The blogs will be back into a very prominent position soon.
I'd like to offer some constructive criticism on the way they're currently being presented.
There's a long tradition of the various blogs having clever, witty titles that are expanded upon in the text of the blog itself. That's always been fine, and cute.
Now that the tease/sting is a random picture, the clever but abstract titles leave a viewer un-stung. "Covered in Creepy Crawlies". With random art. That tells me zero about why I might be interested in clicking on it. So... I don't.
Yes, I see there's mouse-over text, but that too fails to say what the blog entry is for.
I hate to be a stick-in-the-mud, but if you really want to draw attention, this isn't it. "Miniatures Update" is bland, but I might click on it.
I guess what I'm trying to convey is that like so much in modern interfaceless UI, you're showing something you want me to click on without giving me any actual reason to do so. The good stuff is hidden. It really might as well just be a burger menu.
I do like that there are multiple blog teasers shown at once. But some fine-tuning is advised so that any of them become enticing. Hopefully some of these comments will be useful to you. Good luck.
Glad to see the blog posts back on the front page! The front page does look very sexy now. :D The page also manages to avoid being too busy.
Anguish,
I see your point. I am probably going to click on blogs based on the punny title or the art, but not everyone will. The Paizo blog posts all have a logo for what section they belong to at the top of the post. Maybe a miniaturized version of those logos could be in the black bar to the right of the date/time stamp. Maybe the Store blog can receive it's own logo. Probably more doable is to have the tags be the hover text instead of the first so many characters of the blog entry itself.
Maybe a miniaturized version of those logos could be in the black bar to the right of the date/time stamp.
What do we tell three-year-olds when they start grunting and tugging at our clothes? "Use your words." <Grin>
True story: I've never bothered to figure out what the creature type icons are for various entries in the bestiaries. Animal, aberration, dragon and vermin are the only ones that I understand. Well, maybe undead I guess. I'm just suggesting some icons aren't... iconic.
Director of Technology
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If it isn't broke don't fix it....in other words I really don't like it.....but the previous website was broke. Half the fanbase thought this site held together with spit and baling wire. The other half thought that Paizo left out the baling wire. We had constant site issues, rolling forum blackouts and instability. This is much better. We need this upgrade, we really do.
HELPFUL FEEDBACK
1) This is very pretty.
2) We need easier links to the forums. Finding my way back to website feedback should not be this hard, and let’s face it: as a PBP’er and near permanent forum resident, I am pretty much an expert in ways to navigate your site. But good site navigation is a friendly thing, so let’s get those links back.
3) Yep, the font is now officially too small. My poor aged gnomish eyes are squinting, and I am having to blow up everything as I view it on my iPad. Can we go just a tad larger, please?
4) The site seems more responsive — Yay! It’s a lot less poky and that’s nice.
Hugs,
Hmm
Thanks Hmmm... We very much appreciate your feedback. Dean
Please please please bring back bold text. Still not working on Chrome.
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Please please please bring back bold text. Still not working on Chrome.
I can see the bold just fine on my version of Chrome.
What operating system are you using? And can you post the url of a page where you can't see the bold?
I can see the difference, too:
Here's a screenshot of this thread with Chrome 64.0.3282.186 on MacOS
Here's the same screenshot with Firefox 59.0 Beta 14, MacOS (FLAG/LIST etc. links missing and timestamp differences because I'm not logged in on Firefox).
I also think the user name about the post could benefit from emphasis beyond just bold font. Maybe bigger font size, or even another font.
On my mobile, I can easily-ish navigate to the Pathfinder Compatible Products just by going to Store and then browsing By Company. Easy-peasy. On a desktop, there is no equivalent method. There is no Store tab. I have to go into a Pathfinder product list, then to a Pathfinder product (say, the core rulebook), and then navigate from the See Also tabs at the bottom.
It should not be this hard to navigate.
On the other hand, on a desktop, I can see the messageboards. On my mobile, all I get to when I click Community is a page with one hyperlink saying Community and nothing else. Clicking on that takes me to the very same page. As it stands, I have no way to get to the messageboards on a mobile.
