk page (the list) are also ok, smaller and with less white space than that the first shock, so I'm actually happy :)

>287 ScarletBea: I'm fine with the changes too. I understand that the layout has to change to work on all platforms, and I think they are doing a fine job and are being very responsive to many suggestions and objections. Sure, I prefer information density too, but I can accept what we're being shown now as a compromise.

timspalding (#256):

Sorry for the delay, I was camping over the weekend.

The red still appears for the star and for the bar marking which messages are mine.

Just a quick note: conceptDawg is out on vacation this week, and I am taking a personal day. So I don't think any changes will get made or bugs will get fixed today. But I'll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow, ready to do both.

>269 daxxh: Can you clarify what operating system and what web browser you're using? I'm not sure I understand the "double list of touchstones" and the "last post is somewhere in the middle of a list of books". If you can provide a specific link to a post or thread that might help, too. Thanks!

How are y'all handling spoilers? Currently, the tag is highlighting spoilers in Talk instead of hiding them. I could experiment with code for spoilery lines but figure someone else might've already.

>293 aspirit: Have you tried it lately? That was supposed to have been fixed.

this is a spoiler

It appears to be working for me (Windows 10/Chrome)

Are you seeing "this is a spoiler", or the hidden Spoiler tag?

>295 mahsdad: Working for me (Win10/Firefox).

>295 mahsdad: worked for me (Mac; Safari).

>294 jjwilson61: >295 mahsdad: >296 jjmcgaffey: I should've looked in reviews earlier. The highlighting of text within the spoiler tags also happens there, which means it's not only a new Talk design issue. Deselecting my browser's Night mode hides the highlighted spoilers. My browser setting is automatically revealing the spoilers.

I didn't have to use a dark mode for this site before, so I didn't know that happens. The spoiler is actually hiding text for most people. Okay; I don't mind the tag doing the opposite of what was intended as long as it works for the people who need it to work. I tended to look at the hidden text anyway.

It didn't work before - a couple days ago, text included in spoiler tags showed up with the addition of "(click to see)". Today it's working, and not highlighted (I never saw it highlighted though several people mentioned that).

>295 mahsdad: Working for me on iPhone 6/ iOS 12.4.8/ Safari

It does show as highlighted (both hidden and showing) which I think is new.

Haven't read all the 300 posts before me, but I wish to report recent problems while using the site on the Safari platform. 1. It takes hitting the "post" button twice to post something in the groups but 2. also, posting on others' profile pages, hitting "post comment" actually deletes the post some of the time. I've used Safari for the entire 14 years I've been on here, so this is new. I can switch to Firefox if I have to, of course:-)

Otherwise, I like the new look. It's more modern, a crisp and cleaner look.

And btw, thanks for the last 14 years of LT. Being able to converse with other readers from all over the world has been wonderfully enriching.

>301 avaland:

I can switch to Firefox if I have to, of course:-)

Don't.

I can't post at all in Firefox. Had to switch to Safari! ;-)

Never mind. I hit "post message", rather than "save message". Confusing!

>301 avaland: Testing a response to this on Safari to see if I actually have to click "Post message" twice or not.

ETA: I only had to click it once. Was this a temporary issue for you (perhaps server delay issues?), or are you still seeing the same problem now?

Also, when (and how many times) did you try to post to a member's wall and your comment never posted/got deleted? I'm wondering if this is a server delay issue or something rather than anything related to Talk2, which shouldn't have had any affect on profile comments.

I just added a book to one of my challenge lists today and after posting the edit none of my touchstones in that post work (even though I did not change any brackets.)
I experimented in another post, added a couple letters and saved. The touchstones were still linked. I went back to remove the nonsense letters, posted the update and none of the touchstones in that post worked anymore.

The books no longer show up in a different color and they no longer link to anything, just like tapping any other word in a post.

>304 ritacate: Yeah, this is a bug we found here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/325538, please follow that thread for updates! In the meantime, clicking to edit the post twice (Edit > Cancel > Edit) might work. Or try refreshing the page on the thread before editing the post. We'll work on a fix.

>303 kristilabrie: I can't seem to replicate the having to "hit 'post' twice" in the groups with the new design. That's good.

And checking on the issues about some replies to another LTer (via my profile page) being deleted when I hit reply: Judging by the comments I made about this happening to the people I was trying to communicate with, it was happening in August, September, and the most recent on Oct 17th. So it perhaps predates the new "look". Alas, these were all reasonably lengthy replies (of course). It doesn't seem to happen all the time, and I have been using Firefox occasionally to avoid the problem. I've not made a study of it, but I will pay close attention and document if it continues.

Hey, you fixed the blockquote thing, hooray! Thank you!

Darn! I liked that larger font on blockquote!

>308 cyderry:

You lose, sorry. :)

>306 avaland: Hmm, okay! Pay attention if you use any HTML in your posts, too. Sometimes having an open tag or something can strip the rest of the post out.

>305 kristilabrie: thank you for the quick response. I will check the link you supplied and try your suggestions.

