# Thoughts on new News Page



## Brown Jenkin (Sep 23, 2002)

If there is another thread on this I have not been able to find it. Normally Morris has provided a link to a thread for comments so hopefully others will let him know here what they think as well. 

Upon looking at the new News Page you are testing out today I thought I would leave my comments. Unfortunately it is difficult for me to give an assement of whether I like the overall format itself because I found it very difficult to actualy read it. While the color sceme is the same as the regular news page, by reducing the font size I am no longer able to easily distinguish between the grey and the black. I am able to read the reglar news page without dificulty, with the new one I had to realy concentrate on the page and only got halfway through before giving up. Perhaps you could either boost the font back up or change the color to white so it is more legible. Otherwise let me say I love your site.


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## Morrus (Sep 23, 2002)

I'll move this to Meta.

That was a very long-winded way of saying that you think the font size is too small!  -- I agree, incidentally.  But I'm still figuring out how to use the software.

Bear in mind that this is really just a server load test.  I haven't fully decided what I want to do, and if I *did* switch over, it'd be a while off - there's an awful lot of matierial to redesign and move.

Mainly, I'm using it for the news syndication capabilities and the automated links page/file upload capabilities right now.


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## Voadam (Sep 23, 2002)

I agree the smaller font size made it a lot less reading friendly on my screen


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## Morrus (Sep 23, 2002)

Voadam said:
			
		

> *I agree the smaller font size made it a lot less reading friendly on my screen *




Err.  Yeah.  Me too.


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## Piratecat (Sep 23, 2002)

I also missed the commentary! It was much less interesting than normal to read.


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## Morrus (Sep 23, 2002)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> *I also missed the commentary! *




All I miss is you....! *sigh*


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## Darraketh (Sep 23, 2002)

It has the look and feel of a message board. As for commenting on each post, doesn't _the_ message board provide this service adequately? Wouldn't this feature detract from the message board?

I prefer the news grouped by date as opposed to each article being dated. I don't mind waiting for the day's issue to go to press as opposed to having the news updated whenever. 

I suppose the software has its advantages particularly when there are multiple news reporters and editorial control is not an issue. However I feel the news page would lose the Morrus touch.

As for the server the page did load slower than the regular news page.


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## A2Z (Sep 23, 2002)

I miss the commentary too. Any chance of that format coming back?


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## Henry (Sep 23, 2002)

Didn't miss the commentary, did miss the font size, though.


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## lambdaZUG (Sep 23, 2002)

A couple of comments:
1--Where's the link to the reviews page? Please, also make it easier to find than on the old page. I've referred people to enworld to find reviews, but eventually had to send them an url to the actual reviews page because they couldn't find the link.

2--I will now become a Web Usability Evangelist 

As others have commented, the font size is too small. I agree. As a rule of thumb, NEVER (yes, NEVER!) change the font size for body text. Always use the viewer's default. This is because there are people with visual impairments in the world, and they can set their browser to use 30-point font. When they come to your site, however, you force them to use 11-point. I certainly can't read 11 point. I had to use my browser's "zoom" function to even read the page.

To fix: edit "themes/Giga_insetable_rogue/style/style.css" and remove _all_ font-size lines.

3--Dropdown list boxes are _completely_ unusable. They have a dark gray background and black text 

To fix: there are a couple of ways you can fix this.  The easiest way is to just edit the style sheet (the same as above), and put a 'color:' entry in the SELECT { } block. 

That's all I've noticed so far.


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## A2Z (Sep 23, 2002)

lambdaZUG said:
			
		

> *A couple of comments:
> 1--Where's the link to the reviews page? Please, also make it easier to find than on the old page. I've referred people to enworld to find reviews, but eventually had to send them an url to the actual reviews page because they couldn't find the link.*



It's the third link down under *Guides* on the left. How could that be any easier?


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## jmucchiello (Sep 23, 2002)

There are lots of other RPG sites that use a similar format. Yet, ENWorld is the most popular 3rd ed D&D site. Why would the popular site switch to the method used by the less popular sites? Unknown. What makes it the most popular site? I would guess the reason is because it seems personal. Even when it was Eric's board, the news page was personal. "So and so informs me that ...." is the reason I come back to the page far more often the other unnamed sites. It's the personal touch that makes this place friendly.