And I realize that this is something that may have been addressed, with a request by the website folks to only update on as-yet-unaddressed issues. Unfortunately, not being able to get to the messageboards on my mobile and not being able to take the time to find such information on this desktop, that's information that I'm not privy to.
For the love of God, why did you people do this?
I will say that I'm glad you put in the All Messageboards tab at the bottom (well, at the bottom on the desktop forums, the mobile forums don't exist). It's the best part of this new change because it almost lets us ignore this new change. We don't have the convenient links to the left, though. They were, as I said, convenient and easy to get to.
That must be why they had to go, right?
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That must be why they had to go, right?
Not cool, man. Paizo's been very clear that a bunch of things aren't working as intended.
The site is actually really impressive if you think about it. Paizo's the only company I know of that has such massive integration between product pages, their webstore, and community pages. Compare the way this site treats comment threads and reviews on product pages to the lame "add a comment" pages most sites have. Compare how your downloads are directly attainable from a product page. All of that is very, very ambitious and structurally intricate. To do any major upgrade or overhaul is going to expose unanticipated issues. And sometimes even functionality which isn't practical to maintain.
I'm more than willing to sit back and relax while the web team continues to deal with fallout, if it means we get to keep having such a useful site overall.
That must be why they had to go, right?Not cool, man. Paizo's been very clear that a bunch of things aren't working as intended.
The site is actually really impressive if you think about it. Paizo's the only company I know of that has such massive integration between product pages, their webstore, and community pages. Compare the way this site treats comment threads and reviews on product pages to the lame "add a comment" pages most sites have. Compare how your downloads are directly attainable from a product page. All of that is very, very ambitious and structurally intricate. To do any major upgrade or overhaul is going to expose unanticipated issues. And sometimes even functionality which isn't practical to maintain.
I'm more than willing to sit back and relax while the web team continues to deal with fallout, if it means we get to keep having such a useful site overall.
Them saying as much must be one of those things that I'm not privy to, seeing as how the messageboards aren't visible on my mobile. They used to be, back before the change when things worked, just not now.
Because, see, everything you just described WAS true. DID work. All of that functionality you're praising is stuff I would praise, too. We already HAD that useful site, and that's the main reason why one avoids a major upgrade or overhaul in the first place. I mean, what are they doing right now, except for working to restore the website to the very functionality we already had? Well, there's an easy way to achieve that level of usefulness when you already currently have it: acknowledge that it isn't broken, and don't fix it. It takes me zero work to keep from digging around in my car's engine to make it run when it's already running now. Zero work. Am I somehow a wunderkind?
The forums menu is back to a being limited to Paizo, Pathfinder, Starfinder, Organized Play, Online Campaigns, and Gamer Life after a period where it had four or five rows of destinations (uncentered and going off its intended background but still functional). It was ok before I went for a nap some five hour ago.
Them saying as much must be one of those things that I'm not privy to, seeing as how the messageboards aren't visible on my mobile. They used to be, back before the change when things worked, just not now.
My brain hurts.
If you're on your phone, when you click on "Community" scroll over to bring the left side of the page to the center--the menu to navigate the forums should appear. The issue is the menu does not center itself on your screen (and if it moved around that would cause other problems, I think; hopefully something they can look at later).
You can also bookmark the forums in your phone as a temporary measure.
You can also go to your profile and go to your posts and then navigate the forums from there (which I did regularly before the site update because I'm a weirdo).
On the mobile display of the website, the detailed navigation should be available via the triple bar menu on the right side of the header. That should provide mobile users access to the forums, PaizoCon, community guidelines, and so forth.
So that is where you are hiding the forums! I had to scroll to the left as initially there was just a black screen, with the links off screen to the left, but it works now, so when I am away from my laptop I can follow some things.
Thanks,
-- david
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Indeed, that works, many thanks. However, you might want to consider more broadly the design of the mobile site since it does a good impression of not working with the Community link in the black bar on the home page (which is what you click on for the desktop site, and therefore what i was clicking on) going nowhere.
The Aliases tab doesn't show the various characters that are being used.
I generally like the new look, but it would be great if we could resize the font. Some of us are closer to 50 than 15....
I turned 60 recently, so your statement is true.
Basically all topics that change their title at all have to be rebookmarked.
I miss the sidebar. Is there a way to list all posts that recently were made to topics you participated in?