Regarding the Series pages, there's a small layout issue: the description "Core" (or whatever the first category happens to be) is really tight to the grouped/ungrouped buttons. See The Lord of the Rings. It just needs a little more separation.

Thank you for bringing back bold on unread messages! It's showing in both the Talk module and the Talk page, and it makes it _so_ much easier to see.

>313 jjmcgaffey: agreed!

>313 jjmcgaffey: & >314 fuzzi: Yes, and the Talk segment of the Home page is now much better, so thanks for that, as well.

Is there any chance my request to increase the contrast between the color of the headings of read and unread posts in Talk threads will be addressed?

>315 rocketjk:

Yes. It's basically the most-requested change. We'll change it soon.

>316 timspalding: Excellent, thank you.

And what about the thin font that those of us without the greatest of eyesight can't see with any ease? It's giving me an eye strain headache. Zooming in doesn't help because tablets don't resize.

>318 Morphidae:

What's your browser and OS. Part of the problem here is that fonts are not really fonts, but "cascades" of fonts. If you don't have X, it gives you Y. If you don't have Y, it gives you Z, etc. So I need to figure out what you're getting.

Safari with iOS 12.4.1

Firefox ? with Windows 7 (don't have laptop running at the moment)

My Android Phone with Chrome is fine but I don't use LT on it.

Just jumping without reading any previous posts to say Talk is a little tricky on my iPhone. The text is small and there is no easy to make it larger and also see a whole line on the page. So I'm having trouble avoiding that situation where I have to move the window back and forth as I read. It wasn't an issue previously because the talk column was narrower. Overall I do like that design. Thanks.

>318 Morphidae: and >319 timspalding: I visited the site yesterday using my desktop computer and noticed text in Talk looks thinner and fainter than what can be comfortably read on default settings. The washed-out colors on icons weren't as problematic but looked unattractive.

Firefox. Windows 10.

Not sure if this is relevant to the new design elements ... The pop up thingy that, well, pops up when I hover over a recommendation on my home page .. any chance of making the description text bigger in that? It's so teeny tiny!

I'd appreciate some feedback on fonts here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/325717

>321 dchaikin: ok, a little follow up and a little humor. LT Clearly changed something. This morning my text was so large I could read about a word per line - but it wrapped. Turns out i had set the iphone text size to 250% to try to read on Talk previously (hadn’t helped). Anyway went back to 100% and the text wraps to screen size. This is a fix. Thank you!

I noticed that with the new format when I select the group in my starred threads I am immediately taken to the newest entries instead of to the start of the thread. Is this intentional?

>326 cyderry: Yes, it goes to the first unread.

>327 SandraArdnas: but when I click on that I don't want to go to the first unread. Why do we have a column for messages that shows read and unread then?

>328 cyderry: Tim thought it was too confusing to have two links going to different places in the thread. There is a link in the blue header to each post to jump to the top. It's way off to the right.

I noticed on my home page when looking at the Hot Topics, I no longer have the option to ignore that message. is this going to be permanent?

ETA - sorry it was hidden at 100% zoom but okay 90%.

>330 cyderry: Ignore topics? The x should still be there to click without opening the thread

>326 cyderry: I noticed that too. It's not often I want the top of the thread rather than the first unread, but still.

>329 jjwilson61: but that adds an additional step to have to go to the top to reach the links on the left. Is there a way to get the left hand LibraryThing, Your World, Book Discussions locked in place no matter how far down you are?

>1 timspalding: When I click "Add to My Books" (green plus sign), it fails to do so. What gives?

>334 rosstrowbridge:

The green plus sign has never added a book to your catalog. It has always taken you to the "Add Books" page.

>333 cyderry: What's the use case? Why would you want to click to go to a thread but immediately want to click away somewhere else?

I'm using a phone so I don't see the left hand that you are talking about but I don't remember things like Your World and Book Discussions being there.

>336 jjwilson61: I can't speak for >333 cyderry: but my use case would be to immediately mark a thread I'm not interested in as read. A more elegant solution would be to have some way to mark a thread as read from the Topics page without having to open it up.

>337 rosalita: To mark a thread as read I'd just enter the thread and then immediately use the back arrow to get back to the thread list.

Yes, that's what I do now. I still think it would be nice not to have to click into it — especially long threads can take a while to load.

I was just guessing what >333 cyderry: might want his requested feature for — I'm likely completely off base!

lilithcat (#335):

The green plus sign has never added a book to your catalog. It has always taken you to the "Add Books" page.

Well, it hasn't done so for a very, very long time, but it did do that at one point. Tim made the change because it was letting bad data propagate to other people's catalogs.

>339 rosalita: I agree about that and I believe I made the same suggestion at some point.

>341 jjwilson61: Great minds think alike!

This thread is getting way too long.

>336 jjwilson61: I star threads that I wish to keep track of but don't necessarily read everything. many have the data I am searching for in the opening post. So going to the next unread message is a waste of my time.

>344 cyderry: But if you used the back arrow you'd also be able to access the left hand column which I believe is what you want.