Just my thoughts.
Joe


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## lambdaZUG (Sep 23, 2002)

A2Z said:
			
		

> *It's the third link down under Guides on the left. How could that be any easier?  *




Personally, I consider the reviews section the most useful resource on the site. Going by the placement of the links, however, it is the *17th* most important section. Some things that have a higher structural priority than reviews:

* D20 Topsites
* Chat room
* What is the d20 system?

I don't know about how _you_ use the site, but at least for me, the three most important assets this site has over any other are these: news, reviews and this board. Navigation structures should have more used things at a higher priority. (Furthermore I should note that the Reviews link is visually estranged from the Lastest Reviews link. They even are in different types of lists! Horizontal and Vertical)

Do you really think that the reviews section is the 17th most used part of enworld? Furthermore, do you also think that it is only the 3rd most used guide here? Only slightly more used than the Guide to Free Adventures?

Now to actually answer your question: "How could that be any easier?" From a user interface design standpoint you want the most important things closest to the visual focus. In the case of web pages, visual patterns are: center, then left side top to bottom, finally right side top to bottom (note: reverse these for RTL languages).  So, you put _the_ most important resource in the center: the news. Then, working from top to bottom on the left-hand you order links from most important to least. The human mind tends to boggle after seven to ten "objects" (links, in this case) so try not to exceed that, dividing things up into sections if need be, but not exceeding 7 to 10 objects in each section. Less than that if you have more than, say, 3 sections. Within each section, order the objects from most important to least, and order the sections themselves likewise.

To really say anything definite about how the site's navigational structure should be put together, I'd need some concrete statistics about how the site is used (server logs, say).

Yeesh, that was longer than I had expected. Guess what I do for a living


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## Morrus (Sep 23, 2002)

lambdaZUG said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Personally, I consider the reviews section the most useful resource on the site. Going by the placement of the links, however, it is the 17th most important section. Some things that have a higher structural priority than reviews:
> 
> ...




Since you've evidently seen the Latest Reviews link (etc.) I can't quite seem to understand your position that it is the 17th link down.  It's right at the top.



> So, you put the most important resource in the center: the news. Then, working from top to bottom on the left-hand you order links from most important to least. The human mind tends to boggle after seven to ten "objects" (links, in this case) so try not to exceed that, dividing things up into sections if need be, but not exceeding 7 to 10 objects in each section. Less than that if you have more than, say, 3 sections. Within each section, order the objects from most important to least, and order the sections themselves likewise.




Jeez, you make it sound like a science.  There's no need for me, really - it's all done by a set forumula.  Very cold.  Sounds more like someone laying out a corporate strategy than a hobby fan site.

EN World is a very personal thing; an art as opposed to a science, if such a thing is possible on the internet.  Yeah, you may not like some aspects of it, but my website is an expression of me, not of some formulae cooked up by web-design-efficiency-experts.

Incidentally - where does "17th"come from?  Depending on whather you include the links at the top, it's either 5th or 9th.


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## Morrus (Sep 23, 2002)

Oh, one thing - I don't mean to sound snippy, but can people please stop fixating on the font size?  And, more importantly, stop explaining to me why a too-small font size is bad (Duh!  It's because it's harder to read!  Thanks! In exchange I'll explain to you why stabbing yourself in the eye is bad - it's because it hurts. And you won' be able to see afterwards.  Just in case it's not obvious to some people...).

I agree about the font size. To illustrate this, I'll point out that the first two posts I made in this thread both consisted of me agreeing about the font size. Y'see, I agree about the font size.  About the font size - I agree. I am in agreement. I do not disagree.  I do not have an opposing viewpoint.  I do not hold a differing opinion.  That is to say - I agree.  Our views coincide.

What this means is _you don't need to convince me of anything or explain anything to me about the subject of font sizes!_.  Honestly. 

That is all. 

(God... I just woke up and I'm being narky as hell!  Sorry folks! )


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## Kershek (Sep 24, 2002)

Someone needs decaf! 

I want to say that I love the format of the temporary news page.  I especially like the time/date stamp on each item.  I also love the ability to comment on each item.  In fact, I can't really see anything bad about it.  I certainly hope this is how ENWorld will look in the future!  This exactly the kind of format I'm used to in a news site.