Chief Technical Officer
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I generally like the new look, but it would be great if we could resize the font. Some of us are closer to 50 than 15....I turned 60 recently, so your statement is true.
Basically all topics that change their title at all have to be rebookmarked.
I miss the sidebar. Is there a way to list all posts that recently were made to topics you participated in?
On the main forum view, clicking the "Focus" link towards the upper right will give you a view that may satisfy your needs for now.
Whatever game or forum i want to post at, the board keeps selecting my GM alias as default, instead of the Original character which should be at the top of the list.
I've had to edit or pre-select for all my regular updates.
It's not something major, but it is a bit annoying.
On the mobile display of the website, the detailed navigation should be available via the triple bar menu on the right side of the header. That should provide mobile users access to the forums, PaizoCon, community guidelines, and so forth.Ah, good. Hadn't even thought to try that. That does work.
The Community link in the top bar probably shouldn't go to a basically empty page though. :)
Yeah, I literally just found this thread while trying to figure out how to report that the Community link in the top bar did nothing useful on mobile ;-)
Nice to know there's someplace I can click that gets me what I was looking for though.
Wow.
Sorry, not a good 'Wow'.
I'm aware I haven't spent quite the time on the boards that I used to, but sheesh .. talk about negative reinforcement.
Every single thing that made the old web site tight, easy to navigate, and easy to get an overview of at a glance has been replaced by typical stylish cruft that adds no actual functionality yet at the same time removes great swaths of capabilities.
Sidebar with one click access to virtually the whole site? Gone.
One page overview of all the boards? Gone.
Ability to access even things that weren't visible in one to two clicks? Gone.
Direct links to my user overview, orders, downloads, etc? Gone.
A handy overview of recent posts? Gone.
I ... I really don't see anything that's been added that makes me go "oh cool," I just keep running into things that make me go "well THAT's annoying."
I am SO thankful I've taught myself to type URLs over the years rather than depending on menus, now I can actually find things like the PRD directly. Until, I suppose, the pathfinderRPG/prd link stops working.
I really didn't need clicking on the shopping cart to present me with a sub-menu. It was so much nicer when it just brought me to the cart.
I really didn't need a link for Community that loaded a page with a Forums "smart menu" that requires a third click to get to a page with an overview of the section I was interested in. One click was always just dandy.
This really isn't me being an old fart and telling you kids to get off my lawn - I spend ALL DAY on computers every day, and when an "improvement" to a UI involves multiple actions to perform what used to take just one action, it's dreadfully apparent.
Lastly, please give the option to use something other than the Big Black Block as the theme. What I'm looking at now is easy on my eyes - black text on a white background, something that's been proven to be easy on the human eye. Then I scroll up and get whacked in the face by the Monolith from 2001, messing with my brain and my eyes.
(curls up on the ground and tosses a bone in the air)
I'm sure I'll get used to finding things in the new layout ... but just because I can learn to use it doesn't make it more ergonomic, easy to use or pleasant :(
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On the main forum view, clicking the "Focus" link towards the upper right will give you a view that may satisfy your needs for now.I generally like the new look, but it would be great if we could resize the font. Some of us are closer to 50 than 15....I turned 60 recently, so your statement is true.
Basically all topics that change their title at all have to be rebookmarked.
I miss the sidebar. Is there a way to list all posts that recently were made to topics you participated in?
I noticed this today. When I clicked focused on the Forums page a lot of pbp threads I'd never even clicked on we're showing up. I don't know if it's worth looking into or not, but I did think it was worth mentioning.
When I hit the Forums link I’m seeing tabs for Freelancers Workshop, PFS Advisors, Project Swallowtail etc. I believe that I shouldn’t be seeing those tabs.
May want to add your voice to the thread where that bug is reported
Bug/Glitch Report
The blog posts now, mostly, have the logos in their front page picture links. I noticed the recent PACG post did not. Still moving forward! Unfortunately navigation is still poor in the current state. I ended up switching to some fan sites when needing to look up FAQs and the PRD before my game last night.
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PRD is pretty easy to find
In the top menu (above the search box), click Pathfinder
On the new page, use the dropdown menu under Roleplaying Game, and select Online Rules