Whoa! Am on my tablet. Didnt like the new talk via portrait so switched to landscape. Better but prefer using portrait so switched to desktop view. Talk pages are teeny tiny. Am i the only one seeing this?

ETA: Moving this over to the "New Talk Pages #2" thread.

Sorry if this has been captured already but I don't have time to read all the prior posts. I notice that if someone opts to continue their topic in a new thread (e.g. when their thread gets too long), if you had the original topic starred it's no longer carrying the star over to the continued thread. I just realised I'd lost sight of a few threads I normally follow, and this was the reason.

Also, you can't add a star within the topic any more which is kind of annoying.

Otherwise liking the refresh.

>347 AlisonY: The buttons to either star or ignore a topic are now at the top of the right-hand sidebar.

I agree the star not carrying forward with thread continuations is problematic and hopefully will be fixed quickly.

>346 LibraryCin: i had this issue too, on my iPhone. But it seemed to fix itself. I don’t know what i did differently. Maybe I restarted? Maybe I opened a new tab? I thought the LT team had made an update, but they haven’t said so. (referencing >321 dchaikin: >325 dchaikin: )

>348 rosalita: Ah, OK - got it now. Many thanks. I work for a tech company so I know what it's like - always plenty of bugs to fix after a new major release!

>349 dchaikin: Oh, interesting. Good to know. Thanks! If it doesn't fix itself, the odd times I'm on LT on my tablet will be using the mobile site, but landscape.

don't like it....everything looks incredibly crowded now and my tickers are severely truncated....

>352 utbw42: What don't you like, exactly? If it's the text spacing you don't like—and if you haven't tried it yet—you might find changing the style of your font helps: look at the bottom of your page here and click the "tT Change Style" link to choose from 5 options.

>352 utbw42: Also, what do you mean by "tickers?"

>354 conceptDawg: They probably mean the counters from Ticker Factory. See https://www.librarything.com/topic/324913#7276764

I think Ticker Factory made some changes that are affecting the display of counters here, so probably this is something beyond LT's control.

amanda4242:

How have those changed? I see the full range of numbers on the ticker, based on the legend below, and the "pointer" (a sunburst on top, and a soccer ball below). They don't look truncated to me, but I didn't see them before. They don't span the full width of the window; is that what changed? It looks like they've been redesigned to fit well on mobile.

>356 lorax: They look giant compared to how they used to look. I'm not actually having trouble with mine and just put them up as an example of what utbw42 meant by ticker. I'm assuming any display problems are coming from Ticker Factory changes since changing styles on LT doesn't affect tickers at all.

What got bigger on my tickers is the legend font - see below. It changed shortly after 2.0 came out, but I think it's a coincidence of time - when I go to adjust the data on my tickers, it looks quite different over there on their site as well.



It's supposed to read "Books Read past target" and "Books Discarded to go" - the last couple characters are chopped off on both of those. "BOMBs Read to go" still fits.

Not worth worrying about, for me. The ticker itself looks fine.

I couldn't get junk drawer to work right now!

>359 mdoris: Can you be more specific about how it's not working for you? Thanks.

I don't suppose there's any way we can get TALK to sort on GROUPS

>361 majkia: Working on groups right now. We'll see what we can do.

>361 majkia:

I don't think you'd want that. If you belonged to a group that's been around for any length of time, your first group would be your last--you'd have 1,000 threads from the group.

>363 timspalding: unless you were in "started by you" or "starred" when the list might be manageable (dependinding on your usage patterns)

I'd like to be able to see unread messages by group.

>365 majkia: That still wouldn't work well for long-standing groups without a way to quickly mark all the threads in it as read.

>366 jjwilson61: true

>1 timspalding: Hi! There used to be a feature when you could see all the most popular books in a certain language. I can't find it now. Is it gone, or just got moved?

>368 zmeischa: We have the most cataloged books when you're looking at the various Languages of the site, under Zeitgeist: https://www.librarything.com/zeitgeist/language. Is that what you're looking for?

>369 kristilabrie: No. Those are the most popular books on the German-language version of the site. There used to be a feature when you could find the most popular books originally written in German. That's the one I'm looking for.

zmeischa (#368):

I don't know if it's linked from anywhere, but a quick search turned up the direct link:

https://www.librarything.com/language.php?l=ita&alllanguages=1

(Click on one of the languages on the right, or swap 'ita' for the three-letter code for another language, to choose languages.)

>372 lorax: I see that you can call up those books with CK original language given English with:

https://www.librarything.com/language.php?l=eng&all=1

But English is not included in the list of language totals in the box on the right of the screen. One of a number of cases where English gets missed out.

>372 lorax: Wow, thanks! That's what I was looking for!

>374 zmeischa: It's not perfect, though. For example, you will not find the mega best-sellers by Stieg Larsson in the list of Swedish books. I guess too many users have not used a source that has used the field for original language, so it isn't set in the work-level details. I'm sure there must be many more such works. So it is sadly not complete.