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## Morrus (Sep 24, 2002)

Kershek said:
			
		

> *Someone needs decaf!
> 
> I want to say that I love the format of the temporary news page.  I especially like the time/date stamp on each item.  I also love the ability to comment on each item.  In fact, I can't really see anything bad about it.  I certainly hope this is how ENWorld will look in the future!  This exactly the kind of format I'm used to in a news site. *




Coffee and a cigarette have been consumed/imbined/whatever. 

I do agree with some people that it's a lot colder, and lacks that special "something".  Almost corporate looking, in fact.

However, balanced against that is the fact that it's massively more functional.  I'll probably do both.  Maybe.


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## Dragongirl (Sep 24, 2002)

Personally, I don't like that new thing at all!  Way too divided up, I prefer the news the way it is.


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## lambdaZUG (Sep 24, 2002)

First I want to apologize: I was in no way attempting to tell you how to construct the site, or in any way prescribing what you should do. I was merely offering my interpretation of the layout.



			
				Morrus said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Since you've evidently seen the Latest Reviews link (etc.) I can't quite seem to understand your position that it is the 17th link down.  It's right at the top.
> 
> *



Actually, I only saw the Latest Reviews link when I was counting links. I had never noticed it before. Furthermore, dosn't your answer seem to indicate that one of the two links is redundant?



> *
> Jeez, you make it sound like a science.  There's no need for me, really - it's all done by a set forumula.  Very cold.  Sounds more like someone laying out a corporate strategy than a hobby fan site.*




My background is both in fine art and in graphic design. The analysis I did on the layout is very much like how art is constructed and critiqued. It may not be readily apparent from a distance, but there are rules that have been built up over the years. A grammar, if you will. A student is told, "learn the rules of the game first, only then will you know what you're doing when you break them." Take a color theory class sometime. It is _facinating_.



> *EN World is a very personal thing; an art as opposed to a science, if such a thing is possible on the internet.  Yeah, you may not like some aspects of it, but my website is an expression of me, not of some formulae cooked up by web-design-efficiency-experts.
> *



My apologies again, I didn't want to be as authoritative as I sounded. However, please don't dismiss me out-of-hand. The human mind has a certain way of interpreting information given to it. It is easily overwhelmed, and easily confused. (See here for a reductionist example.)



> *Incidentally - where does "17th"come from?  Depending on whather you include the links at the top, it's either 5th or 9th. *




Start from the top, the horizontal bit has 7 links in it. Then, move down to the left hand column, and count down: Community, 6 links (13 so far); Guides, 3 down (16). Ok, I was wrong, 16. A couple of the items take up 2 lines, so I lost count 

Sorry about the font size, too. It's a pet peeve of mine, even with the original enworld.org site. Sooo many sites have their text at size -1, its absurd. 

I guess when it just comes down to it, I'd encourage you to just think about what parts of the site are most important and make getting to them easy and obvious. That's really what all my yammering boils down to.


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## Usurper (Sep 24, 2002)

I wouldn't mind the splitting up of topics if they were grouped by date. 

I think if you define the font sizes in "em" units instead of "pt" or "px", then you can resize them in all major browsers. 

Is that one of the -Nuke CMS's?  Or a homemade one?  I didn't see any copyright or powered-by notice.


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## Morrus (Sep 24, 2002)

Usurper said:
			
		

> *I wouldn't mind the splitting up of topics if they were grouped by date.  *




Not sure what you mean - there's a sort news by topic option on the left.  Is that what you're referring to?


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## Plane Sailing (Sep 24, 2002)

I think it would be a shame to see the news page change to the kind of format on the test server. I really like any of the current or past systems where it is transparently clear which day the update is on. I also much prefer the personal touch and "single voice" style when you do it.

Obviously an automated system for handling uploads of settings, storyhours and all that kind of stuff is vital, so that you get some Real Life as well as the website 

The news though - that is where most of us connect with "Morrus the person", and to quote you out of context



> Jeez, you make it sound like a science. There's no need for me, really - it's all done by a set forumula. Very cold.




We want your voice in the news Morrus! Boo to set formulas, Hurrah to personal involvement!

Just another opinion, of course 
Cheers


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## Usurper (Sep 24, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Not sure what you mean - there's a sort news by topic option on the left.  Is that what you're referring to? *




Nope, meant that I like the way you have it now with all of Wednesday's news together, all of Tuesday's news under it, etc.  So that every day there's a new block.  And if I miss a day (rarely) I can see all of yesterday's news under it.  With the new news system, it all runs together.  Granted, I didn't register and try changing the appearance because I didn't know how much of it was working.  Just thought it'd be cool if instead of 

News (posted Monday)
News (posted Monday)
News (posted Sunday)
News (posted Sunday)
News (posted Saturday)
etc.

you could group them in bigger blocks by day.  The day would be the main heading, and each item would be a subheading.  

Anyway, saw your news post about keeping the hand-written page as well, so it's all good. 

Thanks for all the work you put into this.


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## zouron (Sep 24, 2002)

well I must say that lookjing over the new news page... I dislike it greatly.

Firstly the font size... (j/k really ;-) )

Okay I am really in favour of a system equal to the current news system, the box in, spread out etc etc news thing really really bugs me and it is hard to keep track off what is where and what it says. I personally have a great love for the current set up with no boxes around it all, only a simple line break to seperate things etc, doesn't mean you couldn't include some info, but make the dating info shorter form, just time and poster (use a special line break to seperate days like on the current form ).

Finally to me the colour scheme you picked is really annoying to watch, personally I am the type of person that wants very clear colours, and while the yellow you use now is bright it isn't as in your face as the orange you use to a high degree on the news page (perhaps do some different color schemes too choice from for us ever returning people?), hmm looking closely I think the real problem is the grey background colour (BTW can't we just keep the old 3e symbol background?). Also you seem to want to fade the sidebars into the main news section *please* don't it is very annoying I like my attention draw to the news not the links I know already on the side and top.

okay enough rant! keep up the good work


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## Buttercup (Sep 24, 2002)

*Not to beat a dead horse, but....*

Nevermind.  Posted before I read the whole thread.  What they said, basically.


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## orbitalfreak (Sep 24, 2002)

IMHO...

1)  Don't kill the News Page!  Morrus, your personal style is one reason I love coming to this site.  If you switched entirely to the news-by-post system, this site would lose  a lot of its flair.

2) I like the news-by-post system.  It has its uses; I found it easy to navigate the headlines and news items, and finding important information was a lot easier.  It feels like an index or table of contents: concice and informational; however, I wouldn't trade the main news page for it.

3) I've seen a few people mention font size...


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## Buttercup (Sep 24, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *EN website is an expression of me*




And that's why I like it.  The new design, as it presently stands, seems to take your personal touch out of the mix.


By the way, I noticed that the font size was too small. *ducks and runs out of the thread*


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## ladyofdragons (Sep 24, 2002)

Might I suggest, Morrus, that rather than doing 10 separate posts in a day, you do one, in your old style?  this would make you happy, and would provide the look you like.  If other people post items, check to not show them on the main page, and instead incorporate a link to them from within your one post per day.

Just an idea that might satisfy you more and keep things looking the way you like them.  

just thinking though, you'd need to make a "morrus' daily news" topic in order for people to be able to sort/search for these other things by topic and not get crowded by all the stuff that scans many topics in your daily news.


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## Morrus (Sep 24, 2002)

ladyofdragons said:
			
		

> *Might I suggest, Morrus, that rather than doing 10 separate posts in a day, you do one, in your old style?  this would make you happy, and would provide the look you like.  If other people post items, check to not show them on the main page, and instead incorporate a link to them from within your one post per day.
> 
> Just an idea that might satisfy you more and keep things looking the way you like them.
> 
> just thinking though, you'd need to make a "morrus' daily news" topic in order for people to be able to sort/search for these other things by topic and not get crowded by all the stuff that scans many topics in your daily news. *




That's a thought.  The only drawback I see with it is that it won't work for syndicated news headlines where individual items need to be listed.  I'll give it some thought, though.

Perhaps - I could do BOTH (i.e. post the individual items and then sumarise them with the big post).  Then people could bookmark either the main page (with all the news) or bookmark the page where they've sorted the news by category and are displaying only the big news posts.

Thinking now...


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## Morrus (Sep 25, 2002)

I'm having trouble changing the font size - I changed the stylesheet as suggested and it had no effect.  I've switched it back, just in case it had an effect somewhere it wasn't supposed to!


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## ladyofdragons (Sep 25, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *I'm having trouble changing the font size - I changed the stylesheet as suggested and it had no effect.  I've switched it back, just in case it had an effect somewhere it wasn't supposed to! *




In postnuke there are two native stylesheets to a theme.  you must change BOTH files in order to be sure that all the changes are applied (I know, it's kinda dumb.).  The problem is the difference in stylesheet rendering with different browsers, so the actual rendering process probably pulls from both style.css and styleNN.css, you'll need to make the same changes in both sheets, but make sure that styleNN.css uses the older Netscape CSS vernacular.

Hope that helps.  Just some tips from your friendly neighborhood postnuke guru.


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## Morrus (Sep 25, 2002)

Yeah, I edited them both.  Didn't help.

Incidentally - do you know of any decent themes out there?  They need to be themes which match all my icons and grpahics, though (e.g. dark themes).


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## hong (Sep 25, 2002)

I think the new page looks pretty cool, actually. As to the font size problem, to everyone grousing: get a bigger monitor. 

I do have one question, but it's not directly related to the news page itself. Every time a spiffy new feature gets added to EN World, it seems like there's a separate registration process to go through.

Is it possible just to use the one username/password for all features (messageboard, D&D/d20 reviews, news, etc)? It'll save having to register 'hong' umpteen times....


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## ladyofdragons (Sep 25, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *Yeah, I edited them both.  Didn't help.
> 
> Incidentally - do you know of any decent themes out there?  They need to be themes which match all my icons and grpahics, though (e.g. dark themes). *




themecentral.com is a good source.  There's a theme, giga_insetable, that very closely mimics your old theme except for some borders around menus.  but if you want i can fix that for you if you'd like.  feel free to contact me via email at ladyofdragons@dndresources.com if you want to continue off-board (or on board, no matter to me)


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## Morrus (Sep 25, 2002)

hong said:
			
		

> *
> I do have one question, but it's not directly related to the news page itself. Every time a spiffy new feature gets added to EN World, it seems like there's a separate registration process to go through.*




Yeah, it's annoying as heck, isn't it?

The problem is, they're all independently obtained software applications, each designed as a single coherent object.  Interfacing the registration is akin to buying Diablo and NWN and asking "can I just use my Diablo character in NWN?" - the answer to which is yes - but you have to rewrite a lot of NWN!

Of course, it's not as complicated as the computer games example, but it's still very difficult and still involves rewriting published software applications... and I wouldn't even know where to begin!


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## ladyofdragons (Sep 25, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Yeah, it's annoying as heck, isn't it?
> 
> ...




actually, it's not that complex.  it's just adding in a call during the registration process to write a new record to the vBulletin database right after it writes the new record to the postnuke database.  I've done it for phpBB, but never for vBulletin (seeing as vBulletin licenses are expensive I don't own one).  it does take some php knowledge, though.


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## Morrus (Sep 25, 2002)

ladyofdragons said:
			
		

> *
> 
> There's a theme, giga_insetable, that very closely mimics your old theme except for some borders around menus.  *




That's actually the theme I'm using right now! 

Lots of themes there, though - great site!


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## Ravellion (Sep 25, 2002)

I prefer the easy, personal, and familiar old way of doing the news page. I even disagree on the statement that this new way is more functional - not to me it isn't.

Rav


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## Morrus (Sep 25, 2002)

Rav said:
			
		

> *I prefer the easy, personal, and familiar old way of doing the news page. I even disagree on the statement that this new way is more functional - not to me it isn't.
> *




It's certainly more functional from the administration point of view.  Vastly so, in fact - I actually managed to go into town today and do some shopping!


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## pennywiz (Sep 25, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *I actually managed to go into town today and do some shopping! *




Did you pick yourself up something nice, like I told you to do, sweet cheeks?


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## Morrus (Sep 26, 2002)

Good news, folks - Lady of Dragons tells me that it shouldn't be too hard to change the system so that it displays news in the same way as the old page does!  She's even kindly offered to take a look at it at the weekend.


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## Morrus (Sep 26, 2002)

There - how's that for font size?  Better?


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## Buttercup (Sep 26, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *There - how's that for font size?  Better? *




Much better.


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